It’s so you’ll *think* about it.

For a couple weeks now,  I’ve had this annoying thing going on in my left ear,  and this morning at about two, it finally woke me up out of a sound sleep.  This is where I draw the line when it comes to this paper bag crinkling every time I swallow or belch phenomenon, and like a fool,  I happened to mention it to Travelling Companion, who very quickly advised that I should “go see the Doctor!”

*sigh*

Um, this is why it’s usually best to keep these types of things to myself?

 

It’s not that I mind the poking and prodding.  They’re welcome to any number or quantity of bodily fluids that they may deem necessary for a prognosis.  All I really wanted in this case was for someone with a certain amount of experience or training,  to take a gander in my left ear and let me know what the hell is going on in there.  That’s all. 

I haven’t been traipsing around in the jungle, so I was reasonably sure it wasn’t any kind of bug or anything,  and it turns out it was/is some kind of blockage,  and there’s this spray I have to shove up my nose once a day for a time.  Swell.

This little snippet of information took me just about a half a day to find out…

 

Our regular Doc is presently on vacation, so there was some mention made of the “walk-in clinic” in the same building where he has his practise.  I wish they sold shares.  This “family health centre” type of place is a gold mine.  They got everything!  Massage therapy,  physio, X-Rays.  An eye place.  There’s even a pharmacy right on site.  Like I said,  a gold mine.

The only thing though is, it should be called a “walk in and wait clinic”.   My only concern was that my minor ailment might have cleared itself up by the time someone got to see me.  I totally understand the kid still in her gym uniform being taken there by Mom (Ace bandage and ice was all she needed)  but the young mothers taking their runny nosed little darlings in to be told what any mother should already know?   C’mon.  Even if you don’t have your own mother to ring up and ask,  there’s this thing called the internet.  Until you get to the ear infection stage,  my preference would be that you don’t bring your germ spreading little bugger into a crowded waiting area.   Which, by the way, is why I prefer to stand off by myself.  Call me paranoid,  but I haven’t had a head cold in four years.  Coincidently, that was right around the time I walked out of a school for the last time.  Curious thing how that works.

Not wishing to prolong my stay,  I didn’t visit their fine upstanding on-site pharmacy however.  Too busy.  We have a perfectly acceptable drug store just down the street from us, where I was greatly outnumbered by the staff.   Plus,  they had tooth paste on sale!  Can’t beat that with a stick!

 

So the “walk-in clinic” was free.  Just had to show my “health card”.  However, I’ll think long and hard before I head back in there.  Even if they had an assortment of decent magazines (and what professional office ever does?) I wouldn’t want to touch anything anyway. 

 

Now for something completely different:

This morning when I went to fetch the Merc out of the garage,  a broom fell against one of the sensors,  which meant that the stupid garage door refused to close again.  No big deal.  You can just unhook the thing and close it manually.  Had to get out of the car of course.  Such an effort.

So what am I doing here with the ladder and the impact driver?   Well, it has nothing to do with the sensors,  since they’re very easy to line up again.   I just noticed (for about the millionth time) that the opener is just a tad noisier than I’d like.   It’s not the most expensive one you can buy,  but just the same has operated reasonably reliably for just about twenty years now.  It owes us nothing.  We’ve gone through a few batteries and such,  but I make sure to lubricate whatever needs it at least once a year.  I guess it helps.

Over the last little while I’ve been going through the scads of little parts drawers I have and sorting and heaving out various bit of flotsam that I find,  and it just so happened that I had come across some grommets the other day,  and got this bright idea that maybe I could quiet the thing down a bit if it wasn’t bolted right to the rafters. 

In the final analysis, it did make a bit of a difference,  but of course,  my suspicions that it wasn’t going to be just a simple job were confirmed.  

 

See the little broken bolt?   Well,  the whole thing was put together with an impact driver,  so that was the tool of choice when trying to loosen a couple uncooperative nuts.  That one wasn’t going to loosen.  On the scale of hardness,  these guys aren’t even on the scale.  And it’s not like it’s an aircraft part or anything, so having hardened bolts isn’t really necessary. 

The only thing though was,  since I didn’t want to tighten the nuts right down on the grommets, thereby undoing all of the cushiony goodness that I was trying to build in,  I rummaged around until I found a couple longer bolts so that I could then put a couple extra nuts on each end. You tighten them against themselves so they don’t come undone.  Coming undone would be bad.

Pains me to say this,  but I was missing a couple nuts.  Never a good thing when a feller is missing a couple nuts.   OK,  let’s just stop that right here,  shall we?

Since Home Despot is the closest source of hardware,  that was my first choice.  I was able to find my nuts without having to involve any outside help. Usually the preferred method. Stupid things were almost sixty cents apiece.  I guess they were the good kind.

