hot august days

 A young waiter serving drinks festooned with colourful umbrellas would be da bomb… alas, my quickly warming bottle of G2 gatorade will have to do. It is blue so it nicely matches the decor (ha ha). (note to self: buy only blue gators)

Our first ‘conversation set’ guests arrived Wednesday mid-afternoon. Mom and Dad settled onto the couch in the sliver of shade cast by the house. We chatted all afternoon, silenced only by thick bacon and tomato sandwiches dripping with mayonnaise. Some of the ingredients from our garden. I should have made bread!

Yesterday we went to the PetValu for a life jacket for Lupa… she has decided that walking along the edge of the pool is a cool thing to do. I’m terrified that she’ll slip in and drown. She’s worn it a few times today and was initially quite certain that she couldn’t walk. She’ll figure it out quickly I think.

Today we put up the old sunshade from Presqu'ile. Aside from the zipper on the bag sticking, it’s still in good condition and will create a bit of shade until we get a proper gazebo. It will also help us figure out if 10x12 is the right size.

We made final payment on the cruise… fingers crossed that covid has been vanquished.

Awesome!

“having Mom and Dad as our first guests”

“Lupa not barking like crazy at another dog”

conversations

 No deck time for me first thing this morning… I was on alert waiting for the deck furniture delivery. There was a bit of rain as well.

At the gong of 10:30 am a big truck bearing our ‘conversation set’ rolled down the laneway. Two burly young men dropped the 2 giant boxes in front of the garage and then beetled out of there to their next delivery.

There was no way that Carm and I could carry the boxes all the way to the back of the house so we ripped them open to carry pieces one at a time onto the deck. That’s when the rain started again… before we could even finish our coffee the rain had stopped and the deck started drying out.

not much help!

There wasn’t much to assemble - we just had to bolt the arms to the frames and add the cushions. We adjusted positioning - an inch this way and then 2 that way… you know the drill! Voila! LOVE! It’s super comfortable (I’m testing it out as we ‘speak’). Luckily at this time of day there is shade on the sofa and one of the chairs. Lupa thinks it’s pretty awesome too and is curled up against me :-)

Adia however, is busy barking at the new floating chlorine puck dispenser that’s floating around the pool…

Last week we filled out the forms for collecting my pension which is unremarkable except for the fact that I had to enter my address 3 times on 3 different forms… in my job we had a database/system that was shared by all applications in the department for storing company information. Tombstone information was only captured ONCE not multiple times. It seems that CCRA does not have a version of ‘me’...  such an annoying waste.

I didn’t mention yesterday that it had been 7 years since June, Jennifer, and I got together - June lives in Switzerland and Jennifer has a busy business selling hunting supplies - it’s scary how fast time flies. June is back in Canada to celebrate her father’s 90th birthday… 40 years ago he hired me for my first real job which turned into a 30 year career in IT.

HAPPY :-)

Awesome!

“the first glimpse of the truck bearing furniture”

“everything assembled and put into place”

“music out on the deck”

purple haze

 I’m sitting outside at the big table, squinting my eyes against the sunny glare on my screen, cheerful music playing semi-loudly. Already I’ve puttered around on the deck setting it up for a hot August day of relaxation. It’s only 9:45 but I’ve already been swimming. This is the life!

I’m going to have to dig deep into my memory as a whole week has shot past since I last wrote. 

It started last Monday with an alarming call that my Dad was in the hospital with a heart issue. He’s home now but unfortunately they didn’t figure out what was wrong. We dashed over for a quick visit on Friday afternoon - it was good to see him standing on two legs! I’ve been lucky so far and haven’t had to face the mortality of my parents - they’ve always been there and it seems that they will be here for eternity.

We had barely got home from visiting Dad and dropping a boat load of money at Costco, when there was a phone call from Trudie inviting us over for supper. Did we turn it down… a hard no! I could have brought Lupa with us but I decided I wanted a relaxing evening so the dogs got locked up again. She was absolutely hysterical when we got home… :-(

Tuesday we drove into the city to have supper with Mom and Graham. Mom is dealing well with the scare but she’s never been one to awfulize, at least not outloud. 

Wednesday night we had a whirlwind visit from Kirsten and Shawn. They wanted to see the new deck and we needed to talk about ‘the cruise’... final payment is due soon - do we cancel or go? The majority say go! I’ll look on any covid isolation as an adventure and something ‘fun’ to write about… attitude counts! It was a perfect evening so we were able to eat outside and were only driven inside by the mosquitos at the end of the evening.

The weekend brought another level of fun with June and Jennifer, friends from high school, here for a visit. We yacked for hours - it’s funny or perhaps alarming, how much we are still the same as we were 40 years ago? I always thought that I had changed and grown but now I’m not so sure. Do I still have the same fears and idiosyncrancies that I did so many years ago? It’s hard to tell from the inside looking out - I’ll have to ask June and Jennifer what they think!

June stayed for the night and much of the day on Sunday. The weather was perfect and we used every seating area on the deck - there are three! In the early morning we drank our coffee at the table down by the pool. A swim and then brunch at the table. More swimming and then a seat in the cool shade at the end of the deck. It was lovely!

The pool level offers a better view of our domain, while ‘upstairs’ is more of a room feel, with the railings acting as open air walls. 

After a lazy morning/afternoon I drove June to Jennifer’s, about an hour away. We chatted for a while and then I headed home. Whew! I crashed pretty hard on the sofa!

We can’t get chicken hearts for the dogs anymore - labour problems :-( The dogs will be disappointed as they love getting their ‘bedtime snack’. Spike never let me forget except for his last few days of life. 

Lupa had an extreme makeover today… I got the clippers out, and to the best of my ability I gave her a full body clip. She was getting quite scruffy and was cute as a button, but alas, I can only stand so much messiness so it all came off! So much for hand stripping. She was good as gold and I only needed Carm’s help for her wiggly toes… unfortunately my hand tremor makes it difficult to get the fussy bits.

first round with the clippers - still lots to clean up

This is turning into one of those long posts that Jennifer doesn’t always read!

Awesome!

“friends”

“getting home without getting lost”