Chaos

Or at least,  my version of chaos. 

 

It was just a thought that occurred to me this morning as I was moving things around and trying to do whatever the hell it is that I “do”.  I’m not even sure what I do.

 

And some days I don’t feel like I do too darned much.  Just wandering around in a stupor.

It seems that trying to ‘put things in order’ is the thing that takes up the bulk of my time/energy/whatever.

 

In digging through “stuff”,  I came across this “Field Box” back in the spring.  I had put it up in the shed and it was pretty gross and disgusting, thanks to the mice.

It’s those mice again! Gah!

 

I spent a little time giving it a scrub. I certainly didn’t want to take a “before” photo.  It was nasty.

I think I’ll put it on Kijiji and pass it on to someone who might like to use it.  I just never did do much in the way of flying RC planes.  I think it might have been something to do with having to join a “Club” here locally?   Not sure.  I’m not much of a one for joining clubs.    I built the thing over 20 years ago, and it’s had very little use.

Battery technology is such these days that,  if I truly want to fly a little RC plane,  there are lots of choices out there not requiring fuel.   This box is made to carry around a battery (for starting) and a gallon of Nitro.  Plus all the other “stuff”.

 

Truth be told,  I’d sooner fly the real thing,  but then there’s the expense.  I’ll just try not to get a crick in my neck from looking up. 

That’ll have to do.

Meanwhile,  I’ve been cutting up the wood left over from tearing out the last of the windows.   It’s cedar, which does burn a little too fast,  but if I don’t burn it,  I’d have to take it to a dumpster somewhere.   May as well warm up the house a little.

 

 

 

When I say “a little”, I’m not kidding.  It’s a wood fireplace that we have downstairs that isn’t all that efficient.  It will warm up the room a little better if you leave the glass doors open,  and the mass of the chimney does get warm if you’re willing to feed the thing enough.   Leaving those glass doors open and leaving the room makes me a little nervous though.  The box isn’t nearly deep enough for my liking.

I suppose the true test would be to break down and buy some actual hardwood to burn?  I’m sure that would be less work.   Getting rid of the left over cedar will have to do for now though.  Way cheaper to just fire up the gas boiler if heating up the place is the objective.

 

Speaking of mice….

I ordered a new cordless mouse the other day from Amazon and it arrived this morning.  Sure wish I hadn’t procrastinated on that one this long.  What a difference.

See,  the thing with cordless mice is,  dropping them on the floor is not healthy for them.  The one I had been using for oh,  I don’t know,  the last five years?  had ended up on the floor a few times.  I was able to take it apart and sort it out the first few times,  but then it didn’t do well on that last occasion,  and has been a pain to use ever since.  The right button did nothing,  and neither did the wheel.   Like seriously.  I should have just turfed it out,  but that would have meant using the “mouse pad” on the laptop.  

Um, no. 

Now I just have to suck it up and order myself a new computer.  We’re running on borrowed time here with this one.  Besides,  I only have until next April before Windows XP is no longer supported.   And yes I know,  I can download “Mint” or “Ubuntu” or whatever,  and I may very well do that when the time comes,  but then it will be a secondary computer.  So that means that, if I totally bugger something up,  I’m not going to be in a huge mess.   Hey, just trying to not paint myself into a corner here.

And really,  would this have even been something to think about say, twenty years ago?   Gotta have a computer!  How….sad, really.

 

I typically don’t answer comments because well,  by the time I see if someone has commented,  I figure that “ship has sailed”.   However,  I did want to mention a couple things.

First of all,  the ants were actually really quite tiny.  Maybe no more than a millimetre long?   That’s how they were able to get in where they did.  Bastards.

It’s only the photo that makes them look huge,  but then maybe my leg was being pulled?

Oh,  and they weren’t “Aunts” as Nan mentioned.   I know ( I hope!) it was a typo.   So no,  thankfully I’m not a “great white hunter of aunts” (sic) 

Now that I think on it, it just occurred to me that I don’t have any more living Aunts.  Their demise had nothing to do with me though,  I swear!

But do keep on commenting.  I’ll try not to be too much of a jerk, but I did find that to be somewhat amusing.

 

 

*thinks*.  So how would that “Great White Aunt Hunter” thing work?  How do you know someone is an “Aunt”?

