Birthday Surprise

As my birthday was approaching, I talked to Laura and asked her if she was visiting me.  She said she sure was.

Then it was my birthday and no sign of Laura.  Barb was out playing pickleball.  I was looking at Facebook and saw some photos on Laura’s page about packing and heading for the airport.  I started looking at flights that she might have taken to Ottawa.  There were some early morning flights but then Laura would have been in Ottawa by now and she wasn’t.

Barb came home and wished me a happy birthday.  I said that I saw some funny posts on Laura’s Facebook.  Barb went out to the backyard and let Laura in the house by the back door to surprise me.

Half Price Half Cooked Hamburgers

Julia and Sarah and Barb went out The Works for dinner.  It is usually so good there.  However, this time there hamburgers were only half cooked.  They sent them back to be re-cooked but they were still raw when they got them back.  Then the manager gave them half price on the half cooked hamburgers and coupon for free hamburgers when they visited again.

Best Laid Plans

Laura had made complicated plans to travel to Montreal and Ottawa on her way to Vancouver to work at the end of the summer.  She was going to go to Montreal for a Metal concert.  Then take the train to Burlington where I would pick her up and take her to my ball tournament in Kitchener.  Then she would come back to Ottawa and go to another Metal concert.  Then hang out in Ottawa for a few days before heading back to Vancouver.

I was supposed to have a meeting up north with Max the week before the tournament in Kitchener.  Unfortunately, they postponed that meeting for a week so that now it feel right in the middle of my ball tournament.  When I told Laura that I wouldn’t be able to attend all of the ball tournament, she cancelled her plans.

Then Max's meeting was postponed again until September.  Now I was able to go the ball tournament.  Unfortunately, Laura told her work that she was available now and they scheduled her to work.  So she couldn’t change her plans back.

Bad Times in the Bathroom

When we got back from Florida, Barb was disgusted with the state of the shower in the bathroom.  She called a company to come and replace the shower stall but they were very busy and couldn’t come until August.  In the meantime, we had to live with the moldy baseboards under the shower stall.  We knew that we had problems when we found a mushroom growing out of the baseboard one morning.

When the guys finally came to replace the shower stall, they didn’t do a very good job.  The first thing we noticed was that they punched a big hole in the dining room ceiling when they put in the drain pipe.  They had to get their specialist to come and cut the pipe.

Then we had to wait for the caulking to dry.  I became the shower tester. The caulking wasn’t done right and they had to come back and fix it.  Then we waited for the caulking to dry again.

Then we noticed that they door wasn’t installed properly and water was pouring out under the door.  They came back and fixed that.

Then it was time to fix the rest of the bathroom.  We got our next door neighbor to put in new tile floor and baseboards.  Then Barb painted the walls and baseboards.  Now she is happy with the bathroom and it should last until we sell the place in a couple of years.

Barb’s Large Frame

Barb and her female partner went all the way to Windsor to play in a pickleball tournament.  It was a big event with lots of sports for seniors.  Barb and her partner won the women’s doubles.  They played in the finals against two sisters from Windsor who had never lost a game.  It was a big win.

At the banquet during the games, Barb was sitting with a group of friends from Cornwall.  Barb was saying that she and her partner had no competition.  The man sitting across the table from her said that Barb could hit the ball hard because she has a "large frame".

Daphne’s Whirlwind Tour

Daphne made some complicated plans to visit Sarah in Deep River for the weekend and then swing by Ottawa to visit Julia on Monday and Tuesday.  Then she was going to leave on Wednesday to visit a friend in Peterborough to play golf on the way home.

Sarah and Daphne hiked and canoed and stayed in a chalet in Algonquin Park.  They did some fishing and caught and cooked fish for dinner.

When Daphne was leaving Deep River, she checked the bikes on the bike rack of her car.  She put her wallet on the bumper.  Then she drove off and the wallet fell off the bumper in the parking lot of Tim Horton's.  Someone saw it and picked it up. When Daphne realized that she didn't have her wallet she went back to the Tim Horton's and looked for it.  She went inside to ask if anyone had turned it in but her wallet was gone. 

So when Daphne came to Ottawa, she had no money, no credit cards, no drivers license or identification.