If I go out there and find a couple nuts that I had been missing up until now,  I’m going to be upset.  Just so you know.  This is why I’ll waste more time trying to find an item in with the junk,  rather than just capitulating and going to the store.  I just hate it when the missing item(s) miraculously appear right at that precise moment when I’m no longer looking for them.  It’s just some sort of law.

It’s probably how I lost most of my hair.

 

We’ll leave that for another day.  If ever.

 

Keep it between the ditches.

 

Thanks for lookin’.

 

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Strike 23

You know how you sometimes you have this *idea* or, perhaps just an inkling that some people are just dumb?  And then it turns out that the unfortunate truth is, you were right all along?  

This kind of revelation is met with mixed emotions though,  since on the one hand your suspicions have been confirmed, and who doesn’t like to be right?  But on the other hand, you realise you’re trying to soar like an eagle when you’re surrounded by turkeys.

 

I mean,  I realise that I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer,  but when it comes to certain things like say, exchanging numbers over the phone or filling out forms?  I try to be pretty careful.  I make sure I write sh*t down,  usually as the conversation is taking place so as to not completely bugger things up.  I just know that,  I ain’t got no “steel trap” in the brains department.  So, I work around it.  There, I said it.  Pen, paper, eye glasses.  Good to go. Always best to know your limitations.

 

So what have I got up my a$$ today?

Well,  here’s the thing.  Back when we were wrapping things up in Wienerland, I made a little visit to our Bank Austria branch out on Mariahilferstraße to close our account,  but leave it open long enough to pay one or two bills that we had coming in.  You know, there was an Amex bill,  and a couple of the fine folks who provided us with things like internet and such, either owed us money or we owed them money or whatever.  Like that.

But then just recently, we couldn’t quite fathom why we were still able to log onto our Bank Austria account,  and see that there’s still some €870 in there.  That money is supposed to be transferred over to our bank here in Canada.  We’re into March here.  We’re supposed to be *done*.

I don’t know how you are in terms of being able to make your mouth work (i.e. communicate) at seven in the morning,  but of course with the six hour time difference,  I had to get off my duff this morning and call Austria right around that time.  Some of the folks in that branch could speak English, but not all.  So that meant muddling along in German.  Fun times.  Maybe I should have done a couple “warm ups”?    I managed, but geez.

And it turns out that the person that answered the phone knew EXACTLY who I was and why I was calling.  Two things in play: First of all,  call display I guess,  and the fact that the transfer was refused last Thursday some time and they weren’t quite sure how to contact us.  The chances of them calling us here in Canada would be slim to none,  so we arranged to exchange email addresses.  Got that working,  after a couple attempts.

 

Well,  here comes the stupid part.   I had provided them with all the information that had been given to us by the branch down the street here,  and it turns out IT WAS WRONG.   And no, I didn’t copy it wrong.  I scanned the document that had been filled out by the bank and given to us.  I figured it was the safest way to not make an error.  I’d like to refer you back the “knife in the drawer” analogy.

I’ve lost count.  Maybe it’s only “strike 22”?   We passed “strike three” with these boneheads years ago,  and I actually stopped keeping count. 

I’m still waiting for the Branch Manager to call me back from some back and forth we had over a year ago.  She was going to call me “no matter what”.   Right.  Good thing I didn’t hold my breath.  I hate when people say they’ll do something “no matter what”,  and then conveniently forget.

Of course,  to find out that there was one extra “one” in the account number has taken me most of the day.  The bank here has “banker’s hours”,  and of course the Bank in Austria is already closed.  Thankfully I have the person’s email,  and I’m sure she’ll check my note first thing tomorrow morning when she comes in to work.  We might get our money by spring time.

Time to take a deep breath.

 

Here’s the problem as I see it.  The employees of this bank, our bank here in Canada, (and this is a blanket statement that applies to all financial institutions that have more than one location. *Sorry*)  who have any kind of a brain in their head whatsoever,  end up getting transferred out to either another branch or to a position of higher responsibility/authority/whatever.   It’s mostly to their level of incompetence I should imagine, but what that really means is,  all the cr*p that’s left over is what you end up with at your local branch. And then there are a certain number of “newbies” of course. 

We have the same dough heads in there that we’ve had for the last twenty years.  God help us,  every one.

Of course,  we could change banks,  and we may very well do that,  but I’m not sure that’s the solution.  Gonna switch out one set of retards for another?  Why?

Besides which, I can almost SEE the branch from our front lawn.   I can walk there.  I HAVE walked there.  It’s handy.  As long as I don’t ask them to do any actual banking, everything runs as smooth as a baby’s arse.  But just don’t ask them to say, answer the phone.  Oh boy, that’s a challenge. 

