Year 3 Week 9

August 13 to 19, 2006

Steinbach, Manitoba

Year 3 week 9

 

Sunday ; Today started out cloudy, cool and windy with intermittent light rain. Late in the afternoon the sky cleared, and it warmed up.

During the first half of the day, we mostly relaxed, reading yesterday's newspaper, waiting for the rain to end and the wind to diminish. When it finally did, I masked the side panel repair, then spray painted 3 coats of primer, and 3 coats of paint. Joanne sanded and varnished the dinette table, the folding computer desk, and the sofa table.

After supper we watched a 1973 James Bond movie on VCR ; Live & Let Die ! < rolling eyes > I walked into the corner of an open cupboard door. OUCH ! ! ! Big lump and cut on my forehead !

 

Monday ; Today was sunny, windy and cool, warming up late in the afternoon.

This morning I removed all the masking from around the painted repair on the trailer's lower skirt panel. It looked great ! But ... being as anal retentive as I am, I decided to fuss with it and make it even better. DARN, DARN, DARN ... of course, I botched it up a little bit. When I applied another little bit of paint to the edge of the repair, it "ate" the paint applied yesterday. Yesterday's paint wasn't yet completely cured. I forgot that the paint's instructions were to recoat within an hour, or wait 5 days. I'll have to wait until at least next Saturday to fix today's little mess. Notwithstanding that, the repair looks very good. The structural integrity of the repaired areas, and cosmetic finish are both better than I expected I would be able to achieve. I'm very pleased, and very proud. Nice work, Daniel !

I spent most of the day reading a Tom Clancy novel. Late in the afternoon, while admiring my fibreglass repair, yet again, I decided that I will not be satisfied with painting only part of the lower side skirt panel. The line between the new paint and the old paint is too visible. Next weekend I'm going to repaint the entire panel. Hey ... in for a penny, in for a pound !

I started working on Misty Ventures & Developments' annual financial statement and corporate income tax return.

 

Tuesday ; Today was sunny and very warm.

This afternoon we headed into Winnipeg. First stop was Lakewood Medical Centre in Southdale where we registered as new patients, and set up an appointment with our new family physician. Then we headed to Wal-Mart at St. Vital Centre to replenish groceries and supplies. When we were finished our Wal-Martin' it was a bit too early to head for Folklorama so we drove into Norwood, and drove around our old neighbourhood, viewing Joanne's old family home on Lloyd Avenue, then my old family home on Enfield Crescent. After some neighbourhood sightseeing and reminiscing, we headed for Louis Riel Collegiate. Joanne attended junior high school at Louis Riel. It's a couple of blocks down from our first home, on St. Jean Baptiste Street. This week it was the location for the Chilean Folklorama Pavilion.

We enjoyed the Chilean food. Their ethnic singing and dancing seemed to lack ... rhythm. Some cultures got it ... some don't ! I recognized a man sitting a few tables away as Paul Murphy, a childhood neighbour whom I haven't seen since 1966, when I was 11 years old, and he was 6 years old. The Murphy family lived 2 doors away. Paul's older brother Robert was the same age as me, and we were friends. Paul was the same age as my younger brother Russell, and they were friends. It was easy to recognize Paul, despite the fact that I haven't seem him in 40 years, when he was six. He was born without arms and legs, a victim of the drug Thalidomide, taken by his mother when she was pregnant with Paul. I went over to Paul, introduced myself, and we chatted for awhile. He remembered his little childhood buddy, my brother Russell, but not me.

From the Chilean Pavilion we headed for the Brazilian Pavilion in old St. Vital. It was an extremely popular pavilion, and we had to stand in line for an hour and a quarter to get in. It was worth the wait. The food wasn't as good as at the Chilean Pavilion, but the music and dancing ... WOW ! ! ! Like I said earlier, some cultures got it ... some don't ! Brazil's got it !

 

Wednesday ; Today was mostly cloudy and warm, with a bit of intermittent rain.

I did a bit of "spring cleaning", rearranging and purging the contents of the large aluminum storage chest / "tool box" in the back of the truck. I spent most of the day reading a John Grisham novel I started yesterday. After supper I finished the working draft of the T-2 federal corporate income tax return for our company. I hope that the CT-23 provincial corporate income tax return won't be any more difficult than the T-2 federal income tax return was.

 

Thursday ; Today was sunny and very warm. I noticed the evening was quite cool, indicating that the hot part of Manitoba's summer is over.

