This week we’ve been playing host to our 17 year old “nephew” from Winnipeg. In a short span of time I’ve quickly learned that teenage boys spend as much (if not more) time on the phone as girls, the “me first” attitude drives me bonkers, and I’d never survive prolonged exposure to teens.

Of course, my views are somewhat coloured by the fact that I’m ensconced in my office working on my contract development work and only tend to see the boy when he comes to whine or complain about something.

Today he’s supposed to be helping the guys with general grunt work as they re-roof our house but every time I go outside to see if anyone needs anything he’s sitting down looking miserable. He certainly didn’t enjoy being asked by Drew to pick up the nails and old shingle spill-over that’s appeared in the backyard after lunch. Granted, it could be worse (‘cept, he doesn’t seem to see it that way). He could have been ripping shingles off the roof, lugging bundles of shingles up the ladder, installing the shingles, or hauling away the old shingles into the bin in the alley…

On Friday, we temporarily added 8 new feet to our household. We’re babysitting Snuggles and Rascal (don’t let the names fool you) while our friends are on vacation. Luckily for us, these two pooches are a bit smaller than mine, so if a war breaks out, they’ll probably end up doing about equal damage to each other. There’s no real unfair advantage.

Last night we found ourselves nearly shoved out of bed when 3 dogs hopped in. We’ve gotten used to Hypnos sleeping at our feet over the years, but Snuggles and Rascal seem to be more of a “middle to top” of the bed group of dogs. Hypnos wasn’t the least impressed and made friends with a green-eyed monster. We’re lucky that Hypnos managed to control his jealousy until we woke up!

Fenris, of course, isn’t the slightest bit interested in sleeping on a human bed when she’s got a perfectly good dog bed on the floor and wasn’t the least bit interested in the drama playing out above her.

As for my work contract, I’ve gotten sign-off on my template so the contract is 25% complete. *yippee*

I suffered a slight set-back on Friday when I was testing the content in a variety of browsers and discovered that IE 6 was completely messing up the formatting from my CSS. A bazillion hours of tweaking and testing later I’ve got it all fixed and have been slaving away today trying to get back on track. The draft is due to the review committee on Monday and I think I’m in good shape. I had 3 modules to complete between Friday and Sunday and have managed to finish up 1.5 of them. The day is still young and I still have all day tomorrow to work on it. I’m feeling pretty confident that it will all come together in time.

Technorati Tags: dogs, babysitting, teenage, boys, roofing, work

It’s Tuesday night. I should be out stuffing my gullet full of wings and drinking trendy beer with Drew, Wendy, Paul and Alex. Instead we’re slurping back spaghetti and I’m working my tush off on my contract assignment. The boy (refugee from Winnipeg) is running up my phone bill and Drew is prepping lunches for tomorrow.

I can’t believe how long the boy has managed to stay on the phone. He’s like a teenage girl. 3 hours and counting. He get’s cutt off in the next half hour or we won’t be able to call my mom or sister for the rest of the month. We’re on a budget here ya know…

Oh, and it’s my sister’s birthday. Guess who’s not getting a call.

Oddly enough, we’ve never spent more than 6 hours a month on the phone since dad died so we haven’t ever had to worry about a large – and expensive once it gets past the plan limit – phone bill in years!

Gin: you so didn’t warn me about this stuff.

Technorati Tags: nephew, refugee, Winnipeg, phone, teenagers

Over the weekend Robin dropped by for a visit. Over the course of many bottles of water and rants about the heat, the topic of poligamy and some recent documentaries surrounding the phenomenon was raised. I can’t remember how or why we started discussing it – but I defintely remember the giggles that ensued.

Due to his dyslexia Drew sometimes pronounces things differently than normal. He has a tendency to pronouce them as he reads them – so probably becomes probadly, etc. Occassionally he’ll make up entirely new words, such as poligmatism.

So, there you have it, the members of the community in Bountiful, BC (also here) don’t need to challenge the Charter or Rights and freedoms to gain permission to continue to live a poligamist lifestyle in Canada (already allowed limited status), they need only fall back on the newly discovered disorder poligmatism. This rare sight disorder that stops one from differentiating one wife from another. I can hear the defence now: “Honest officer, I thought they were all the same woman!” and “What’s wrong with carrying on the family tradition of renewing our wedding vows every year using a new name for the bride?”

Perhaps we shouldn’t take the topic so lightly but sometimes, when it comes to politics in Canada, we have to laugh to keep from crying.

