May 5 & 6, 2006

May 5 & 6, 2006

Ottawa, Ontario

YEAR 2 DAYS 322 & 323

 

Friday ; Happy 5th Birthday, Amelia. Today was sunny and warm.

This morning I did Friday's preventive maintenance on Lanoire for the first time. Checking all the fluid levels. I got out the owner's manual, and figured out where to find everything under the hood. There was only one other camper in the campground, and sure enough, he came wandering over to see why I had the hood of the truck up. What is it with old men and their inability to resist the urge to stick their head under an open vehicle hood ? ! ? I didn't feel particularly sociable, so I ignored him, and he left, looking hurt. For crying out loud !

We phoned Amelia to wish her a happy birthday. I washed the truck. You know, no matter how old one is, you're never too old to make mistakes. And hopefully, learn from the them. I have owned a black vehicle for 8 days. My first black vehicle. My last black vehicle ! Lanoire shows every speck of dust that falls on her. And the interior is always hot !

We left the campground, and made the long drive from being slightly south of Ottawa, to being slightly east of Ottawa, to our old home at 1308 Quigley Hill Road. I've always felt pleasant memories when driving by a home we previously lived in. But not this time. The owners of our previous home have allowed the beautiful 2 acre forest lot to deteriorate. They chopped down the lovely willow tree in the front yard. They have ripped out some sections of the cedar hedge that surrounds the main part of the yard, and left large piles of dead cedar brush piled up in the yard. The leaves were not raked off the lawn before the snow fell, so this spring the lawn is a mess of rotting leaves. The house itself still looks the same, but the yard has lost a lot of its appeal. I felt vaguely disappointed. Oh, well.

We drove to Orleans, to meet with Roger Gran-Ruaz, our investment broker. Before going in to meet with Roger, we visited PET VALU 118, the store we owned in Orleans for about 12 years or so. It looked good. The staff member working was attentive and knowledgeable. The store was well stocked. We noticed that a neighbouring business, MicroPlay, wasn't in the mall any more. We were "business friends" with MicroPlay's owner. While I went on to meet with Roger, Joanne walked to Place d'Orleans to buy something at Pharma Plus. She joined us part way through the meeting. I had expected that Roger had scheduled a one hour meeting, but he had actually scheduled a two hour meeting. We haven't met face to face in almost 2 years, and there was a lot to discuss and review. We did a fair amount of "tweaking" adjustments to our investment portfolios. At the end of our meeting I showed him some of our travel photos in our laptop. Then while Roger began his next meeting with his next client, I showed his assistant Rhonda some photos.

As we began to drive back to Camp Hither Hills, I realized that I had mismanaged our time somewhat, we hadn't had lunch yet, and it was late afternoon. We still had 2 more errands to run, and we were already late for our planned visit with Erbon and Lorraine Dickinson. We postponed the remaining 2 errands, rushed back to the campground, had a very quick snack, fed the animals, then headed for the Dickinson's. I don't understand how somebody who is unemployed and homeless can be so busy that he forgets to eat lunch, and can't get his errands done on time. HA HA HA !

We had a very pleasant dinner and visit with Erbon and Lorraine. Joanne used their washer and dryer to get some laundry done. I used their phone line to get online, send and retrieve e-mail, and update my blog. They fed us a great dinner. Thank you very much, Erbon and Lorraine, for everything. We talked a lot about travelling. I showed them travel photos. They travelled all last summer, and are seriously considering travelling next winter to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, staying with friends on South Padre Island. We discussed RV's. Erbon and Lorraine are intrigued by class B van conversions, like the Road Trek.

By the time we left, it was very late. When we got "home", we took care of the animals and went to bed. I left the accounting and journal entry for tomorrow.

 

Saturday : Today was raining and cool.

We slept late this morning. After showering and having breakfast, I did yesterday's accounting and journal entry. I also spent some time trying to find the photos of Savannah that I couldn't locate last night when I was showing photos to Erbon and Lorraine. They're gone ! I seem to have mysteriously lost all the photos of Savannah, Georgia. Darn ! ! ! When and how did that happen ? ! ?

We drove into the city, to Wal-Mart at South Keys. I picked up my large, expensive prescription order. I bought the purgative I need to take tonight and tomorrow to prepare for Monday's colonoscopy < sigh >. We drove from Wal-Mart to the Dickinson's to drop off the Rio Grande Valley birding and butterfly map that I forgot to bring last night. We drove back to the trailer, and had lunch. I read some investment information that Roger gave me to review. I napped.

I did Saturday's preventive maintenance on Lanoire. I drained all the holding tanks. We took Bo for an obedience training walk. Once again, great work, Bo. The better he performs, the more challenging we make the obedience sessions. We went for a ride back into the city to buy a newspaper. While Joanne started preparing an early supper, I worked on today's journal entry. We had supper. I did today's accounting. We gave Bo a bath. We trimmed Bo's nails. We trimmed Teddy's nails. I opened the batch of February and March investment mail forwarded by Bruce in Thunder Bay, sorted through it all, and updated my files. I worked on the batch of February and March regular mail forwarded by Sharon, until it was finished. By then I was feeling ill from the colonoscopy preparation medication. I spent the rest of the evening reading the newspaper.

DSK