06/02/10
May 2 (Sun): It is so weird not having a fire every night. There's a whole section of the basement where there's supposed to be heat and light and movement, but there's not. It's just cold and dark and still. It's like there's an invisible black hole there waiting to be fed. But here we are anyway, because this is where the TV is, and this is where it's coolest. Yes, we're looking for cool. Yesterday and today have been mid-20s and the humidity is 78% right now, ever since a couple of brief thunderstorms yesterday. Mom and Dad have even turned their A/C on. Our house is 76o F right now, so we've got some ceiling fans on. The good side of this is that we've been able to have windows open all weekend with a lovely breeze blowing through.
We've been VERY productive this weekend. Yesterday morning, Andy got the ladder out for me and I washed all the exterior windows. They were SO bad. I don't think they'd ever been that bad but every time I wanted to wash them it was either raining or freezing. So, now I am SO happy that you can actually see outside no matter which angle the sun is hitting them!
While I worked on the windows - and there are A LOT of them - Andy worked on the ratty, tatty grass area between our driveway and the neighbour's. The squirrels had ripped it to shreds, so we went to Canadian Tire for this grass seed mix that is supposed to grow anywhere, plus Andy spread some of the rich soil from the big bag.
I did a couple coats of paint on Helena.
She was almost the same colour as the back fence, so hardly stood out. We found some paint that has a "rock" finish to it, trying to give her more of the marble look that the other yard ornaments have. We're very pleased with how well she came out.
In the afternoon, we prepped and painted more of the stair and hall way. We did a second coat today and now all we have left is the hallway between the office and the back door and the stairs down to the basement.
After painting yesterday, I was pretty worn out (due to my cold), so enjoyed sitting out in my anti-gravity chair in the sun while Andy conquered the plum tree stump.
You can also see Helena back in position and now contrasting against the fence. Much better.
Last night we watched the Canucks beats the pants off the Blackhawks 5 - 1! GO CANUCKS GO!!! (It's round 2 of the playoffs.)
This morning we had a wonderful time at breakfast with Doreen and Wilf. Doreen was a co-worker of mine years ago at CHAM and Wilf was our realtor. We talked for an hour and a half and could've kept on going. Doreen has the exact same cold as me. She described it to a "T".
Then we went to get a new toy for Andy that she requested - the "Deluxe Telescopic Stand-Up Weeder" - sounds impressive, doesn't it? And I think it would really impress you if you stuck it in your foot by accident - look at these teeth!
It's works really well! But I think I was tricked, because although Andy is modeling it in this picture, I then "tried it out" only to end up filling 3 buckets with dandelions before I gave up for the day. Andy did a few more after me, but she had been well occupied while I was decorating the lawn with divots - she was planting our haul from Garden Gallery. (I should mention that Andy is normally the dandelion annihilator, but now that we have a tool that means we don't have to bend over, I will help out more.)
We got a couple Purple Leaf Sand Cherry bushes to go with the lonely one on the fence-line. We also got some blooming, shade perennials for in front of the basement window. It looked pretty sparse there last year, so hopefully this will do the trick. Colourful shade plants are hard to find.
Earlier in the week, I put that second shed together, at least the first half of it before I had to call in my assistant. It's temporarily on the deck and Andy was quick to take advantage of it.
Wednesday was the first anniversary of Andy letting her hair start growing back in. You'd never know it now as she has her thick mop back again.
Thursday night, we booked two excursions for our Vegas trip coming up in a few weeks. It will take a full day going to the Grand Canyon because it's a rather long drive, but when we get there, part of the trip is even taking a helicopter to the bottom and going out on the "SkyWalk"! The other trip is to the Hoover Dam, where we will explore and take a boat ride at the bottom.
We also booked a show of Andy's choice called LE RÊVE.
One sad note for the week.....Patches, who my parents had to give up because she bit me and we couldn't be sure the kids would be safe with her, has now also bit my cousin, unprovoked and breaking the skin. My aunt is going to have her put down. Since she has now bit two adults for no good reason, she just can't be trusted. The poor thing, but there's no more "another chance".
May 10 (Mon): We hope everyone had a good Mother's Day. We had a good and very productive one. Two years ago we'd started redoing a room at Mom and Dad's by laying laminate floor, but between our wedding, Grama's illness & death, Andy's cancer, all kinds of smaller things, and life in general, we're just finally getting back to it. Saturday, Andy and I went out in the morning and patched the ceiling and walls for about 90 minutes. This was on top of the patching Dad had already done, and Mom had exerted a great deal of effort washing the glue off the walls and ceiling from the wallpaper they took down almost 2 years ago.