I lent her some cash and Daphne started the process of cancelling her credit and bank cards.   

 

Daphne and Julia went on an bike ride adventure downtown.  They did yoga on Parliament Hill.  Then took a tour of the Parliament Buildings in French but skipped into the English tour part way through.  Then they went to GoodLife where Julia had a free pass for a “person and a guest”.  Apparently, neither of them needed to be a GoodLife member.

While Daphne was in Ottawa, the lady who found her wallet phoned Truman in Pike Lake and Truman emailed Daphne to tell her that her wallet had been found.  Unfortunately, Daphne didn’t see the email in time and had already started the process of replacing all of her cards.  Once the process was started it couldn't be stopped.

Sarah went and picked up the wallet from the lady in Deep River.  Then Sarah brought it back to Guelph later in the month to give to Daphne.

Daphne and the girls had a good time even though it was a whirlwind tour and there was the mishap with Daphne's wallet.

Impromptu Trip to Deep River

I was listening to my radio station and the DJ said after a song that the band that had just played was going to at Riverfest in Deep River this weekend.  I told Sarah about it and she asked me if I wanted to go.  I said “yes”.  So I started making plans.  Sarah was volunteering at Riverfest and playing in a beach volleyball tournament.  Barb had never been to Deep River.  So she thought it might be fun to go too.  Sarah said that Barb could join them in the beach volleyball tournament.  Barb contacted our friends from Florida who had a bed and breakfast in Deep River.  They were excited to have us visit but they had a family reunion that weekend.  They said that we could still come and use there guest house.

So we drove to Deep River on Friday night.  When we arrived Sarah was out volunteering at the Riverfest fireworks.  Barb was spooked out by the Convent residence that Sarah where was living.  We settled into the guest room at our friend's house.

The next morning Sarah picked up Barb and brought her to the beach for the volleyball tournament.  I came by in the afternoon.  Then in the evening, Barb and I went to the concert.  Barb really liked the guys who were the masters of ceremony.  They were called "The Arrogant Worms' and sang funny songs.

We sat in our lawn chairs beside another couple.  The lady said that Barb looked familiar.  It turned out that the lady was the daughter of the lady that Barb played pickleball with in Dartmouth, the same lady that Barb met at city hall during the pickleball demonstration last month.

We went up to the front for when "The Mounties" came on.  Sarah who was working the cash box in the beer tent came up too when she finished her shift.  She brought all of her friends from the residence.  Sarah said that Kevin was just like me.  Always reading self-help books and listening to books on CD.  He had seen Barb on Facebook and said that Barb’s hair looked better in real life.

The next day we had breakfast with our friends from Florida.  Then Sarah took us on a long drive through Algonquin Park to walk on the trails and see a cliff and then a lake.  It was hot so Barb and Sarah went swimming in their underwear.

Then on the way home, Barb and I saw a black bear on the side of the road.  After we drove by the bear nonchalantly crossed the highway.

It was memorable weekend.

Barb Email Challenged

Barb was watching the pickleball channel on Youtube.   

Then for some reason she wanted to look up how to spell “bachelor”.  Somehow she sent an email to the pickleball channel with only the word “bachelor”.   

They were nice enough to email back saying they didn’t understand her email.   

Barb is email challenged like I am text message challenged.

Pickleball Coincidence

There was a reception at city hall for Ottawa sports month.  Barb met the mayor.  She and her pickleball friends were shown up by the roller derby ladies who came in their roller derby uniforms.

Later that week, Barb and her friends did a pickleball demonstration outside city hall.  There very few people who came out to see them.  One lady who did come out said she knew about pickleball because her mother played.  Barb asked where her mother played.  The lady said Dartmouth.  Barb asked her mother’s name.  It turned out that Barb had met her mother the day before when she played pickleball in Dartmouth while we were visiting Laura.

Laura’s Eastern Canada Pole Competition

Laura decided to stay in Halifax this summer primarily to compete in the Eastern Canada Pole Competition.  She was working hard on her doubles routine with a boy from Atlantic Cirque.  She was very excited about competing.  Unfortunately, at the last minute her partner dropped out on her.  He said he had a family emergency and had to go home on the weekend of the competition.  Laura figured he had to go home because the family cat had died.

