frantic post

Okay, I quickly have to make a post. Why, you ask? Well, this afternoon I'm heading down to spend a day or two with the folks and such. If I blog now, hopefully no one will have checked my blog by the time I get there and when I'm inevitably chided for my unbloggedness of late, I can sit back and not feel in any way guilty. That's the plan; but as we know, the best laid plans...

Someone is heading down with her kids and wanted an extra driver. So hey, it's a free trip, even if I'm gone only two days or so.

Anyway. I guess now I have to write something of note. I introduce several new words and compound words in this blog, so take heed Webster's.

Well, Winterlude has ended and we pretty much ignored the whole to-do. Except Sunday night. We and some friends stopped by the ice sculpture place downtown to see what the big deal was. Unfortunately it had been a day of frozen rain so the park where the sculptures were was closed. Well, more like ribboned off with a couple of security guards walking around. Fortunately it was easy enough to sneak in... especially when other people in front of us set the precedent. Unfortunately we weren't wearing ninja outfits or ski masks so the security guards saw us. Fortunately security guards are way underpaid and have no weapons or authority. Unfortunately the ribbon-putter-uppers may have had some wisdom, seeing as the ground was very slick indeed. Fortunately we're not the kind of people who sue when we break legs from slipping. Unfortunately that reasoning doesn't fly with the security guards, so after only a couple of pictures we left.

Yes, I ramble. Get over it. I took a few pictures but night time combined with my utter ineptitude for manual settings made for mostly lousy shots. Here are a couple that sort of worked out.


Of our friends in church, one particular couple is not like us in any way. He's 6'6" and she's about a foot shorter; his parents live in Vineland area, her parents live out west; he loves snowboarding, she tolerates it but is tempted to prefer skiing. Uh, well okay so they're a little bit the same. But there it ends. They live waaaaay out of Ottawa on a hobby farm. They have a pile of sheep, one llama, and a bunch of dachshunds for breeding. We went to their place a couple of Sundays ago. They're expecting a whole slew of lambs to be born right around now. I caught a couple on film, which is surprisingly hard since they like to scamper and their moms like to shield them from ominous characters such as myself. Here's some animally pics.





I went to the manse last Saturday to help rip apart the ensuite bathroom. Now that it's (somewhat) vacant, there's opportunity to do some much-needed renovations. There were three of us there, none of whom claim to be professional plumbers or tile ripper-outers or etc. Especially now... You see, we took the tiles and the drywall off the shower stall walls and managed to mostly work around the tub faucet. But at one point, an attempt was made to minimize the amount of fixturage around which to work, so the faucet knob and its screw came off as well as a threaded collar. A wise one in our midst decided that everything should be safe provided we be gentle and don't jar anything (this said while we all brandish hammers and have crazed gleams in our eyes). So a few minutes later, without any warning the faucet mechanism gave way and one guy standing in the tub was hit dead on by a horizontal and rather high-pressure stream of water. Amazing how quiet and composed things were, apart from the spectacular sound of the water hitting (once the wet guy, after a delayed reaction, left the tub) the wall, which was of course devoid of all tile or drywall covering.

It took a full three minutes to find the water shutoff in a house unfamiliar to all. Mr. Soaking Wet borrowed a pair of jeans a tad diminutive for his frame; he was politely reminded how he'd fit right in with a mullet and minus two decades.

Plumbing lesson learned. Fortunately the sprayed wall had some plastic and insulation so it could have been worse. A big "you're welcome" to those involved for not mentioning any names :).

Don't read this...

What on earth could it be?? Well, you asked. And don't say I didn't warn you.

I was flossing the other day when I felt something fall onto my tongue. What I fished out what is you see in the picture. Just a filling with a cool handle. This would be what resided in place of my right-hand second maxillary premolar; that fourth-last tooth on the top right; or "one-five" as one's dentist may call it out to the assistant filling out the way-too-full cavity chart. Okay, so I'm far too familiar with what goes on in the dentist's office.

This was not a big surprise, since it had been loose for a couple of months now. I was pretty sure it was just held in with a post (as seen in the pic) so I didn't know what was keeping it in place. Guess I didn't pull hard enough. Those barbs seem to do their job.

The molar that once existed had a big cavity right in the middle, so the dentist had put the filling (the one attached to the rebar above) in and secured that with a post. So basically there was the inner third of a tooth, then a big blob of filling, and then an outer third of tooth. The problem was that there was so little original tooth left that there wasn't much strength left. I was munching on a chicken drumstick one day when I bit onto something hard -- that was one piece of the original tooth gone. I'm not sure when the other piece broke off, but after that I simply couldn't chew with that side of my mouth.

