Sloppy Joe!

My mother often called me "Sloppy Joe" growing up. I wasn't sloppy in appearance, (at least I don't think I was), but I was clumsy. I am STILL clumsy.  I get into the weirdest little predicaments.  If something is going to happen that is odd, it is going to happen to me.

Take the SUP class I took - stand up paddling on this floating board. It is really sharp! Well, of course, my paddle is the one that had to come apart in half: while I grasped the top part in my hand, and tried not to lose my balance, the bottom half FELL right off.   I yelled to the instructors, but they were too far  away to help. I quickly dropped to my stomach on the board, and with my hands tried to paddle back to the bottom part of the paddle which was sinking very quickly a few metres behind me. Had I dropped the entire paddle, it would have at least floated.   Thank goodness another student close by was able get to it, and hand it back to me. NO one else's paddle came apart. Mind you, most of the students FELL in the water, and I DID NOT. :)

I was heading to a performance of The Bard at a park, on foot, with my deck chair over one shoulder and Vimy on his leash in my left hand.  There was tape across the entrance, like the crime scene stuff, only blue, to prevent cars from entering. I just ducked under it. Do you think I could duck under that tape without incident? No way! I brought it all right down. BROKE the tape, IN FACT,  so that the sticky side fell on the gravel. I quickly looked around to see if anyone had seen my clumsiness. No one did, I think. Still juggling the leash and the chair, I managed to tape the end back to the post, all the while thinking... Sloppy Joe!

While visiting my son in Edmonton, I slipped and fell in some mud on the sidewalk.  I was filthy = one leg totally covered in thick mud, the opposite hand and arm, where I had tried to break my fall, equally so. I hobbled back to Sean's, ringing the doorbell with one finger and clutching Mathilda's leash in the other.  Sean's first remark, "Did anyone see you?" LOL

What did I do today? B-R-O-K-E a mirror!!  A f-u-l-l  l-e-n-g-t-h one. How did that happen?  I haven't the foggiest idea!  I rested it alongside the back seat of my car, intending to give it to my sister-in-law. The only thing in front of it was a soft grocery bag holding a witch's costume. I drove to my destination, opened the back door, and noticed right away that one end of the mirror had broken into many long, thin shards. Some had even fallen out. How can that be? I didn't do anything.   Am I to believe that I am NOW going to have SEVEN YEARS OF BAD LUCK???  YIKES!!!

I L-O-V-E Lucy!

I am NOT talking about Lucille Ball Arnaz, but Lucile Stoltz Poling.

People come into our lives for different reasons, in different seasons, and some FOR a lifetime. Lucy, as she was fondly called, was ALL three. My children called her ''Miss Lucy."  She was my next door neighbour in Glen Burnie, MD, where my husband and I had moved with our two young children, in 1985.

Lucy had recently retired as a public school teacher in the schools of Baltimore City. She was thirty years my senior, but she quickly became my friend, my confidante, my mentor, a grandmother to my children, and a lifeline to this friendless and lonely young Canadian mother, totally out of her east coast element, and so far from any family or friends.  I learned oodles of things from her, as she shared her wisdom and knowledge, from how to properly set a dinner table for entertaining, to how to eat a soft shell crab sandwich.

We remained friends for a reason and our friendship lasted over the next thirty plus years, in spite of the distance, as my family and I returned to Canada two years later.  We were able to visit each other a few times, and maintained correspondence the good old fashioned way, through phone calls and snail mail letters. Lucy n-e-v-e-r took to the new technology.  She sent countless birthday gifts and Christmas gifts, all the years our two children were growing up.

When she and her husband John retired to Florida, we visited with our teenagers, on our way to a family cruise in the Caribbean.  John, unfortunately, died of cancer a few years later. My ex and I flew to Washington, DC, driving back to Glen Burnie, Maryland for John's memorial service. We hadn't told Lucy we were coming. I will never forget the look on her face, when we walked in. She hugged us SO hard, and was so, so grateful that we had come to share in her sorrow and pay our respects to her much beloved husband.