Laura had worked so hard on her doubles routine that she had neglected her solo routine.  Suddenly, her solo was her only routine and she had to develop her routine from scratch.

Barb and I flew to Halifax for the weekend.  We rented a car at the airport and drove to downtown Halifax.  We dropped in to see Laura at the studio.  When we got off the elevator and we were surprised to see Laura right outside the door.  Laura couldn’t talk to us long because she was working on her routine with an instructor.

We met Laura after leaving her studio but Laura had to work on her costume.  So we dropped her off at a friend’s house.

The next day was the competition.  Laura had to be at the casino, where the competition was being held, at noon.  So Barb drove her there in the morning over the bridge from Dartmouth to Halifax in hurricane winds.  Laura checked in and got her instructions about the competition.  Then she went to buy hair dye and makeup.  She dyed her hair in the washroom of the casino.

We went to the casino in the evening for the show.  We really enjoyed the pole dancing, the music and the lights.  There was a comedienne as a master of ceremonies who was very funny.

Laura was the very last person to perform.  She was in the professional division of the solo group.  We thought she did a terrific routine and she looked great in her costume and makeup.  It was funny that she was using the same music as another competitor but we didn’t notice.  She came fourth so was just out of the medals.  We didn’t understand what the judges were looking for.

Barb took some good pictures with her iPod.  I put one as the screen saver on my iPod as a memory.

Impromptu Trip to Halifax

Laura wanted us to come to Halifax to see her pole competition.  We thought about driving and realized it would be crazy to drive all that way for just a weekend.  So we booked a last minute flight on Porter Airlines.

Laura was busy rehearsing when we arrived.  So Barb and I went sightseeing.  The hills of downtown Halifax are crazy.  We parked at the top of the hill and walked down to the harbour where we had lunch.  It was a lovely warm day even though it was very windy.  There was supposedly a hurricane hitting Halifax that weekend.  We finished our sightseeing but Laura was still busy.  Since we were parked close to the Citadel, we decided to walk up to the Citadel and take some pictures of the hills down to the harbour.

Laura texted us while we were at the Citadel saying she was finished.  She asked where we were.  I am not good at texting and Barb didn’t have her glasses.  So I tried to text her back saying we were at the Citadel but only sent the word “The”.  Barb and I laughed and laughed.  Laura said "Nice Dad".

Laura was living in Dartmouth in a mansion of a house.

On Saturday, Laura had her competition.  So we didn’t see her much.  But in the evening after the competition Laura and I watched Moneyball.  Laura thought it was just like the way I study fastball.

On Sunday morning, Barb went to play pickleball in Dartmouth.  In the afternoon, we all went to see the Tattoo at the Arena.  Afterwards, we went down to the harbour for dinner.  Then we spent a long time talking to a lady with a great dane.  We hung around outside the Jazz Festival talking to Laura's good friend Benham.

On Monday, morning we drove around Halifax and Dartmouth to see all the places where Laura had lived.

We dropped into Tour Tech where Laura worked full-time.  We met her big boss.  He was a really interesting self-made man.  He said Laura was doing a great job with her lighting.  Laura showed us around the place.  There seemed to be a large number of eccentric people who worked there.  So Laura fit in well.

Then we went next door to see where she does acrobatics with Atlantic Cirque.  There was an awkward moment when Laura saw her pole partner who stood her up at the pole competition.

Before we left to come home, we went to the old NSCAD building to see where Laura did her art.  It is a really neat old building with a lot of sneaky passageways.   

Then we drove to the airport and dropped off the rental car.  Laura and I had icecaps and Barb had a café mocha’s at the Tim Horton’s in the airport.  By the time we got through security, the airline was calling our name to board the plane.  We were that last people to board the plane before they closed the gate.  Our seats were also at the back of the plane.  So everyone on the plane saw us coming in late.

Honesty in Oil Changing

Barb was very impressed by Mr Lube.  She took the car in for an oil change.  The man at Mr Lube gave her a newspaper and a coffee.  He checked her oil and told her she didn’t need an oil change yet.  Usually, the men at Mr Lube try to sell her things she doesn’t need.  They must be turning over a new leaf.