Given my wonderful dental history, I'm used to favouring one side of my mouth or the other when chewing, knowing that a temporary resolution is only an unpleasant dentist visit away. Now I can finally chew normally (and eat faster!) again while I await some good dental coverage. I'm not in a big hurry -- there's no pain, and although there's now a big gap the root (or some semblance thereof) is still there and I don't expect my face to cave in overnight due to the structural loss.

Oh dental implants, how I yearn for about 28 of thee! (I don't expect I'll need fake wisdom teeth.)

иuмbЄrs

No, this post is not exciting. When exciting doesn't happen, exciting doesn't get blogged about. (Note to my sister (not one of the younger three): I decided upon a solution to your always appreciated, uh, constructive grammatical criticism. Anything you perceive as incorrect I get to defend as "writing style". Kind of like a few sentences ago where I ended the sentence with a preposition. And like these sentence fragments.)

So anyway. I e-mailed a few people regarding my cell phone number change, but here it is just in case. 613-299-2947

Finally a local number! We were getting tired of paying up to 55 cents a minute just to talk on the phone. Apparently (if you're a reader of fine print you might know this--and you might also be part of an embarassingly small minority) the rules say that if you're not in your local calling area (Toronto for us), you pay long distance for incoming calls. Plus the usual airtime. As reasonable as that may seem (???) we got sick of funnelling our retirement fund straight into the Bell Modility coffers, so today I went to town and got my number changed. This is supposed to cost me $15 at the store plus another $10 on my next bill. I didn't pay anything at the store, but I shall withhold my ebullience until I see what they decide to charge on my bill.

We're locked in until June so until then we're not getting a landline. I wonder how many people have tried to live without a phone (in the last few decades I mean). How bad can it be? Who needs phone service anyway? I have e-mail. This isn't the 90s; in fact, it's hardly even the 00s anymore! It used to be the case that most people have e-mail; for those who don't, just phone. Soon enough people should be expected to have e-mail; phone service could be optional and for those without, just e-mail.

Grumble grumble. Utilities just cost too much, that's all.

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I went snowboarding with a friend last week Tuesday evening. It had just snowed all day and conditions were absolutely beautiful. And the silence was golden: I couldn't remember when I'd last gone down a slope and not heard the grinding against a hard pack of ice or groomed snow. It was glorious.

When conditions are that good, one dares to be more acrobatic since falling doesn't hurt so much. This was fine in theory but I proved it wrong only once, but then the top of the lift where the chairlift disposes of you is generally an icy spot. I have no idea what really happened, but suffice it to say that my disembarkment was less than graceful; I caught an edge, twisted and landed on my hip. I have never felt that exact form of pain to such a degree (um, if this past Saturday doesn't count), and I was pretty sure I'd broken something. Well, I don't think I've ever broken a bone and that wasn't about to change. I managed to enjoy myself for a couple more hours, but the next day I could hardly walk, let alone traverse stairs. That took a few days to get over.

On Saturday, the friend and I conned our wives into coming with us to a ski hill further from Ottawa (still only about 90km). This mountain was higher and further in the boonies so I expected more snow. Was I wrong! That big melt we had a bunch of weeks ago affected this place worse than it had affected Ottawa. And then they didn't get as much snow since. They have snowmakers on the hill but either they didn't read the instructions or the weather just wasn't ever right. This mountain had very little snow cover and reasonably thorough ice cover. Which is not good for boarders. The girls lasted until lunch time, after which they rented skis to salvage what they could of their day. Both had plenty of nasty falls in the morning (in those conditions there are no good falls), and their knees were literally purple. I fell only once but that was once too often that day; it was the second time I had felt that form of pain to that degree (and it didn't help that the fall involved my then-nearly-recovered hip). This mountain may be okay if conditions are right, but it will have to snow 10 feet before we feel any kind of eagerness to return there.

One more nephew

Congratulations Karin & Hank! My sister in Smithers just had a baby boy. Little Aaron took his time... wasn't he supposed to be a Christmas baby? He hasn't even met me yet, and already he procrastinates as well as I do.

I have many more nephews than nieces... almost 2 to 1. I guess that's to make up for having too high a ratio of sisters to brothers in my own sibling pool.

Nothing else new, except that spring sprang early this year. It's been raining for a few days and a little too warm... topping out at something like 12 degrees. A week ago I was considering shovelling the deck again, but yesterday the last bit of snow succumbed to the torrents of rain and warm air and the deck is clear. What used to be beautiful 3- or 4-foot snowbanks along the road are now 1-foot poor excuses of snow "piles". Very sad indeed. Let's hope there's a little bit more winter afoot. Else Ottawa's Winterlude will sport a 7km swimming pool instead of a rink.