Sunday, we arrived again about 10am. I hung drop-cloths over the doorways and then Andy went to work with her "Mouse" sander.
As you can see the ceiling is part plaster and part old drywall stained from the wet of the wallpaper.
Scot, Monica and the kids arrived as Andy got to work. When she was done I went in with the vacuum, then Scot and Monica joined us to continue the transformation while the kids kept Mom busy, and Dad was our gopher. I got taping while Monica washed the dust off the ceiling. As I am still getting over the end of my cold, I was being careful not to inhale any dust to irritate my delicate bronchial tubes. I think the colour works for me!
Andy & Scot had an old doorway to frame and drywall, a learning experience for both of them. As Andy has also had the cold for a few days she masked up for a while too. And Scot didn't want to feel left out.
After all walls were also wiped down, Monica and I started priming....and priming and priming and priming...ceiling and walls. We did 2 coats and in some places 3.
While we worked, Mom, Grace and Ben did various things like bike riding, going for a walk in the back field, and playing Wii and Cadoo.
Andy had also given the kids their presents from Nepal and later in the day she had the opportunity to show them her pictures and explain many things, so they are now experts on building bamboo homes for poor people.
We had a brief break for lunch from Subway, then went back at it.
I threw in the towel at 3:30, rested a half hour then fired up the BBQ. Andy went out front with the kids. They rode their bikes some more and Andy gave the skateboard a try.
The good news is.....she quit before she damaged any skin or other body part. ;-) Then she got the kids going on their rollerblades - they're pretty impressive.
I cooked the first burgers of the year for dinner and Mom opened her cards.
So, Andy came down with my cold Wednesday night. She had to go to work Thursday morning, but then came home at lunch and slept all afternoon. She stayed home Friday, working remotely for part of the day and getting lots more sleep.
Saturday, we had a fantastic wind storm. Winds were 50 kph and gusting higher. An apartment building in Hamilton had its roof blown off. When I was driving to the hospital in the afternoon to visit Gabe, the truck kept getting blown sideways a couple inches every few seconds - but it wasn't just me - all of us on the road were watching each other sway - and we were all leaving each other lots of room. One of Andy's workmates had a little issue with one of their trees.
It's also been darn cold again, with frosts happening overnight and temperatures around 10o, though today it got up to 14o. We've had fires again the last 4 nights and turned the furnace back on.
We found a new home this week for my uncle's cat. I'd put a posting on Facebook and we'd put posters up at work. I got a few interested people....interested in telling me about shelters, that is. We were trying to NOT have to resort to a shelter. My friend, Sean, posted at his work, the Hamilton School Board, and ironically, Tigger was picked up by a lady who works at my old high school, whose brother-in-law I knew, and her sister lives just down the road from Mom and Dad. She wanted a more mature cat for her Nana. She picked up Tigger on Saturday and told us her Nana was very excited.
Tigger's former "sibling", Patches, the biting dog, has got a bit of a reprieve. My aunt had to wait 10 days before she could put her down, so now there is some rethinking going on as to whether a trainer could sort her out. The problem is that the only way we will ever know for sure if she's trustworthy or not is if she bites someone again.......not a good test!
And, just in case you missed it, there is a link at the top of the page to Andy's Nepal pictures. She's got a blog half written, so watch for that in a few days.
May 26 (Sun): EXTRA EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT! Andy's Nepal Blog is finally done! Click the link above.
But back in the real world, things are a lot less glamorous! It was toilet changing time! In fact, I should've thrown a "finally" into that sentence. Guests coming to the house will be happy to hear that you no longer have to trek all the way upstairs to go to the loo.
Our old toilet had a strange flushing button. People kept trying to turn it instead of just pushing it in. After having been fixed numerous times, it finally decided to cause the toilet to run no matter what. We decided to simply cope with this using two strategies: 1 - walking up to the other toilet, and 2 - manually operating the fill valve if necessary. We coped because we knew we were eventually replacing it with a low-flow version. And so it is done! Andy was too quick for me, getting the old one out before I grabbed the camera. Can you see the look on her face as she realizes the "bleck!" she now is about to clean up!?!
Fitting the new wax ring.
Precision positioning coming up.
Playing it smart.....reading the instructions.
More precision positioning.
Et voila!
Well, almost "Et Voila"......the seat and lids are also now attached. That was started on Wednesday night and finished on Friday night.
Thursday night, it was lovely to have a videochat with Jo in Vancouver, joined part way through by her son, Will.
We still really miss Jo and Rob (and a few others too).