Hey, I was nice.  Really.  The lady who answered the phone was helpful.  She can’t help it if she works with a bunch of dummies.  She gave me some new information.  Of course, it was only SLIGHTLY different than the first information.  Getting “close enough” only works in horseshoes.  This could also explain why the very smart people who do Travelling Companion’s expenses are having difficulty transferring funds into our account.  Maybe?

 

We can only now wait and see.

 

No pictures today.  Too miserable.

 

Thanks for stopping in.

 

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Just a Monday.

One guess where we went to (again) on the weekend.  The last visit (for the air shipment?) was during the week, until it was pointed out to us that these folks are there “24/7”.  I suppose it would be a cushy job, but judging by the trickle of people going in to the building, I’d hazard a guess that boredom would be the bigger problem.

 

This picture that I quite haphazardly took out of the car window of the Canada Customs building pretty much sums it up.  They’re out in the middle of practically nowhere at the Toronto airport,  in a non-descript building,  with *nothing* within walking distance. 

 

Anyway, what this means is,  our shipment is in Montreal,  and as soon as the moving company receives this stamped document,  we’ll have a garage full of ‘stuff’.   We’re pretty much full up in the ‘stuff’ department,  which is why a certain amount of it will be in the garage until we can figure it all out.   I can *hardly* wait!  (insert sarcastic font)

Daughter Number One seems to think she can take at least one of the wardrobes and shove it in their basement.  Being new home owners (well, under two years) they’re still trying to sort out where to keep their ‘stuff’.  They’re pretty good at purging from time to time,  so it’s really just a matter of having a place to put winter clothes and otherwise being able to put things away. 

We may be able to foist off a couple things to Daughter Number Two,  but they’re going to be going through some withdrawal pains from what I would consider some sort of “larger fish bowl syndrome”.   I think I foresee at least one garage sale in our/their future.   Time will tell.

 

Meanwhile,  I took a couple minutes today to get reacquainted with a new/old friend.  Just can’t bear to toss out those over ripe bananas.

And with my new/old friend,  it’s mind numbingly simple.  Doesn’t hurt that I almost know the recipe off by heart either.  Because I mean,  you need to know this, right?

 

Other than that, we’re just waiting for spring here in the Great White North.  Supposed to go up above the freezing mark in a day or two.  I’m almost giddy.  I need to get out and trim back the grape vine at the front of the house before too many days go by.  One year I waited a bit too long and the “sap” was already running.  *Eeep* That wasn’t good.  The grape vine survived,  but I was a wee bit nervous that I just might have done some irrevocable damage.  That thing was leaking like a sieve.  The house wouldn’t look the same without a grape vine growing in the front.

I suppose it’s kind of like having racoon prints on the soffits, although I’ve managed to keep those buggers out for at least twenty years now.  No more room at “Chez Caretaker” I’m afraid.  I wouldn’t wish those guests on anyone.  It’s like having smelly old men in overcoats in your attic.  Crappin’ everywhere to boot.

 

I’m just going to throw in this one last pic for a gentleman I know who was a previous Mercedes owner.  I’m pretty sure that, back when he had his string of Mercs,  you could actually check the oil in those things.  Not any more…

And that may very well be just why he’s a “previous” owner?? Let’s not talk about it.

 

That’s right kids,  there’s a place to put the oil in, but there’s no way to check it. 

Not a dipstick in sight.  Well, except for maybe the guy at the wheel.  Don’t go there.

 

And you know,  I had heard about this from one of my sister’s old friends (“old” as in “older than me”,  and “old” as in “we’ve known this guys since the seventies”)  when he leased a brand new Merc maybe over a decade ago,  and was astonished to find that he couldn’t check his own oil.   I know it has a bunch of sensors,  but once in a while a feller just likes to take a look?  It’s a hard habit to break,  and I’m not even a gear head.

No doubt the oil is refined from “unobtanium” as well.  I can just hardly wait for that first oil change.  (nervous laughter)

Oh,  and it’s a V-6.  I was asked this question, and I honestly had nary a clue.  It’s a sad thing to admit, but there you have it.  I didn’t even bother looking under the hood.  The thing is almost brand new,  has only 40,000 clicks on it (that’s a sideways way of saying “kilometres”,  by the way)  and is barely broken in,  so I wasn’t even going to fuss over what was in there.  When I open the throttle, it goes.  The only thing we DO know is,  it takes premium fuel.  Swell.

 

That’s my feeble effort for today.  If anything else drops into my noggin’,  I’ll let you know. 

 

Keep it between the ditches.

Thanks for stopping in.

 

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