More Fastball Frustrations

As captain of my team in the Glen Cairn Men's Fastball League, I have to find spares if we will be short of players for a game.  We were down to six players one night.  I spent the whole day trying to find three spare players.  I emailed and phoned everyone on the team lists before I finally found three players for the 6:30 game.  Then when I got to the diamond at 6 o'clock, I found out the other team wasn’t going to show up.  What a drag!

Radar Chick

As the scheduler for my two fastball leagues, I have to be close to my computer on any days which might have rain.  Barb and I spend a lot of time looking at the radar on the computer trying to predict whether it will rain at game time.  If we think it will rain at 6:30, I have to call the captains and the umpires to cancel the game by 5 pm so that the league doesn’t have to pay for the umpires and the field.

I call Barb "radar chick" and always ask her opinion on the radar information.

One day Roger, a captain in the Trend Arlington league, called me around 4 pm suggesting the game that night should be cancelled because of rain.  Barb thought he was crazy.  She thought the rain would stop and the field would be fine by game time.  I drove to the diamond to check it out.  It wasn’t bad.  However, he convinced me to cancel the game.

The rest of the players in the league thought I had made a terrible mistake.  The rain did stop and the sun came out and dried the field.  I realized later why Roger wanted to cancel the game so bad was because he couldn’t field a team and didn’t want to default.

Emails from the Pickleball Ambassador

Barb and I get a laugh out of the emails the pickleball Ambassador sends out to everyone in the pickleball community.  They are very long and detailed.  She tries to micromanage things to the greatest extent we have ever seen.  She treats the pickleballers like children.

She organized a pickleball meeting at a church in Westboro.  She included a detailed description of the neighbourhood.  She told everyone where they could buy a cup of coffee and a snack (there were two or three places) and where they could have lunch if they wanted to (there were different places depending on what you wanted to eat and how much you wanted to spend).  Then she said you can either eat before the meeting or bring your lunch or snacks to the meeting.  There will be tables set up in the meeting room. 

Barb was laughing at first.  Later, she was just annoyed.

Barb went to the meeting and got roped into being on executive committee of the Pickleball Association.  So now she will get more emails like this one.

Barb’s Pickleball Frustrations

Barb played in a few pickleball tournaments this summer in Southern Ontario.  She was particularly frustrated with her partners.  In one tournament, her women’s doubles partner took some Benadryl before the finals because of a small injury.  When the game started, her partner was too spaced out to play.  Barb didn’t know what was wrong with her.  She thought her partner was nervous and choked.  When she found out her partner had taken Benadryl before the finals, she was very frustrated.

In another tournament, her mixed doubles partner took the first game of the round robin to warm up.  They lost and since only the first place team in the round robin advanced, they were eliminated from the playoffs.  Barb didn’t know if she was more frustrated with her partner or with the tournament format.

Barb in the Garden of Eden

I like to take afternoon walks.  Usually I walk somewhere such as the library or a store or the bank.  But if I have no place specifically to go, I walk on the bike path along the railway tracks.

Barb and Julia decided to go for a walk today.  Julia liked to walk along the trail in the Jack Pine conservation area.  Barb and Julia went out at around 4 pm.  They drove to the trail.  I was surprised when they were back after a few minutes.  Barb said the mosquitoes on the trail ate her and Julia alive.

So they decided to walk on the bike path along the railway tracks.  Barb was really impressed that such a nice walking area was so close to home.  It was shady from all the trees and there were lots of people out walking their dogs.  Barb said it was like the Garden of Eden.

Julia Garage Sale Finds

Julia found a shelf, table, cupboard and filing cabinet at a garage sale.  We had them in the garage for most of the summer.  Then we cleaned up and threw out the cupboard, the table and the filing cabinet.

Barb found the shelf unit to be very useful for her fabric.  So she kept it.

Julia also found a free lawnmower at a garage sale.  Barb thought it was great.  She threw out our lawnmower even though the used lawnmower, Julia got at the garage sale, was older than the one we had.  The newer old lawnmower had broken wheels that Julia and the next door neighbour tried to fix but couldn’t.  So Barb was very happy to get a new older lawnmower and Julia was very proud of her find.

