The Squamidian Report – Jan. 18 / 14
Issue #608
Including:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We had Kyra here again this week. Thats always fun and interesting but
you sure can't get much done when she's around. She's interested in
everything and into everything. I've tried, on numerous occasions, to
sneak out but just before getting to the door I will inevitably hear a
little voice calling “grampa”. One of her favorite things that we are
apparently supposed to do together is watch the garbage truck go by. I
guess it is interesting for someone who just turned 2. It stops in
front of each house and an arm reaches out and lifts the bin we set at
the curb. Up it goes, it tips and dumps, then down it comes. Up, dump,
down. Three concepts all in a row. Very interesting for her, and my
back hurts from holding her up while the truck does its thing. She's
also a big fan of gardening. As I write this segment, she's out in the
back yard with grandma digging in the flower beds, which is why I'm
writing it now when there are no little fingers trying to hammer the
keys on my keyboard. Not sure how much help she is in the flower beds
but I do know she definitely has an effect on how long it takes to do
anything.
There have been a lot of people around this area out in their yards the
last few day doing early spring cleanup. There had never been any snow
so we don't have to wait for it to melt away. It had been a tad on the
wet side for a while though. Heck, last Saturday we had over 4 inches
of rain here in Squamish which while being a lot is certainly not
out-of-the-ordinary. But, the rains have cleared out and the sun is
shining again. There is some early stuff blooming in the flower beds
and the shrubs are showing buds. And yes, we could at some point still
get a taste of winter but anything that might come along certainly
wouldn't be sticking around for long. That being said, I have no
intention of putting the bike back on the road till the first sunny
weekend of March, for several reasons. On clear nights it can still get
down to close to freezing here so there is always the danger of black
ice until it warms up a bit. Another reason is that while it is nice
out, it is not 'motorcycle riding' nice out by my lazy standards. Its
got to be a few degrees warmer yet before I'm comfortable. I get cold
easily now that I'm OLD. Another good reason would be that as usual,
I'll be back visiting in February for a week that spans Vivyan's
birthday so the bike should stay put till I get back from being back,
otherwise it would drive me nuts.
And planning on being back for Vivyan's birthday brings up another
issue... I should at least give some passing thought to a suitable
birthday gift, whether I actually carry through or not. So, I'm
thinking I could possibly drop in to that hobby store on Courtland Ave
and pick up either an R/C airplane or and R/C helicopter for her. I
know she'd love have and learn to fly something like that and if by
chance I was wrong, well, I could then spend the week flying the unit
for her so she wouldn't have to. How's that for generously going above
and beyond expectations. Just kidding, an airplane wouldn't make much
sense at all because it needs a fair amount of space to fly in, but, a
little coax heli would be able to fly around in the house quite nicely.
Of course there is always that church parking lot across the street
from their house so every problem has a solution.
Now see where my creative writing abilities end up taking me when there
just isn't all that much to write about? Glad I'm not the one who has
to read this...
doug
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THE ONTARION REPORT
Hello everyone!
We had a bit of a mild spell this past week here in KW but it now
appears to be over and we’re back into the snowy stuff of January.
Speaking of January, this happens to be one of my favorite months! Not
only because I celebrate my birthday on the 11th but because we happen
to have been married 41 years on the 19th of January as well. Hard to
imagine being married that many years when we’re both only in our mid
40’s! LOL! Just kidding of course but all those years seem to have
passed like there were only 20 of them. I guess it seems that way to
anyone who is celebrating a milestone anniversary or the same type of
birthday. Why is it that the years fly by quicker as we get older?
Probably because we can only remember half of what went on each year
and even that takes some doing!
With my birthday in mind, I must tell you how much I’m enjoying one of
my gifts that Adam gave me for my 65th. Carole and I have been tea
drinkers all our lives but we also drank pot after pot of coffee in the
early years of our marriage. Back in the mid 80’s we read a book
written by celebrity health nuts Harvey and Marilyn Diamond. It was
about eating healthy and one of the big points they made in their book
was of a study that had been done by UCLA medical researchers about the
affects that coffee had on the human body. They found that it had the
unfortunate affect of artificially giving your pancreas the feeling
that your body had just ingested a huge amount of sugar and therefore
caused the pancreas to produce a surge of insulin to counteract that
sugar. This produced an abnormal amount of wear and tear on your
pancreas and they found that by the time you reached the age of 40,
your pancreas had reached the age of 80 years and was no longer working
or no longer working properly, at that point a large percentage of
people in this situation would suddenly become diabetic! Well, when we
realized how many many many pots of coffee we had drunk in our lifetime
thus far, we decided to quit the coffee habit and switch to tea as our
main beverage. We’ve been drinking tea as a daily beverage ever since!
On this, my 65th birthday, having received a Keurig coffee maker from
my son we realized that we had both become diabetic some 15 or more
years ago without the curse of having been assaulted by coffee! LOL! I
said since we’re both diabetic anyway, I guess quitting the coffee
habit wasn’t the way to prevent it after all and we all laughed. I
thanked Adam for the Keurig machine and made us our first cup o coffee
in many years! Now, I can’t say that I haven’t had any coffee since the
mid 80’s but I can count on one hand how many cups I have had! I must
tell you that my first cup of Keurig coffee tasted like it was brewed
by Juan Valdez himself! WOW, did it hit the spot! Carole gifted
me with a box of 80 “K-cups” (the little cups that fit the machine) and
they are decaf coffee. The aroma was amazing and I’ve always said that
I’d enjoy coffee much more if only it tasted like it smells! Well, this
coffee does taste almost as good as it smells so I’m truly enjoying it
cup after cup! I’ve already drunk about 1/3 of the box of 80 cups so
far this week and it shows no signs of tasting less yummy! I think I’ll
keep this gift and make good use of it for as long as it (or I) last!
LOL!
We were jarred out of our bed again this morning by another city dump
truck plowing the bare pavement and another sidewalk jigger plow
clearing NOTHING from the walkways too! Once again I ask “What the Hell
are they doing scraping the bare pavement with such expensive to repair
and maintain pieces of equipment?” I really do think it’s time someone
put that question to the powers that be up at City Hall and see what
their answer might be. It just might be that stopping such brainless
use of taxpayer funded machinery will save a good percentage of the
annual snow clearing and equipment maintenance budget! If these
dough-heads aren’t out plowing almost bare streets on weekends and
weeknights after midnight to cost us overtime, they’re plowing bare
streets for God know what reason and it’s time someone put a stop to
it! If this department wasn’t wasting so much of the “Snow” budget in
this manner, they just might not have to ask for more money come budget
time next year!
Oh well, I’ll likely be banging my head against the council chambers
wall but I think I will give my councilor a call and see just what he
has to say about it. You’d think that we aren’t the only citizens to
notice this activity but then again, as Carole pointed out, most of the
people in this neighbourhood are at work by 7am and likely don’t even
know that this senseless pavement scraping goes on!
That’s it for this week folks!
Thanks for tuning in and I’ll look forward to talking to you all again next week in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now … Greg
PS: Something To Think About>
“Gilligan’s Island” was first broadcast on TV 50 years ago!
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Have a good one..
the doug
The Fine Print!
The articles in these issues are the sole property of the persons writing them and should be respected as such.
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