Lucy was no angel though.  She was to me, but had my skin been brown or black, she would have not treated me the same way. She was outspoken, outrageous, irreverent and TOTALLY without any politically correct parameters when it came to speaking her mind. The most appalling remarks could come out of her mouth.  The following is a VERY MILD one.  At the age of 92, when I visited her in Florida, her remark when I commented on the unique names for the new subdivisions popping up all over, i.e. Bellavista, her retort was, "Who is building them? A bunch of Wops!"

Lucy made me laugh... all the time.  She had a wickedly keen sense of humour and repartee unequaled to anyone else's, except for maybe my ex husband. She was kind, loving, caring and giving, to me, my family, and to many, many other people who were fortunate enough to have met this intrepid woman.  She always looked out for me, always and by leaving me a bequeath in her will, has made my life a little easier. She will be forever in my heart and in my memories.   May God bless and keep her up there with him in heaven, where I am sure she is having a rollicking good time drinking martinis and entertaining everyone!

Were you blessed with a "Lucy" in your life?

My lifetime friend Lucy passed away in March, at the ripe old age of 92.

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN...

when the wee ones are back at school, and I am enjoying my conversations with them.  Here are a few, collected in the last few weeks.

Kindergarten/Maternelle:

J'ai un "gun" et je peux tuer un chevreuil toute seule. (Paroles d'une petite mignonne, haute comme trois pommes!)

Mon père est allergique au homard. Pas moi, mais on ne prend pas de chance! (Un petit qui a des allergies sévères aux crevettes!)


1ère année/Grade 1

Il a tiré la corde, le diable à faire!

Guess who's home? (Me- I don't know. Your Dad?)  NO... he's in JAIL and my stepfather is in the trailer.  My Dad is in jail because he set fire to his home.

I need a time-out!  Me- Why?  I was rude. (She wasn't rude; she just wanted her water bottle back, that I had her put away, because she was constantly fiddling with it.)

2ième année/Grade 2

Is my teacher on a holiday?

C'est comme ça qu'arrivaient les bébés, avant, dans le bec d'une cigogne? (Question incrédule d'une petite après une histoire que je leur avait lue.)  Moi - Non, mais c'est qu'on faisait accroire aux enfants.  La petite - PHEW!

Me - What is "green" in French?  G r e n e - replies one little redhead, rolling the r like a Scotsman. :)

Grade 3:
Madame, the door is knocking! (Sweetest little Syrian child who didn't speak English a year ago!)

Me- Why did you call him a crybaby? Rina - I was feeling a little stressed.
Me- Did you apologize to him? Rina - Well, some are saying that isn't enough. (What? What else is the poor child supposed to do?)

You must eat "vegdabells," (in her writing)

Bonne semaine à tous! Have a great week!

YOU WOULD THINK...

that a long weekend that saw me do a nine hundred kilometres road trip with my eighty three year old mother, to visit family, shop, eat turkey and bond with the grand dogs (aka fur babies) ... would have left me exhausted and wanting to stay home once I got back on Monday?

NOT a chance!  I was barely through the door, when I thought, "I need to go hiking! It's a gorgeous fall day and the foliage is spectacular. I gotta get outside!" Thank goodness my trekking buddy was ready to go on extremely short notice. So we met up fifteen minutes later,  and enjoyed an awesome ten kilometre hike along our gorgeous Nepisiguit River, with a short break for snacks and refreshments.

By the time we got back to his truck, it was dusk and a light rain had been falling for the last three kilometres.  Mind you, it was a balmy 22 degrees, so I didn't  mind in the least. We clambered into the truck, wet dogs and all, but TT stopped backing up, in order to turn off his Fitness Tracker. When he resumed, it was to find out that the back end of his truck was stuck on some big shrubbery on a sand hill, which lead down into a kind of huge sloping ditch.

He tried to get his truck out but no matter how much rubber he burned, and he BURNED a lot, that truck wouldn't budge, neither forward nor backward. Both our cell phones had less than twenty percent power, but HE had his charger in the truck, thank goodness, so he started calling for help, or using what he called his personal 911 list. Methinks he hath been in this predicament MORE than once????

