I was planning on continuing to avoid blogging while I desperately attempt to make my Enviro Chem paper deadline (tonight) but it was not to be.

My father passed away two years ago today.  Some days I forget he’s gone and pick up the phone to call and talk to him.  I hope others do this as I’d hate to think I’m some sort of loony that hasn’t learned to let go… I miss him a lot.  He was my go-to guy for advice.  The person I wanted to grow up and be like. All that.

When my dad died the local newspaper screwed up and didn’t publish his obituary until the morning of his funeral (which took place on a Saturday).  When the error was first caught (day 1) the Funeral Home contacted the paper to correct it for the following day. A second day passed with no obituary. It was one of those things that you expect to go smoothly and it’s quite disturbing when it doesn’t.

Due to the lack of notice few people had realized he’d died.  I’m sure fewer still were even aware that he was ill.  We spent quite a bit of time afterward explaining to people when he’d died, when the funeral had been, and why they might not have seen the notice in the paper.  It was stressful to say the least. And yes, I’m still a tad bit bitter about the whole thing.

In the few years since then, I’ve been contacting the paper well in advance in order to place the Memoriam notice.  I’m delusional.  I like to think they’ll get it right.  This year I didn’t receive a call to arrange for payment after placing the order.  I waited 2 or 3 days and then contacted the paper again.  I had a few days before the cut-off period for the notice and wasn’t too concerned.  They claimed never to have received the order, so I resubmitted it and made payment.  I received confirmation and *whoosh* a few short minutes later the payment was processed.  I figured all would be well.  This year, the notice would appear.

I should have known better.  Don’t get me wrong.  My dad’s Memoriam was printed.  It’s just that it appeared in the Moncton paper instead of the Saint John paper.  It’s the equivalent of placing a notice in a Calgary paper for an Edmonton audience.  I’m not amused.  Hell, I’m downright disappointed.  If I were the paranoid type, I’d wonder what the hell my family had ever done to deserve this…

Upperdate 1:40pm: 2 hours ago I notified the paper of it’s error in writing – via email, but in writing none the less.  When I wanted to place the ad and contacted them (the second time) they got back to me in less than 30 minutes.  I haven’t heard a peep out Brunswick News Inc yet.  Wonder how long it’ll take before they acknowledge my complaint… or if they’ll wait until I call to complain?

My meds were making me very sleepy.  When they stick a may cause drowsiness label on a medicine bottle, they really mean it.  I’m sure I was sleeping at least 14 hours a day.  I barely managed to read a chapter a day in my textbooks.  I thought I’d get ahead of my class by having the week off but that didn’t happen.  I just couldn’t seem to read more than a page or two before nodding off.

I decided to head to bed last night without taking the muscle relaxants and pain killers.  I spent the night tossing and turning and finally got to sleep sometime around 7am.  Slept until 10am and am semi-awake at the moment. And hurting.  Must not forget to mention the pain.

I spent the day finishing my Psych assignment and am happy to say I managed to get it uploaded on time.  I’ll likely need to work the weekend to catch up in my Enviro Chem class.

Have I mentioned how tired I am of school lately?  I’m dreaming of the day when I can afford to quit work and concentrate on school.  Not that that’s likely to happen.  I’ll be working full-time and going to school part-time for the better part of a decade it seems.

*grrrr*   *arghhh*

At least I can walk on my foot and sit for a few hours without being overly uncomfortable.  Just wish I’d spent my vacation doing something more exciting than recovering from tripping over a crack in the sidewalk.

We play the waiting game around here a lot.  Most military families do.  You wait for your the serving fmily member to finish training.  You wait for the shift to end.  You wait to find out if/when your spouse will be sent away. You wait for tid-bits of information.  You wait to make plans because you never know if/when your spouse will be sent off to the great white north, western wilds, down south, or overseas. You wait to find out where in the country you’ll be living next.  You either get used to waiting or you split up.

I suck at waiting.  I don’t like surprises either.  Through most of our “waiting periods” I’ve been fortunate enough to be gallivanting all over the world.  Waiting for answers doesn’t seem as bad if you’re not stuck at home while you wait.

We’ve been in hurry up and wait mode since January of this year.  The election call has now extended that wait period.  I’m not-so-slowly going crazy.

On odd occassions I can manage waiting if there is an end goal in sight.  Ergo, I’ve been struggling with patiently waiting for my grades from last semester to be released.  For weeks the student portal has indicated final grades would be posted on Sept. 12.  I’ve tried my best not to log in every day checking to see how I did in my Summer courses.  It’s not been easy avoiding the site and it’s shiny Login button.  Somehow I manged.  Today’s the big day.  I logged in at 8am.  Did I mention I have today and Monday off?  Finally took some vacation days.  I’m supposed to be studying and doing my assignments for this semester’s courses.  Not actually happening but that was the plan.  Anywho, I’m way off in another plane I’ve digressed so far. Meanwhile back at the student portal… My grades weren’t posted at 8am.  They weren’t posted when I checked again at noon.  It’s now 4:15 MT and they’re still not posted.  Which means they won’t be posted before Monday now.  Cause it’s after 6pm in ‘Scario and no one – especially not academics and government employees – is working after 6pm in ‘Scario on a Friday!

