Continuning story.....

Heather and I flew to Vancouver last Saturday and Barry picked us up ( A TAD LATE). We went directly to the Delta house (Mum and Dad's old house) and began to face the mess. We started with the garage.

We swept out spider webs and wasp bodies and some other unidentified corpses and started to shift the junk. We had moved a book case to the garage and began to set it up as a display for a garage sale. At the beginning we were quite liberal and anything we thought had even the smallest value went on the shelves. Towards the end of the day we had dug about 5 garbage bags of, for lack of a better word 'crap', that Mum had squirreled away and saved.
The book case quickly filled up and then we became very choosy. We binned more junk and the little old storage shed is filling up fast

Professional packers had been hired by the disaster rescue crew to store all of Mum and Dad's belongings until they could be placed back into the house. They didn't know at the time how glad we were that we had found a way for us to get the old folks out of the house and into an independent living arrangement. They were never going to move back in.

The garbage bags piled up...we soon had an unwieldy pile of 15 or so bags.
We were exhausted and went back to Barry's house to cook our dinner and collapse on the couch.

It rained and rained and rained and we blissfully slept like logs. First thing on Sunday morning we were up and off down the freeway back to the house in the rain. The garbage we had left in the driveway was soaked and heavy and had not shrunk overnight.

The days dragged on, one room after another we excavated a life time of stuff, squirrelled away into secret cupboards and boxes and bags and corners. We dragged, carried, shifted the stuff to the garage and slowly we assembled a thrift shop, junk store estate sale jumble sale garage sale out of 66 years of accumulated unnecessary stuff.

It was as if they were saving it for another life time. In the next life they will have lots of luggage straps and if the opportunity arises they have a chinese calculator ( the numbers are in chinese characters), they will be able to add up all of the dead razors and electrical cords.

As their bodies changed size the clothes that were no longer able to be worn were stored away. Not given away, who knows our parents might get younger and will once again be able to wear the hiking boots and north sea fisherman's coats.

A trip to the Calgary Wildlife Rehabilition Centre

We took a trip out to the Wildlife Centre in NW Calgary where our client Naomi works. She showed us around and we walked up to the corral where the little rescued deer were. One of them had been brought to the centre only moments after birth. When she arrived she hadn't even stood up yet. They are thriving there and are sharing their sanctuary with 2 little mule deer fawns who were too skittish to come out of the tall grass for us to see them..

Naomi feeds them goat's milk and treated them to some apples when we arrived. The fawns have unbelievably cute little faces and were fond of licking each other's mouths.

Fortunately they will soon become adolescents and will be eager to escape the confines of their safe enclosure and will reject any human contact.

But, for the moment we were visiting substitute moms and they allowed us to touch their warm sweet little bodies and pet their soft heads.

This little baby hare wouldn't look me in the eye. He tried to make himself invisible.
There was a new recruit volunteer starting when we arrived but the staff of two is pushed to maintain a hot line of over a hundred calls a day with rescue queries and new arrivals.

Ducklings of various ages and a mother.

The Centre operates out of a tiny little house way up on the NW end of the city by the Penitentiary, it obviously runs on shoe string budget and I am sure they would love to be the beneficiary of more generous donations.

Special Guest Post

I Think I did It This Time
by
Erin Morrow

I have packed everything in a box and placed all of those boxes together by the door. I have washed walls, floors, toilets, showers, curtains, shelves, floors behind shelves and everything in between, with the exception of Ashley's Room. My furniture has been taken apart and the screws and keys have been saved in a Ziploc and put in my purse. I have arranged for a small army of bussers, door guys and generally fantastic friends to lend a hand on Saturday. I hope to have a lot finished on Friday so that Saturday can turn into an un- packing party. There is not one belonging of mine that I have not dusted and packed carefully after deciding if it shall come with me or take the dumpster detour. I have sorted bins filled with hotel soap, hair bands, and grade 4 report cards. I thought ahead and packed a suitcase of clothes and toiletries to get me over the next couple of days. Every piece of clothing I own has been washed. I am sitting here writing in my underpants. I have had my hands in dust bunnies, floor cleaner, dust buffalos, Windex, dusT-rexs, ripping hot vinegar water. My hands have desiccated and peeled so badly I might have to move to a village in India next for advice on leprosy. My vacuum quit working and Ashley's mop sucks but that's okay, tonight I will sleep on the floor.I have never been this prepared for a move. I for one am pretty impressed with myself.

But Erin, what's the funny Angus twist? There's always a funny Angus twist!

So, I get home last night at 3:30am. I had packed and cleaned all day and then gone to work for 8:00pm. My hands have fallen victim to so many days of packing, cleaning, working. I am moisturizing every 10 minutes only to end up washing it off because of everything they do. So, I crawl into bed without even so much as the glow from the television (I packed it), I take my glasses off, turn over onto my side and rub my face with my hands. It hurt. My poor dry hands! I reached to the bedside table where I have been keeping my "moving time" toiletries and grab the tube to quench my hands. Its pitch dark but a squeeze a good size amount on to my hand and manage the lid back on without incident. I then eagerly rub my hands together, in between my fingers, all around my wrists, then... wait, thats weird this must be really old cream, it's not really slippy...Toothpaste.

I just need a hand taking the top of my wardrobe. I'm short.See you in the morning.