This morning I cleaned and polished a couple of pairs of shoes. I culled and rearranged the contents of my business card file. I culled and rearranged my office files. After lunch I read for quite awhile, then we drove into Steinbach to shop at the Farmer's Market. Bo came along. He wanted to go "drivey". We filled up with diesel while we were in town. I drove the fuel down to a "distance to empty" of 7 km. / 4 miles ! After returning from the Farmer's Market, I prepared the submission copy of the federal corporate income tax return. I worked on sanding and masking the trailer's lower side skirt panel, in preparation for repainting it this weekend. Joanne applied another coat of varnish to the dinette table.

 

Friday ; Today was sunny and warm, with a cool evening.

This morning I prepared the federal corporate income tax return to be mailed, then printed the provincial corporate income tax return blank forms that I downloaded in April. They have been sitting in my printer queue for 4 months. I looked them over quickly, and it seems as if they won't be very difficult to complete.

Today was the day of the big "pout-rogie" experiment. A few months ago, as were driving across Quebec, eating poutine ( pronounced "poo tin" ), Joanne came up with a brainstorm. She thought it would be a great idea to combine a food favoured by her French-Canadian culture, poutine, and blend it with a food favoured by my Ukrainian culture, perogies ( pronounced "purr roe geez ). HA HA HA ! When we mentioned it to Sharon and Bud after we arrived back here in Manitoba, they thought it was definitely worth trying. So, yesterday, Sharon prepared a feast of "pout-rogies" ( pronounced "poot roe geez" ). HA HA HA HA HA ! ! !

I'm certain that most of my American friends reading my blog don't know what either perogies or poutine are. Poutine is french fries, topped with fresh cheese curds, and hot gravy poured over, melting the cheese curds. Perogies are pockets of dough, filled with a mashed potato and cheese filling, boiled, and then sometimes pan fried, served with sour cream. Yesterday Bud and Sharon drove out to the dairy in New Bothwell and bought fresh cheese curds. Sharon cooked up a batch of perogies, and we all sat down to experiment with "pout-rogies". We tried them with the perogies only boiled. We tried them with the perogies pan fried after boiling. We tried them with fresh cheese curds poured over them. We tried them with grated mozzarella over them. We poured hot beef gravy over the perogies and cheese. Et voila ... pout-rogies ! Chalice ! ! ! ( A French-Canadian exclamation of astonishment, pronounced “Caw Liss” ) HA HA< SNORT > HA HA ! ! !

Sharon and I didn't like them. Bud and Joanne did like them. 50 / 50 !

Thank you, Sharon, for giving us an opportunity to try out the idea. Guess we won't be going into business as "pout-rogy" vendors in Arizona anytime soon. HA HA HA < SNORT SNORT SNORT > ! ! !

 

Saturday ; Today was a sunny, hot day of exploring rural Manitoba.

I had never visited the small village of Gardenton, where my father was born, in southeast Manitoba. We drove into Steinbach, through town, then headed south out of town on Hwy. 12. Just south of Steinbach I saw the Steinbach South airport. I stopped to look at the flight training school there, Harv's Air Service. It's where Bud took his flight training and got his pilot's license, probably about 25 years ago. I decided that I miss flying so much, I'm going to take the opportunity to go flying next week, since we're so close to a small airport and flight school. I'm going to rent a Cessna, and an instructor, and go flying for an hour. I'll need the instructor, because I haven't flown for 2½ years, and I'm not "current" on my pilot's license.

We continued south on Hwy. 12 to Hwy. 302, then Hwy. 302 and Hwy. 209 to Gardenton. We drove around the little village, and stopped at the small Ukrainian church. By reading a memorial plaque at the church, I learned that Gardenton was settled by Ukrainian immigrants, in the late 1800's and early 1900's, who came from the village in the Ukraine where my grandmother was from. I guess now I know how and why my grandmother settled there. I wondered if she attended that church, the only church in the little village ? I wondered if my father was baptized there ? We drove to the small cemetery nearby, and walked around, looking for evidence of my ancestors. There didn’t seem to be any.

We left Gardenton driving back on Hwy. 209 to Hwy. 201, then west on Hwy. 201 to Hwy. 59, and north on Hwy. 59 and Hwy. 216 to Grunthal. This weekend the Hanover Agricultural Fair was being held in Grunthal. We parked in town, and walked overto the fairgrounds. We decided that the admission fee was a bit too steep, considering that we only wanted to go into the fairgrounds and take a quick look around. We left, driving north on Hwy. 216, then east on Hwy. 52 back to Steinbach. We stopped at Safeway in Steinbach to buy some groceries and a Saturday newspaper.

I was feeling quite ill most of today, so once we got back to the trailer, I spent the rest of the afternoon and evening just reading the newspaper.

DSK