You might as well reserve my room at Alberta Hosp. in Ponoka.  If I’m not nuts already – and I suspect I am – I will be by the time my waiting is over…

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

I didn’t manage to take pictures of the guys putting the garage door on.  What I thought was frantic installation mode late yesterday afternoon turned out to be let’s laze around the garage drinking beer and talking about the installation mode.  I really should bring my laptop outside one of these days so I can blog as work is happening instead of relying on Drew telling me what he’s planning on doing.  I’d have far more accurate reports that way.

Last night we held a pre-birthday BBQ for T (L’s son) and I.  T’s b-day is one day before mine and since he’s always been ready to help out whenever we need it, it was just natural to ensure that he was included in all the festivities.  Loxley took pictures so if/when she sends them to me, I’ll post the Queen of the Hill photos.  Just remember that I take a horrible picture, was well into my cups, and spent half the night wearing silly hats (thanks to Loxley, P, W and A).

Best thing about BBQs in our backyard is the food.  Salads, s’mores, fruit, and chips & dip were provided by the guests.  Drew put on a multi-course meal including homemade corn dogs.  Me, I’m not a fan of corn dogs but everyone else seemed to really enjoy them.  E’s not a big fan of steak, so we usually cook up some chicken breasts when he’s around.  Last night Drew went to town and BBQ’d (or violated, depending on who you ask) an entire chicken over a beer can.  The chicken was coated in Corky’s BBQ rub.  Can’t give away any more of the cooking/spicing secrets than that or Drew would lock me up and hide the laptop.  The resulting chicken was fabulous.  E got the bulk of it since it was intended for him but the rest of us at the kiddies table scrapped over the scraps. There wasn’t enough room on the upper deck for everyone to sit and eat around our table so R, our fabulous contractor neighbour, brought over a small table and some chairs to put on our lower deck.  Oddly enough, both birthday guests ended up at the kiddies table.  The chicken never made it up to the adults table.  Then again, they made us go up to the adult table to get salads and chips/salsa… For those not fortunate enough to get a piece of the chicken, Drew grilled steaks.  Big, giant, tender, juicy, triangular steaks.  I have no idea what he’d marinated them in but they were melt-in-your mouth fantastic.  And since we’re getting better at having guests over, he’d even managed to cook them to difference ranges of “doneness”.  Apparently not everyone likes a rare steak like we do.  So, R, L & J, and Loxley had theirs well done.  Others had medium.  And the best rest of us had nice rare steaks to chew on. For dessert, Drew made baked Alaska in the BBQ.  He did insist in an all BBQ meal.  I’d never had baked Alaska before and discovered it really wasn’t to my liking which left Drew a little disappointed.  I did eat my portion.  If you don’t try something you’ll never know if you’re going to like it or not.  Everyone else really enjoyed theirs.  That should make up for my odd taste buds.

Birthday presents are the second best thing about last night.  P, W and A provided comic relief with silly hats and talking b-day cards. There’s always a need for Scottish silly hats.  Man is it hot under that thing though.  I’m sure the weather had something do to with it but I nearly roasted when wearing it earlier in the evening. L&J’s card came with a promise that I’d be getting an L special – which translates to a hand crafted item (furniture, planter, etc.) – on my actual birthday.  I can’t wait to find out what it is.  S made Drew happy by presenting me with Oscar perfume, soaps and bath chips.  I love Oscar but Drew’s allergies act up whenever I spray it on.  This little bottle isn’t meant to be sprayed; just a little dab will do.  Loxley worked her fingers to the bone making a scrapbook picture of our trip to the LIVE concert.  Unfortunately Drew put our tickets away for safekeeping so I could scrapbook them and forgot where he’d stored them.  Loxley wasn’t able to include the tickets in her work of art.  She’s mightily talented though.  I just wish I didn’t look like some cross-eyed freak in the picture.  Then again, she did warn me that the other picture was much worse!  Loxley also made me an amazing CD of music to listen to in my truck.  She always finds the most interesting cover versions of my favourite songs.  To top it all off, she gifted me with a new storage bin for my scrap-booking goodies.  I never have enough places to put all my brads and embellishments… R fulfilled the immediate need by presenting me with new knives (and wineglasses).  The dogs chewed the handles on our previous steak knives and we’d thrown most of them out years ago.  People in our neighbourhood have gotten used to my inviting them to dinner only to tell them that if they wanted to eat they had to bring their own steak knives.  This should no longer be a problem as I am now the proud owner of 8 shiny new steak knives.  Well, they will be shiny once they’re out of the dish washer.  The rest of the knife set is pretty spiffy too.  I think I’ll leave the handling of the heavy butcher knife to Drew though.  I’m likely to hurt myself with it.

I wasn’t the only one to be showered with pressies.  T’s haul included a new creeper (some sort of mechanic’s wheeled thingy), Stargate SG1 DVD sets, and a new circular saw.

Like a little princess I ended up heading to bed just before midnight.  I’d been up since 6:30 am and just couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer. On the bright side, I wasn’t the first to leave.  M and T headed home about 45 minutes before I toddled off to bed.  Of course, M is 9 month preggers and ready to pop at anytime, so she probably really needed to head home hours earlier!  E also headed home shortly after T and M.  So I wasn’t the first b-day person or guest to leave.  That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

As for my “present” from Drew – the completion of my Honey Do list – he’s about 50% done.  He claims that he wasn’t supposed to finish before the BBQ because my birthday isn’t until mid-next week.  So, when it comes around and the hedge is still re-growing in my front yard and the other items aren’t checked off, just ignore the screaming you can hear.  That’ll be me just before my head explodes.

Next year I’m skipping the honey do list and asking for diamonds.

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.