Sarah Comes Back to Life

Sarah’s iPhone was broken.  So she borrowed an iPad from a roommate.  Unfortunately, it slipped out her hand one of the first days she had it.  The iPad landed on the kitchen floor and the screen broke.  That made her life even worse.

Meanwhile, I was busy researching how to break into an iPhone to get Ali’s sister’s iPhone transferred to Sarah.

Sarah came home for the weekend. 

Barb and Sarah spent some time talking to people at the Apple store about transferring Ali’s sister’s phone but found out that it was impossible unless Ali’s sister could remember her Apple password.  Ali’s sister somehow had a different password for that iPhone because the Apple people verified the password Ali’s sister was using worked.

I worked hard but wasn’t able to break into the iPhone because of the new security system that comes with the latest operating system.  There were instructions on how to break into the old operating system.  So I tried to re-install the old operating system. You needed a very old installation of iTunes and if you re-installed the old version of iTunes on your computer you would lose all your music and podcasts.  Since Barb’s computer didn’t have iTunes, I installed the old version of iTunes there but still had no luck.

That night Sarah’s iPhone mysteriously started working again. 

She was back in business.

Barb went to a computer repair shop in the morning and had the screen replaced on her roommate’s iPad.

So Sarah no longer wanted to kill herself.  It is amazing how technology now controls us.

Sarah’s iPhone Nightmare

Sarah drove from Deep River to Kitchener for Ali’s sister’s wedding.  She had a couple of other students with her who she dropped off in Toronto.   

There was a lot of last minute coordination required.  The wedding party used their iPhones so much that all their batteries died.  So Sarah let them use her iPhone.  Sarah had a good time at the wedding. But after the wedding, Sarah’s iPhone died too but it wasn’t the battery.  It was really dead.

Sarah was in a mess because she had to get hold of the people she was driving back to Deep River to tell them she was running late.  She had their phone numbers on her broken iPhone.  She eventually sent a Facebook message to her roommate in Deep River to get their phone numbers.

 

She was very upset because her whole life was on that phone.  Sarah borrowed Ali’s sister’s old iPhone but she couldn’t get it transferred over because Ali’s sister had forgotten her Apple password.

With a severe lack of sleep from the wedding and a disastrous broken iPhone, she told Barb when she got back to Deep River that her life was over.

Frustrations with Recreational Fastball

This year I am the captain of a team in the Glen Cairn Men’s Fastball League.  We have a mediocre team and it is a lot of work and frustration running the team.

One of the things that I had trouble with was running the team for the league tournament.  There were a few guys who couldn’t make the tournament that weekend.  So for the Friday night game we only had nine players.  We were winning 10-0 in the fifth inning and were up to bat.  Our shortstop struck out looking.  He drew a line on the ground indicating where he thought the pitch had been thrown.  The umpire gave him a warning.  As he was walking to the dugout, the umpire told him that, if he said one word, he would be thrown out the game.  He turned and smiled at the umpire and the umpire threw him out the game.

We tried to continue the game with eight players.  However, the captain of the opposing team said we must default the game because, if we start with nine players, we must end the game with nine players.  The umpires said that this was a gentleman’s league and that rule might not apply.  However, the captain went and got the league president, who came over to the diamond, and said the rule did apply.  So the game was over and we lost 10-0.

I was furious and Barb was fit to be tied when I told her later in the evening.

The next day we were playing a close game.  In the last inning with the score tied, our second baseman fielded a ground ball with a runner on third base and, instead of throwing home, threw to first and let the winning run score.  He said he didn’t know the score at the time.

In our final game of the round robin on Saturday afternoon, both of our pitchers couldn’t make it because they were in a wedding party.  So I started a fellow on the team who said he had pitched as a kid.  He allowed 10 runs in the first inning.  In the second inning, I went in to pitch.  I held the score down but we got mercied 13-0.   

Since we lost all of our round robin games, we didn’t make the playoffs.  If we had not lost the first game by default, we would have qualified for the B playoffs.