“Excuse me?  Do you have any Nieces or Nephews?”

“Why yes, I do.”

*click*   *BANG*!

“Got me another one!”

 

 

I’ll leave you with that thought.

 

But if someone asks you that question?  Just be careful.  Check for ordinance.

 

Thanks for stopping in.

 

 

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And….we’re back.

Not that you had any inkling that we were away or anything.  I think I might have skipped over that part.

Having a host of folks for Thanksgiving dinner is always a challenge,  unless you rent a community hall or stake a claim at the local day use park.  We’ve done that, the local day use park that is,  and it turned out to be a lot of fun for both the kids and the adults.  Acres and acres where they could run and go crazy,  that kind of thing.

This past weekend,  there was a plan to descend on the cottage that we had visited back in the summer.  It’s on Sturgeon Lake.  The only slight consideration was,  there were just going to be too many bodies,  so our Hostess was kind enough to phone around and rent an additional cottage for the overflow crowd.  It was kind of awesome, truth be told.  Even though it was more along the lines of a house on the lake as opposed to some sort of rustic cottage,  but I was certainly OK with that.  It had things like, you know, central heat?  I also noticed that they had installed air conditioning.  No need to be uncomfortable.

 

This is my brother-in-law Rudy having just taken the cover off the thermostat. 

Of course,  I had to put my glasses on as well to try and figure the thing out,  but the first and most important step was to slide the little switch over to “heat”.    It got toasty in no time.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

When I show you the following picture of some other “guests” of ours,  you’d probably think it was cottage related.

These little guys were coming in our kitchen window some how,  and I eventually figured out they were getting in right where the weather stripping met up at the corner.   Buggers.

HOWEVER,  being well equipped for most any four or six legged invasion,  I had a bottle of that sticky stuff that you put down that they take it back to the queen.   Man oh man,  that stuff works. 

First of all they love it,  as you can see how they are all siphoning it up in that photo above there.  And then they take it back to the mother ship and….well, that’s that.

I had a couple spots outside the window as well for them to feed off of,  and by the time we came home Monday afternoon,  there was nary a sign of any ants.  

 

Anyway,  there were 25 of us that sat down to dinner on Sunday afternoon.  The turkey had been cooked on the BBQ,  and the list is too long of all the other stuff that we scarfed down.

I’m sure we had enough food for maybe twice as many mouths that we had to feed.  Oh lordy!

A tiny sample.   These were from the pumpkins that I bought last week for T.C.   I don’t think she’s made pumpkin pie from the can for a long, long time.  And now of course, I don’t think I’d like the taste of the canned stuff.  If you check the ingredients on the side of the can, there’s a few extra things in there that you really could do without, such as extra sugar.

 

This is my niece’s dog,  Elby.   She will sit in the car waiting to go (anywhere) for as long as it takes. 

That was the other thing that kind of worked for me when it came to renting an additional cottage.  We were “dog free” over there.   With the 25 bodies that sat down to dinner,  we also had four dogs and a cat.   Oh ya,  good times!  And no,  none of them were allowed to hang around the table,  so that was OK,  and they all mostly got along,  but it would have been just that much better if they could have romped outdoors.  

Because….it rained.   And rained.   Holy crap.

I think it cleared up Monday morning from about six a.m. until about seven thirty.  And let me think now….*thinks* yup,  that was about it.

 

Gave me the chance to get outside and take a picture. 

Seven of us stayed at this rented cottage,  and Daughter Number One declared that she and her buddies would be renting it for next summer.  It was truly a nice place.  I’d go back, that’s for sure.  Of course,  staying *for free* over at the other place would make it a tough choice,  but if you’re looking to rent a cottage for a week with a host of buddies,  it’s not quite fair to descend on the relations. 

In terms of the weather,  it did clear up and turn into a glorious day for the trip home.  So that was really awesome.

(slight touch of sarcasm there)

Of course,  the rain brings out the drivers who, how shall I say this?  Don’t quite have a grasp on the physics involved in keeping their car on the road?  

This was a one car accident.  That white car up there already on the hook had barrelled off the road into a sign post. 