(There will be pics to follow)

3 on a couch

Sitting on the couch on the hottest day of the year so far. Ellen's big birthday and a trip to see her sister and bro in law.

Two sisters who haven't seen each other in a long time.

Blogging with Burgers

All this alliteration...I should write headlines for newspapers...wait, are there any newpapers anymore? I am eating my dinner dripping burger juice onto my keyboard and answering the flurry of e-mail that came in from my flocks of fan. The question of the day.. who are the people in my last blog post and how am I related to them?
Well, here is how, Auntie Ellen is my mother's sister. Wayne is her son, my cousin. Chris is Wayne's partner and Fran is their friend and neighbour in Manhattan. Oh yes,Walter belongs to Erin.
Now those with baited breathe can sigh with relief that the question is now answered.

Manhattanites Land in Calgary

thousands flee for their lives....well no, actually the NYers were welcomed with the usual burned sacrifice on the BBQ which is western hospitality. A round of visiting, and then a trip to Spruce Meadows. Then, because the search was still on for a cowboy, they took the beautiful scenic drive down the 'Cowboy Trail' (yes that is really the name of the road) to the historic Bar U ranch. They took a wagon ride and drank cowboy coffee in the shade of an old tree and I think they might have caught a glimpse of a cowboy or two.

Ellen and Fran

I had planned to be the scout and take them to see and touch a couple of real horses at Linda's place, but I still had the tail end of a filthy cold and I didn't want to risk infecting the holidaymakers.

This is my 'art shot' of Chris.

They arrived for our BBQ on the way back from the ranch and we certainly enjoyed catching up, as it has been over 4 years since we went to NYC. Wow, we really need to do that again.

(Walter and Chris)
My family and friends showed up to welcome the travellers and the weather was more than perfect on the deck and even the bugs and wind laid low

This great Rocky Mountain Adventure Tour is actually a 90th birthday trip for Ellen who is Wayne's mom. Ellen and Wayne share the same birth date. So Happy Birthday!!!

Ellen, Wayne, Chris and Fran

They left fairly early so that they could get a head start on their road trip. Wayne has certainly put a lot of thought into the itinerary and it sounds like fun. I hope they send me a lot of pics....hint hint.

Gee, I wonder who has to ride in the trunk....watch your fingers.

Shoes on the Side of the Road

Have you ever noticed the shoes on the side of the road? Often there is only a single shoe, rarely more than one at a time and most of them are on the right side. Ha! I guess that depends on which way you are driving.

What are the people who lose their shoes doing when they lose their shoes.? Are they changing shoes at the time and one escapes? Did they leave them on the top of the car when they got in and just took off without looking? Do they hang their feet out of the window and the shoes just fall off? Are they throwing their shoes at wildlife along the way?

Hmmm I wonder why it is shoes that people lose along the roadside, not hats. Hats they nail to fence posts. I never see belts, pants, pillows, lunch kits or cooking pots or neck ties. Just shoes.

We noticed lots of shoes when we drove out to the coast to do the big move. As you read in earlier posts to this blog, Dad managed to flood the old place creating an urgent redirection in their lives and an nonnegotiable move to a facility for elderly people. It was the best thing that had happened to them recently. We had long been trying to get them to get real and make the move, but ignorance breeds contempt and since they had never seen one of these places or visited their friends in one, they had no concept of what they were. The good news now is that they love it and wish they had done it years ago. Sigh!

Bro was sick, so sick that he couldn't get out of bed so H and I drove out in my new Vinny the Venza and we moved Mum and Dad into their new suite. That is; we hauled and sweated and were rained on and soaked and then parboiled in the heat. We couldn't have asked for more uncomfortable weather. I had visions of going for swims in Brenda and Barry's pool after each day, but there was really only one day that the weather drove us into the pool when the opportunity arose. We fell into bed each night and slept like logs. Only to get up at 6 the next morning and start all over again.

This is a pic of Mum in the rose garden of their new place. There are so many things to do and view there. The suite that they chose has a lovely little balcony which overlooks a fountain. This apartment is in an 'independant' living building. The building has a lovely dining room, music room, craft room, sports lounge, library etc. There are all sorts of services available to them from church services to bus trips and walks to shopping along the mainstreet of the lovely little village of Port Coquitlam. And best of all, it is only 3 minutes to Barry's house.

Mum is having afternoon tea in the lounge adjacent to the dining room.

Their furniture fits perfectly in their new suite.

We will be back out in a month, to finish sorting the house which Mum now refers to as the 'old barn'. At that time, Dad will have recovered from his cataract surgery. Yes, the date was accelerated to July 28th. We actually thought that it would be a year or more and had we gone with his dinosaur old eye doc it would have been months and months of waiting and wasting time.

Bro managed to get Dad in to see an eye surgeon just before we got there and insist that something be done for Dad.

Now, to get our parents to go to exercise classes and try to regain some strength and agility to prevent falls. That is the only exercise they have been getting lately, falling. And our exercise? Ripping back and forth and lugging furniture and shopping for the suite and driving in heavy traffic and taking Dad to dialysis. Everyone needs some peace and a deep breath.

Barry will be trucking on however, up to the building to pick up the fallen and off to dialysis every other day. I do hope he and Brenda get to spend some time together soon...alone.