Sarah’s Birthday Present

Sarah needed a car.  So Barb got on the internet and started looking around Ottawa for Sarah.  Barb found a used Honda Civic being sold privately by a little Indian lady.  The lady was moving to the United States to be with her husband who had moved there for work.

Sarah paid for the car but Barb paid for the licence plates and the ownership transfer as a birthday present to Sarah.  Sarah got the car on Father’s Day.  She drove Barb and me to CORA’s to celebrate Father’s Day and the new car.

Then Sarah and I washed the car inside and out before she drove it back to Deep River.

Sarah Snubbed

One night during a rained out fastball game, I went out for coffee with David Waller.  I had just finished reading a book from the library called “The Neutrino Hunters”.  So I wanted to talk to him about all that I had learned.  He is a neutrino physicist by the way.

While we were talking, I mentioned that Sarah was working in Chalk River at the Atomic Energy lab.  I knew David’s work project had moved there from Carleton University.  David said he was going to Chalk River the next day to show his new summer research assistant the project.

I told him to call Sarah when he got there and Sarah would meet him to say hi.  He never did.  Sarah had been waiting for his call.  So Sarah felt snubbed and no longer likes David Waller.

Barb and the Nationals

Barb and her female pickleball partner were last year’s Senior Games Eastern Ontario Champions.  So they qualified for the National Senior Games which were held in Edmonton this summer.  Barb thought her partner wanted to go and her partner thought Barb wanted to go.  It turned out the neither of them particularly wanted to go.  It was going to be very expensive to fly to Edmonton and stay in a hotel for a few days.  Also, she didn’t think there was going to be any competition.  Barb is not into just playing tournaments for the prestige of winning.  She wants to play good games.  She finds that her group in Ottawa is so good that she doesn’t need to travel to get good competition.  So in the end, they didn’t go to the Nationals in Edmonton.

Router with a Mind of Its Own

When I got back from Florida, I disconnected the desktop computer in the basement because it had a Windows XP operating system.  Microsoft was no longer supporting Windows XP.  I had read that there were hackers waiting to attack the XP computers.

The old XP computer had a printer hooked to it that the other computers in the house could access through the home network.  So I decided to buy a new router with a USB port to hook up the printer to the router.  Then we wouldn’t have to bring our computers downstairs and hook them up to the printer directly if we wanted to print something.

I plugged the printer into the new router.  I made sure all of the computers in the house could access the printer.  I thought everything was good.  So I stacked the printer with paper before I went to bed.  The next morning while I was sleeping, Barb decided to use the printer.  She wanted to print one page.  When she went downstairs to get her page, the printer was printing the page over and over again.  She turned off the printer and turned it back on. It started printing the page again.  So she took all the paper out of the printer and it stopped because it ran out of paper.

When I got up, the first thing I had to do was figure out why the printer wouldn’t stop printing.  There was an obscure checkbox that needed to be clicked off on the setup screen of the printer.  When I clicked it off, the printer worked properly.

A few weeks later, Barb couldn’t access her live.ca email on her laptop.  She could access it on her iPod.  I couldn’t access her email on my laptop either.  I tried my hotmail account on her computer and didn’t have the problem.  So I thought it was something wrong with live.ca.  I tried to get help from Microsoft but they only support the hotmail accounts that you pay for. 

I phoned Rogers to see if they could help.  The first person I talked to couldn’t help me.  Then I got on a Rogers help desk chat line.  The lady took control of my computer.  She found the problem was the router.  When I hooked the computer directly to the Rogers box, I had no problem accessing live.ca.  Fortunately, I still had my old router and was able to hook it up again.  It worked fine for live.ca.

I tried to take the router back to the store where I bought it.  They wouldn’t believe me that the router could have a problem with just one website and not with any others.  They also said that my 30 day return policy had just run out and they wouldn’t refund my money. 

So I brought the router home.  I decided to try to hook it up again.  This time it had no trouble with live.ca.  But now I couldn’t seem to get the printer working through the router.  So we have the new router again but have to bring our computers downstairs and hook them up to the printer directly to print things out.  Maybe next year, I will try to get it all working properly with the new router.