I also spent Tuesday through Friday evenings at the hospital, and again this afternoon. My uncle is finally starting to do better (in my opinion - I don't have any official word yet), but there were some dramas and stress, and one culminated in his older dog having to be put down, which poor Mom had to look after - very stressful and upsetting for her, plus she had caught our former cold. On the other hand, Patches, the younger dog is now back living with Mom and Dad, which Mom is very pleased about. She is going to live there and get "crate-trained", meaning she will have to go in the crate if there is company over. Plus if the kids are staying overnight, Patches will go for doggie-sitting to my aunt's. I think this is a good compromise, so all you dog lover's out there can now relax! (But if she bites someone a 3rd time, she's toast!)
Yesterday, we had some chores in the morning, then met up with Huguette, Carol, Denise & Kathy for lunch at the Carrigan Arms.
We had heard about this pub about 5 minutes away a while ago. It's owned by a lesbian couple, so is informally considered a gay pub. Ten or fifteen years ago, this status would have been a bigger deal, but these days hardly anyone cares if you're gay, so we don't really care where we go...as long as the food is good. And the food was great! The owner also came out and introduced herself and chatted for a while. She was very nice, but made sure to tell us about how fantastic their food is...and their entertainment on various days. She was a good marketer!
After lunch Andy took me to "Jus B'Gauze", where she had got some light clothes to take to Nepal. It will be hot when we are in Vegas so I needed some too.
Today was gorgeous out, though still not hot - only up to 19o. Yesterday was also not bad, but still quite cool. We did a lot of gardening/yard work today. Most importantly, the pool went up and can now warm when and if the weather does. Andy had added some new sand to the base and attempted leveling one of these last evenings while I was at the hospital. Today she wet it to try to make it a bit solid before we placed the vinyl.
I also moved Athena over beside the pool so she could be near the hydro to power her fountain pump.
With never a dull moment around here, I had a heckuva time getting the tube down from the body section so I could attach it to the pump. In fact, at first I couldn't even see it and almost went to Canadian Tire. Once I spotted it, I went in search of some kind of wire hook. To my shock and amazement, I found this "grabbler" thing in the workbench drawer that Andy had bought at the dollar store ages ago.
It still took some maneuvering and Andy holding the body for me, but now all is well as you can see in the above picture of running water.
And I now leave you with this gorgeous, little flower. It's growing in front of our living room window. It's from one of the plants we put in last year, but I have no idea what it's called. I just think it's funky and pretty.
May 26 (Sun): Excellent week in Las Vegas, but sorting through the pictures is taking way too long. There was so much to see and do. We stayed at The Mirage, which was fantastic - right in the middle of the nicest part of the strip, Venetian across the road, Caesar's on one side, Treasure Island on the other. Our room was on the 22nd floor overlooking the strip and was very spacious with an incredibly comfortable bed. We had a fantastic pool, but our one issue was the cost of food at all the hotel restaurants. Luckily, we found good prices all around us, at Gilley's Saloon, in the Caesar's Palace Forum of Shops, and across the road there was a McDonald's or Denny's for breakfast and a Subway. For evening meals we visited Planet Hollywood, The Hard Rock Cafe, La Salsa Cantina, and The Cheesecake Factory 3 nights in a row (though we only had cheesecake the first night) - they have the best stuffed mushrooms on the planet!
We toured most of the major strip hotels, went on a gondola ride inside The Venetian, up the Eiffel Tower (exactly half scale of the original), visited Siegfried and Roy's Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat, the Titanic Artifact exhibit, watched our Mirage volcano erupting nightly, the Bellagio dancing fountain, and the Pirate show at Treasure Island. We saw 3 shows: "The Beatles LOVE - Cirque du Soleil" which was good but didn't live up to our expectations - not enough acrobatics, "Cher" who was just as fantastic as usual, and the phenomenal "Le Rêve", which we can't say enough good things about. We went on organized excursions to the Grand Canyon on Tuesday and the Hoover Dam on Friday.
The weather was somewhat cool the first couple days so that we had a light jacket with us, but then it got into the high 20s, and luckily didn't go up into the 30s till we left.
And now a gazillion pictures - part 1 - Sunday through Tuesday.
Bellagio fountain and giant garden.
The Skywalk.
Andy with both arms in the air.
Me with both arms in the air.
Guano Point - looking from the restaurant.
Andy is on top - blue shirt to the left of the white shirt. I soon joined her.
Looking back toward the restaurant from up top.
In Planet Hollywood, the motorcycle and sidecar from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Our Mirage volcano
