the screaming pages

There is too much drama in the neighbourhood of late.

We met K when R was dating her.  He claims they never were dating but for a few weeks they spent a tonne of time together and he brought her to poker games, BBQ’s and firepit gatherings.  Whatever went wrong between them isn’t any of my business.

I do, however, think K is a nice woman and since we’re all grown ups I figured we’d still be able to spend time with her.  He’s long since moved on to other women so it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

That’s what I thought.

I suppose I should mention at this point that I’ve probably known R about a month longer than K.  He’s a new addition to the neighbourhood and prior to a few months ago, I didn’t even know he existed.  Drew might have known him for a bit longer since he knows some contractors and construction workers I’ve never met.  I’m not sure.  Suffice to say, it’s not like we’re bosom buddies who have spent years crawling through fire together.

We invited K over for a BBQ on Canada day and it was the most tense and unpleasant experience for her – and R wasn’t even in the neighbourhood at the time.  What he was doing was texting her continuously throughout the night.  For reasons I won’t disclose, she couldn’t turn the phone off.  All she could do was avoid picking it up every time it beeped that a new message had come through.  Which it seemed to do every 5 minutes.  K stayed for the meal and a short while afterwards before heading out to another friends house.

R gave me the silent treatment for days afterwards.  Didn’t even look me in the eye or acknowledge my presence when we were around.  *sigh*  It was just like being in Jr. High all over again.  So and So can’t be friends with Ms. X cause she’s got cooties.  ‘Twas powerful stuff back in the day.

Except now I’m a woman in my 30s and no aquaintence or neighbour is going to dictate who can and can’t visit my home or who I can and can’t spend time with.  Drew’s opinion might have sway in the situation but, since he also thinks that K is a nice person, he can’t see the problem with her visiting us either…

Too. Much. Drama.

Where ever you find yourself today – lake, cottage, campground, backyard or BBQ – I wish you well.  Have a wonderful celebration and stay safe.

The garage didn’t end up coming down this weekend.  30C in the shade for most of Saturday and Sunday made it far too uncomfortable for anyone to do any work.  Add to that the fact that our bin isn’t arriving until Wednesday and we needed to put it off.  On the bright side, it is completely cleaned out and Drew did spend a bit of the day yesterday tearing down all the built in benches that were inside.  He also managed to scavenge enough wood from the tear down to build us a small woodshed for our backyard firepit.  L patiently supervised Drew’s construction so it’s good looking and well made.  Highlight of the day was the death of the other side of the hedge.  Drew is going to dig out the roots on a cooler day but we’ve finally agreed on what we’ll be replacing it with.  I’d like a nice stone front with 3 small junipers on each side.  Drew isn’t 100% certain he wants junipers, but has agreed to the rocks and bush concept.  Especially since the rocks are being pulled from our driveway – where they would otherwise been buried in concrete in a few short weeks – and won’t cost us anything.

I managed to get some reading done this weekend.  Unfortunately not enough as I’m still a number of chapters behind.  I do have today and tomorrow off though, so I’ll see about finding time to get some more reading in.  This week’s dose of homework is done just under the wire.

An old friend from back home is in town visiting her brothers and we’ll be heading out to see her a little bit later today.  Until then, I think we need to take a nice trip out to the nursery to grab some plants to put in the front yard to make up for the semi-eyesore we have now that the hedges are down.  Until that area is completed we won’t be bragging about having the best looking front entryway on the street.  Even when it’s done I doubt we’d win that title – but we won’t be an embarrassment.

Isn’t home ownership fun?

Completely out of the blue yesterday, Drew found himself promoted.  One thing about the CF – when you turn down a posting with a promotion they seem to hold it against you.  So, 6 years ago we said an emphatic no to moving to Moosejaw and spent an extra winter in Wpg before moving to Edm and Drew’s been waiting for his leaf ever since.  Finally, it’s arrived.

Too bad it didn’t come with a massive raise.  The garage is going to cost approx two grand more than the original budget.  Insulation is being put off until September.  The guys were supposed to start tearing down the old garage today but we can’t get a removal bin to the house before Wednesday.  We went with the bin option since it was about 1200$ cheaper than all of the others.  When you’re already multiple thousands over budget (and likely that’ll rise again before we’re done), you’ll take any cost savings you can find.  Overall it’s probably a good thing since Drew hasn’t put up a temporary fence for the dogs yet and we can’t have them running around the alley while the guys have part of the fence down and the garage.  Since Drew has all of next week off, he has plenty of time to find a resolution to this problem AND get the garage demolition started with the boys.

Last night we checked out a new Karaoke joint.  It’s within stumbling distance of home so no one needs to worry about finding a near non-existent cab home at the end of the night.  The crowd was pretty big and the music varied.  With dinner, the overall costs were about the same as if we’d gone to the old place.  Robin bumped into some old friends she hadn’t seen in a while.  She was always trying to get them out to the Fort and now she knows why they kept refusing 😉  I think we’ll be working this new bar into the Friday night singing tour.

Today we’re busy putting away groceries before Drew tackles removal of the other half of our hedge.  I just can’t stand the thing.  It’s been a half dead monstrosity for years.  He pulled down the other half last week (hard work digging it out) and is ready to tackle the rest with his new found non-garage demo time.

Me, I’m back doing homework.  Quel surprise!

Have a great holiday weekend everyone.

We made the local newspaper this morning.  We knew about the knife but I had expected him to have done a lot more than just this for the number of cops who arrived in pursuit. And no mention of Drew’s tackling the guy.

Upperdate: The link to article was removed upon sober second thought.  Too much personal info on our families is available based on address listed for the arrest.