With all the woes of the Covid-19 lockdown, I think it’s time to celebrate our little triumphs. And some of the bigger ones as well.
- Project #1: Top of my list is revealed in the picture above. It took me a whole month for one little project, but I trashed my old bathtub and replaced it with a full-sized shower. I’m no tiling expert, but my next-door neighbor, Devon, is a high-end tiling craftsman, and he mentored me through it. He would come to my house, I’d have the door open, he’d come in, touching nothing, take a look and advise me on how to do the next step. Between him and YouTube how-to videos, I know I was at least heading in the right direction when I started screwing up. Which I did a couple of times, but you wouldn’t know by the finished product. The real nice part of it was that Devon gave me all the tile, from his store of leftovers from projects he has done. I have no idea how much that was worth, because he does some pretty high-end work.
- Associated triumph? Because I’m a senior and it made my home a safer place, the $2500 I spent is tax deductible.
- Bottled the Wine: We get wine from a hobby brews operation, and our next 60 bottles were due to come out of the carboy. It worked slick as anything. Rob, the owner, met us at the door with a sanitized trolley. I put the boxes of bottles on it. He wheeled it through the door. He had a space taped out on the floor around the bottling apparatus. I cleaned the bottles. He dumped the labels out of their bag on the counter in front of Linda, and she put them on. I stepped outside the line, he came in and started the machine going. I stepped back in and filled the bottles, Linda capped them. The only time the system faltered was at the end of each batch, when he touched our last bottle to put the funnel in to finish off the last cupful in the bottom of the carboy. But he washed his hands in bottle-cleaning solution before and after, and we won’t touch those bottles for a couple of weeks. I punched the buttons on the VISA machine with my closed penknife, loaded the boxes back in the car, and left without touching a thing in his shop except the floor with the soles of my shoes.
- Take-Out Dinner: Similar experience with White Spot online ordering. I show up, park in a designated slot. The waiter comes out and I give him my name. He comes back with the order, I open the back window and he puts the bag in, and I drive away. At home, I take the cartons out of the bag and dump them on plates, put the cartons in the dishwasher and the bag in the recycling, then wash my hands and have supper. Hint: this works best with pasta-style dishes, which you can nuke up if you want them hot and super bug-free.
- Dog Walking: I walk Josh twice a day. One hour with just the two of us, half an hour with Linda. During that time, we never touch anything. Once in a while someone wants to pet Josh, and I don’t worry too much about it. Their need is more than mine. Everyone keeps their distance except for that. Now, if they’d only open more access to the beach…
- Biggest Triumph of the Decade: Assault Rifle Control: Despite the expected outcry from the bullies and cowards whose self-confidence is so low that they need a murder weapon to cope with their daily life, the Liberals came through. As Trudeau said, a gun meant to kill people as quickly as possible has no place in our society. An Angus Reid poll suggests 80% of Canadians are in favour, and I’d guess a good number of the opposers support the idea, but don’t like how it was laid out.
The Downers:
- Everything I have heard from the gun lobby. Typical comment? “Everyone is becoming less safe because of it.” Sorry, lady, everyone is less safe because of your violent ethos. I hate to say it, but I want to keep my gun as long as there’s a group of organized idiots with assault rifles out there threatening the peace whether they’re in Michigan or Manitoba. They’re the reason I don’t feel safe. How far can you distance yourself from those guys? My guess is, not very far. They’re just over the Canadian border, and I don’t only mean physical proximity. This group will never learn, never change their minds. Future generations will have to calm the fears of the cowards and control the bullies until they gradually die out like the social dinosaurs they are.
- Now that Project #1 is over, I really miss the motivation. All the little maintenance jobs around the house just don’t have the same kick. I mean, spring has advanced to the point I have to mow my lawn every five days, but that doesn’t really turn my crank as an accomplishment. Maybe I’ll clean the attic next. That’ll take about a month.
- I was going to sell my 2009 Mazda 5, but it’s really hard to do a test drive without getting in the car with a stranger! Anybody needing good transport for cheap let me know.
And maybe I’ll spend some time preparing for the future. Next week: The New World as it Never Used to Be.