May 2 to 8, 2010

May 2 to 8, 2010


Happy 9th Birthday on Wednesday … Cinco de Mayo … to Joanne’s niece Amelia.

This was a week of hard work, impeded frequently by poor weather. Cold and wet … BRRRRR ! What crappy weather all week !

Early in the week we noticed Sully had watery eyes and was sneezing a lot. We thought he was having spring allergies, like hay fever, like he did in November in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. After a few days we realized, perhaps a bit later than we should have, that he has an upper respiratory infection. Somewhat like a kitty cat cold. Just like what resulted in Teddy’s death ! Sully is a few years younger than Teddy was, so hopefully he can fight it off. But he was one sick little kitty on Thursday and Friday, with watery eyes, lots of sneezing, a runny nose, and a pathetic little meow caused by congestion and phlegm. His normal “voice” is pretty loud. We started him on antibiotics on Thursday, and by Saturday he seemed to be a bit improved. We’re worried, but hopeful.

He strongly resisted the first antibiotic pill we gave him. My hands got scratched and bit. The next morning the back of my left hand was sore, purple and swollen. Oh, great ! “Cat Scratch Fever” ! An infection in the back of my left hand. A similar incident about 18 years ago resulted in my first hospital stay, hooked up to intravenous antibiotics for two days ! I started taking oral antibiotics Friday night. Now, Saturday evening, it’s looking a bit less purple and swollen and is a bit less sore. Wish me luck ! Thanks a lot, Sully !

Joanne worked intermittently all week on weeding our lot. What a lot of back breaking work, pulling weeds out of rocks by hand. We don’t want to use weed killer. Nice work, thank you, my dear.

Our gazebo kit arrived Monday. What a difficult task wrestling it off the truck ! The truck driver, a neighbour, and me, struggling with a crate that weighed 900 pounds ! WHEW !

Wednesday was a long day of running errands in Penticton, including buying Bo a dog license and having a meeting with our investment broker.

Friday we began to work on unwrapping the gazebo crate. It was wrapped around and over and around with a light tarp, held in place by hundreds and hundreds of staples. HMPH ! On Saturday I worked on dismantling the crate. HMPH ! Hundreds and hundreds of long nails, shot in by a nail gun. I hope the gazebo is half as sturdy as the crating it was in ! The nails were embedded so tightly I straightened out the curved end of a crowbar pulling out nails ! ! ! The next step is to remove what appears to be hundreds of feet of shrink wrap from around the wood pieces of the kit. I suppose Alliance Woodcraft packages their products for shipment so well because they got tired of having shipping damage claims on such expensive wood products.

My major accomplishment of the week was the gazebo deck I built last fall. It had to be modified in size a bit and relocated a bit. That was more work than I had expected. Of course … story of my life ! First we removed all the decking off the frame. It was too heavy to move with the decking on. We could barely move just the frame. Then I had to increase the dimension in one direction by 3½ inches. That’s what the two pieces of lumber I bought in Omak, Washington were for. What I didn’t know at the beginning of the week, but do know now, is that pressure treated lumber warps and twists very badly, very quickly, when left out in the cold rain for a few days. HMPH ! I fussed and fiddled and fussed some more trying to attach a warped board, twisted over its 12 foot length. When I was finally finished, having used a lot of screws, backed by large bumper washers, Joanne and I both decided it looked like shit ! I scrapped it and went into Keremeos and bought another one. HMPH … a ten buck piece of lumber going to the scrap heap !

And levelling the deck frame was a lot more difficult than we had anticipated. Excavating this damn compacted scree / rock slide shale that we finished our lot with is like trying to dig in concrete ! Finally, with a lot of hard work, we got it level. We reinstalled all the decking. ( sigh ) It’s ready for the gazebo to be built on it.

I have been trying all week to get hired for the summer as a delivery driver by the RV rental business in Summerland. I spoke to the owner a number of times this week. Each time he indicated that he is likely to hire me, but then kept postponing and rescheduling a meeting / interview. Now I’m supposed to phone him on the upcoming long weekend in two weeks.

I finished Joanne’s income tax return. It’s in the envelope waiting to be mailed. Mine still needs to be recopied from the working copy to the file copy.

Two of my cousins in Winnipeg died this week. HMPH … my generation is starting to die off ! It’s either time to quit smoking … or start speeding up life in the fast lane ! HA HA HA !

DSK