TT called his son-in-law, he who bailed us out on our last canoeing adventure. No answer. SMART man. He knew better than to answer a late Thanksgiving Monday evening call, from his father-in-law. His son WAS home however,  and he answered. TT asked him to drive on the railroad track, near the iron bridge, to find us. His son's reply" NOT with my brand new truck I am NOT!"  All of which made me start giggling, as TT then explained how there was a dirt road ALONG the railway track, and that is where we were stuck.

By now it was PITCH black outside and raining steadily; our two wet dogs were jumping around in the truck and I was standing on this dirt road in the middle of no where, where I could barely see my hand in front of my face.   TT landed  himself in a bunch of wild rose bushes, stumbling around in the dark trying to find the sleeve he needed to get hauled out. He was cursing and swearing, trying to get away from the thorns. That was all I needed to send me into fits of laughter.  I couldn't stop laughing, AT ALL!

I was still chuckling when his son showed up and pulled us up out of that weird ditch, in no time at all.  The whole incident only put us back half an hour.  I was concerned that TT had maybe damaged his truck, by denting the bumper. He reassured me that he had a BRAND NEW one sitting in his second bedroom. Now there is a man who is PREPARED.  He was a Boy Scout, guaranteed!!

I was home by 8:00, none the worse for wear after a four hour adventure. All in all, a sublime ending to a sublime Thanksgiving weekend!  N'est-ce pas?

This is my FIGHT song...

...about unscrupulous contractors who low ball their estimates to get contracts, then pick and choose the more lucrative, letting the little jobs fall by the wayside.  However, not before leading you along for two months.

That is what happened to me, and I want to share, if only to help prevent this from happening to someone else.  I try to be upbeat and positive, in my posts, but sometimes you just have to VENT!
Furthermore, I hasten to add that not all contractors are unscrupulous. There are good people out there.

This summer, I needed my roof re-shingled, no and, ifs nor BUTS.  The first contractor's quote was high, I thought, but the second was 25% less. However, I was told the ventilation would have to be checked.  I thought, "Fine, let's get that done, and you can amend your quote."  That contractor cancelled two meetings, telling me he was extremely busy, so I said I could wait until September, if he could do my roof then.  I said to never mind about the ventilation. My handy Bro had checked, and he thought it was fine.  THAT was good enough for me. The contractor replied that he WOULD do my roof then, if I could wait.  I called him back in September.  He assured I was on the list and he'd be coming the next day to see me.  He called the next day, dropping the following bomb, just like this. "I am TOO busy to do your roof after all."

I was upset, but I kept my cool. I got two other quotes, both of which were in line with the first, so now I knew he had low balled his.  I was left scrambling, because I was leaving for Edmonton, and the number of warm enough days to re-shingle a roof, were getting limited.  As it was, my roof was done while I was away, but my Handy Bro and another friend kept an eye on things for me. That contractor did a wonderful job... as far as I am concerned. Plus he stands by this work, having done the roofs of several of my neighbours.

All the while, I was developing a s-l-o-w burn about all this.  I took a day to collect my thoughts. You know the  pen is MIGHTIER than the sword, right?   I didn't complain to the BBB. There is no point in my small town.  I couldn't post anything on their FB page. However, I could and did go on their Yellow Pages page.   I stated the facts, and NOTHING but the facts, ending with the line "BAD BUSINESS PRACTICES!"

MONSIEUR LE CONTRACTEUR Number 2 did NOT like that. He called me while I was in Alberta.  I refused his call. He then sent me a text asking me to take down my posting, all the while presenting ALTERNATIVE FACTS, à la Donald Trump!  What HOGWASH!!!

However, what infuriates me the MOST in this misadventure, is that IF I had had a MALE partner, I would NOT have been treated so shabbily.  That is a given!!  I am a single woman and easier to be given less consideration?

SO, I tell everyone who talks about roofs and new shingles, exactly how I was treated AND I give them the name of the decent contractor (Couture's Renovations by the way, if you live in the Chaleur area!) who, for a few dollars more, knows how to give good service, do good work and keep their word.

I might only have one match... but I can make an explosion!!!!!