 

When I mentioned this to our host, he regaled me with a number of examples where cars had simply been driven off the road up there in “cottage country”.  Nothing to do with “rush hour” or the weather.  Just….bad driving.

Maybe some sort of “Darwinian” thing? 

I got nothing.

 

 

I couldn’t help but make an observation as to how “cottage life” has changed over the years?  And I don’t just mean the out of control drivers.

Seems like everyone has a device of some sort that needs charging.

 

I didn’t even bring my phone in from the car.

Having said that,  I was quite happy that the rented cottage did have a multitude of TV channels,  and I could check the NFL scores.   This was late on Sunday night,  and we got back just in time for me to catch the final minutes of the ninth inning between the Red Sox and Tigers.    Admittedly I haven’t really been following baseball much this season,  but I did enjoy that little snippet. 

I wouldn’t want to hint that ball games could ever be long and boring, (what, really?) but sometimes I’m just as happy to cut to the chase.

 

Speaking of which,  I guess I’m done.

 

Sure hope everyone enjoyed the weekend, whether it involved Thanksgiving or not.

 

Keep those sticks on the ice.

 

Thanks for stopping in.

Just shuffling around.

First of all,  I’m pleased to announce, that I did not get kicked off the team. 

The jury was out.

Actually no, that was only a brief thought that my signing up partner and I had on that early Sunday morning when we had made just a couple mistakes when filling out all those forms.  Every penny that is donated to the Terry Fox Marathon has to be accompanied by a form.  I suck at filling out forms.  But, there are “rules” when it comes to not only the forms,  but the fact that donations are eligible for a tax receipt.  As soon as the “Revenuers” are involved,  you have to sit up and pay attention.

I don’t recall just how much money we handled that day (it was in the teens) but on the card that I received in today’s mail, our coordinator mentioned that we had raised 80 grand.  When I say “we”,  I mean all the kind people who came out to run.  I just sat there and counted the money.  That’s something that I can do, although in my previous restaurant lives,  counting money was always something that was done in the quietest moments.   Not sitting at a table outdoors with a slight breeze and any number of other distractions. It was bordering on stressful.

I mean,  it helps if you can count money I suppose, but since at least one site that we know of was unable to do the run that day due to the lack of volunteers,  I think it would take some really egregious behaviour to get “kicked off the team”.   I never even broke wind.

You believe me, right?

OK fine, let’s be truthful here. At least I checked to make sure I was “down wind”.  We’ll just leave it at that.

 

I just realised that the “shuffling” reference above could very easily be taken the wrong way.  I wasn’t referring to Terry.  No no.

It has more to do with being rousted out of a sound sleep this morning by Travelling Companion at some time that started with a four.  I couldn’t quite bring my eyes to come into focus long enough to figure out the rest.  So my head is emptier than normal.

She said it was something to do with work that woke her up.  That’s never a good thing, but let’s not go there.

 

You’d think I could take a nap and make it all better, but more often than not, that doesn’t seem to remedy the situation.  

Whatever. I’ll live.

 

So,  you’re probably wondering just what the heck you’re looking at there?

Well, I mentioned claustrophobia yesterday, which has now become a theme.  This is the space on the west side of the house where there’s a “knee wall”.  I’m sure you remember the sewing room?  That outside wall is the knee wall.  It’s basically a useless space. 

No self portraits either.  I’d kill myself trying to get in there in the ten seconds before the camera goes off.

I’ve been in there a few times over the years.  It looks like I have to go back in and sort out some insulation.  Cripes.

The very first time I had to venture in there,  we didn’t even live here!  My father-in-law asked me to shimmy in there and take a look at an issue he had had with a burst boiler pipe.  This was when he was in the hospital,  and I guess he realised that the weather was starting to get cool, and could I solder in a new piece?   Oh joy. 

Of course,  this was in the fall of 1991, so I suppose I was a bit more “spritely”.  I don’t recall that it was all that easy though.

For the last twenty years or so,  there’s not only been insulation covering the pipe,  but also pipe wrap,  so it’s all good.  Isn’t this fun?

 

 

In keeping with the empty head theme,  I think that’s all I got.  The objective will be to try and stay away  awake (see?) until at least 10.   Glurg. 

 

Hope your team wins.  (You know, that baseball thing?)

 

Thanks for stopping by.