Too Many Starbucks

I meet with my friend, Tony, for coffee about once a month.  We usually meet at a Starbucks on the corner of Hunt Club and Merivale in the parking lot of Rona.

When I arranged to meet with Tony this month, he said he would meet me at the Starbucks on Hunt Club in the Lowe’s parking lot.  I didn’t realize this wasn’t the same place we usually meet.

I drove to the old Starbucks at the right time and waited there for a half hour.  Tony didn’t show up.  So I walked around the parking lot to check that this was the right place.

Then I got in my car and was going to drive home.  Instead, I drove around the area to see if there was another Starbucks anywhere.  I drove around and around making U-turns all over the place; up and down Hunt Club and up and down Merivale. 

Finally, I drove further East down Hunt Club and found the Lowe’s with the Starbucks in the parking lot.  I couldn’t believe that there was another Starbucks so close to the other one that we used to go to.  Fortunately, Tony was still there and we had an abbreviated coffee.

Laura in Deep River

Laura likes to stay busy.  So I had made a number of plans for us.  One of the plans was to take her up to Deep River to see Sarah during the week that she was visiting.  Unfortunately there was some miscommunication and Sarah didn’t know we were coming.  Sarah was going out for dinner with her friends from the residence the night we came to visit.  They were saying goodbye to one of the guys who was leaving at the end of the term.  Sarah really didn’t have time for us.  But she invited us to dinner with all of her friends at a local Mexican restaurant.  Then after dinner, she played the good host and showed Laura around Deep River.

A couple of days later, Laura and I drove to Deep River again to pick up Sarah and bring her back to Ottawa for the weekend.  There was no need to drive to Deep River during the week.

Laura’s Passport Problem

Laura decided to go to New York for her birthday then visit us on the way back to Halifax.  

First, though, she had to find her passport.  She didn’t realize that she needed her passport until the last minute.  Then she couldn’t find it.  She had packed up all of her stuff.  A friend took all the stuff to a farm out of town and put in a storage shed.  Laura doesn’t have a car in Halifax.  So she had to get a ride to her friend’s house.  She and her friend’s boyfriend searched the shed, unpacking all of her stuff, throwing it around the shed.  They finally found the passport.  Then she had to rush to the airport to make her flight.

Laura had a complicated itinerary.  She flew from Halifax to New York where she stayed with a friend from NSCAD who had already graduated and was working as an artist in New York.  She stayed there for a few days. Then she took an overnight bus from New York to Ottawa and Barb picked her up at the bus station early in the morning.  She stayed with us for a week.  Then she went back to Halifax with a friend and her friend's boyfriend by car.  I dropped her off at her friend’s boyfriend’s mother’s house in Orleans on the night before she went back.

A Dream that Almost Became Reality

Sarah was getting a ride from Deep River with one of the other student’s sister.  However, they would be going to Carleton Place which is 45 minutes away from Barrhaven. Barb and Ivan would have to drive there and pick her up late on Friday night.

Barb spent the evening on Google Maps trying to find the best route to Carleton Place from Barrhaven.  Barb didn’t want Sarah to have to wait while her and Ivan drove there.  So Barb tried to reach Sarah to find out where she was and when she would be arriving in Carleton Place so that Barb and Ivan could meet her there when she arrived.

Sarah wasn’t answering her phone calls from Barb.  Barb asked Ivan if they should just start driving to Carleton Place.  As usual Ivan didn’t have an opinion.  Finally, Barb got in touch with Sarah, Barb asked her where she was.  Sarah told Barb she was in Barrhaven and would be home in a few minutes.

It turned out the girl’s family lived in Bell’s Corners in West Ottawa only a few minutes from Barrhaven.  Carleton Place was all a dream.  Barb was very happy she hadn't convinced Ivan to start driving to Carleton Place to meet Sarah.

Saved by The Family Man’s Daughter

With all the things that were going on, Ivan forgot his wedding anniversary for the first time in 28 years.  Fortunately, he was saved by Barb’s good memories of the movie The Family Man in which the Nicholas Cage character supposedly forgot his wedding anniversary and he was helped out the hole he was in by a four year old with a funny voice.  Although, Ivan felt bad, warm memories of The Family Man movie helped Barb forgive him.