Aside from br the hubby’s birthday on Thursday (his 32nd for my 32nd Thursday Thirteen) it was my friend Robin’s birthday on Monday. Now, being useless at buying gifts, I figured I’d go with what I know. Robin’s really involved with scrapbooking and altered books. Me, I’m in the very beginner stages of scrapbooking but still assumed it couldn’t be that difficult to find a variety of standard scrapbook items for her birthday present. I picked up paper, stickers, photo corners, page protectors, a storage box and a scrapbook album. Now, being the cheapskate Scot that I am, I decided to buy an album for me when I noticed they were on sale…

Of course, I bought two of the same colour albums.

Once I arrived home from the store, I promptly stored most of Robin’s gift away but put both of the photo albums on the shelf. Then, in a fit of madness, I attempted to work on a few pages containing bits and pieces a past fishing and camping trips. I’m a fits and starts type of scrapbooker. I’ll spend hours on a few pages, then close the book and not look at it again for weeks. No dedication to the cause apparently.

But I digress, this story is about Robin and me, not just me.

I’m a last minute wrapper. I’m sure having to dig under my bed for the rubbermaid box containing all our gift bags and wrapping paper has something to do with it. If I hold off long enough and act pathetic enough, the hubby will crawl under the bed, battle the dust bunnies, and return victorious with bags, tags, paper, tape, etc.

I waited. Drew retrieved. I gathered up all of the items I’d purchased. Since I’m a lazy wrapper, I put all of the small items in the storage box I’d purchased and then promptly dropped the box in a gift bag. We didn’t have a bag large enough to fit the album and page protectors, so I grabbed the album off the shelf and conned Drew into wrapping it for me. Presents wrapped and birthday card signed, I was all prepped for the grand opening and all the ensuing “oohing” and “ahhing” that goes with it.

Despite Robin’s birthday being on the Monday, I didn’t have a chance to see her before our weekly Friday get together (karaoke). I arrived at the bar with gifts in tow. Robin was, as usual, late. Upon arrival, she dug right into her gifts – first opening her card, then the storage box/supplies/gift bag combo. Finally, she dug into the wrapping paper and found herself the proud owner of a new scrapbook album and page protectors.

Or so we thought.

Robin opened the album and to my immediate mortification said “Cool, recycled memories”. I’d pulled the album I’d been working on off the shelf and wrapped it instead of the blank one I’d bought for Robin. Of course she insisted on viewing my pathetic attempts at putting a few pages together. All the bar regulars also got a good glimpse when they trotted over to our table to see what Robin had received for gifts. Lobster red, I kept insisting that there really was a blank book for Robin and that I’d accidentally wrapped the wrong one.

I don’t think anyone other than Robin believed me.

The bartender and karaoke hostesses shared the story around the bar. There was nowhere to hide.

Drew decided at this moment that he was too tired to hang around until the end of the night and hit Robin up to drive me home. That way, he could take the truck and haul himself off to bed. Prior to leaving, I asked him to get the correct book for Robin from the office and put it on the kitchen table so I wouldn’t forget to replace mine with the blank one intended for her. Bless his little heart he did exactly as instructed – he even left the lights on so we could see – with the one minor exception of locking me out of the house.

So there we were, standing on the back porch, looking at the kitchen table. I started ringing the door bell and pounding on the door, but not a creature stirred. After five minutes of futile noisemaking, I decided to try the front door. Groping my way around to the front of the house in the dark, I hit on a winner. Immediately after ringing the front doorbell and knocking on the door, the dogs went nuts. Barking, growling, and generally forcing Drew to get out of bed. He dove out of the bedroom door and ran for the back door. “Great” I thought, “I’m at the front and he’s at the back!”. Robin saved me from what could have been a comedy of errors, pointing him in my direction and finally, I was let into the house.

The nightmare was over. Robin was presented with the correct scrapbooking album. We sat out on the back porch babbling away for hours. I’m sure the story will be passed around for generations – or at least to all her friends and family.

The embarrassment and shame will die down soon…

Technorati Tags: birthday, scrapbooking, album, regift, locked out

The hubby is supposed to be coming home tomorrow and I have lots of not so great news (deaths of friends) to share when he arrives. Unfortunately, I don’t have a copy of his itinerary and he didn’t have access to email while he was away, so I have to wait for him to call when he lands to head out to the airport to pick him up. Considering we live in the north end of the city, he’s going to have a long wait at the airport for me to drive down there. Hope he’s got lots of spare change for coffee and a newspaper!