Happy Matchmaker

We decided to go the New Year’s Eve dance.  Barb went down to Monday Bingo to buy tickets on the first day that they went on sale and found they were all sold out by the time she got there.  She was told to post on Facebook that she was looking for tickets.

The day before New Year’s Eve someone posted on Facebook that they couldn’t go to the dance and were selling their tickets.  So Barb arranged to buy their tickets.  In fact, the lady said that they had reserved a whole table and all of the people at the table were sick and wouldn’t be going.

So we went to the dance and sat with table of strangers.  We met a nice older lady, who wanted to dance but didn’t have anyone to dance with.  So Barb asked her friend Ron Hines, who was recently widowed, if he would dance with her.  And he did. I even saw him give her his card.  Barb was a happy matchmaker.

Late Christmas Present for Daphne

I often go to the pool after my softball game.  I bring my iPod and hook into the office wifi to read my email.

One day, I went down to the pool with Sarah. We went swimming for about a half an hour. Then when we got out and were towelling off, I noticed that I had had my iPod in the pocket of my swimming trunks the whole time we were in the pool.  I was very upset but I knew not to turn on the iPod.  I knew I would have to let it dry out and even then it might not work again.

Fortunately, I had a backup iPod but the menu button on the backup was broken.  Sarah came to the rescue and put a virtual button on the touch screen for me.  It worked fine but I was always pushing the broken menu button instead of the virtual button and wondering why it wasn’t working.

We put my waterlogged iPod in a bag of rice because we heard that that sometimes works to dry out a wet iPod.  We waited for a week and tried it out but it didn’t work.  So we put it back in the rice bag and waited another week.

Finally, we gave it one more try I turned the iPod on and it worked but there was some water damage on the screen.  After a few days, even the water damage on the screen dried out and the iPod was as good as ever.

By this time, Barb had bought me a new iPod on eBay.  She originally bought it because the battery on my old iPod was so bad.  It couldn’t even hold a charge for a day.

So now, I had three iPods, my new one, my old one with the bad battery and the one with the broken menu button.  Daphne had been hoping to get a camera for Christmas but she didn’t get one.  So I gave her my dried out iPod with the bad battery and told her she would need to charge it every night.  She was happy about it and now enjoys texting and reading email and Facetime and taking pictures with it.

Not Good at Selfies

On the spur of the moment, Steve Woodward from Barrhaven emailed Barb and told us that he and his wife would be travelling from Orlando to Fort Lauderdale and would like to drop in to see us.

They arrived in the afternoon of New Year’s Eve and we showed them around the house and had a nice chat.  Then we drove them around the park on our neighbour’s golf cart.  Then we said goodbye and they left.

Afterwards, Barb thought how neat it would have been to have taken a selfie with them and posted it on Facebook.  I guess we are just not selfie thinking people.

Avoiding an Accident

When we dropped Laura off at the airport, we went to Costco in Orlando.  We had dinner before we went shopping and they give you unlimited refills for your drinks.  So when we were going through the check out, I went and filled our drink glass again.  I came back to help Barb with the bags and put my full cup of Pepsi on the counter where the groceries were.  Then I lifted the bag of groceries right over the glass and put it in the cart.  It was a heavy bag and I had to lift it quite high to get it over the glass with the straw sticking out.  Later, I thought how lucky I was that I noticed the glass was there.  I could have knocked the glass over with the grocery bag and spilt the Pepsi all over the counter where the groceries go.  The workers would have been furious at me, not to mention all the people waiting in the check out line as they would have had to wait until we cleaned it all up.

Touchpad

Every Monday night, I Skype with Stan.  I was Skyping with him and I was telling him about my Christmas presents.  I told him the story about Sarah using my computer and getting frustrated with my mouse because it was unresponsive.  I told Stan that she bought me a new mouse for Christmas and now I can use my computer a lot better.

I told him that my touchpad on my computer never worked.  He said that there is an alt-key combination to toggle the touchpad on and off.  I tried it and it worked great.  All this time, I thought the touchpad was broken but I had just never turned it on.

Barb Pulls an Edwina

Barb and Sarah had problems figuring out the front and rear burners on the stove.  Over the holidays, they both put on a wrong burner and burned one of the nice covers for the burners.  So Barb decided to throw the covers out.

A few days later, I filled a cup of coffee for Barb while she was out at knitting and placed it on the stove.  While I was doing the dishes, I leaned against the stove and the cup fell over. The full cup of coffee went down the burners on the stove and I had to take the burners out and spent about a half hour mopping the coffee out with a dish cloth.

When Barb came home, I told her and she replied at least it wasn’t down the side of the stove.  I told her that she just pulled an Edwina looking on the bright side.

Barb Directing Traffic

We go to the beach on Santa Maria Island on Christmas Day with Daphne and Truman.  When we got there, we found Truman and neither he nor I could find a parking space.  Fortunately, Barb is an expert at crowded parking lots because she shops at Costco all the time.  So Barb found a spot for our car by waiting for someone who was leaving.  Then she got out and directed traffic so that she could find a spot beside us for Truman.

Singing on Skype

Every year, we Skype with Julia on Christmas Eve.  Julia showed us all our old Christmas decorations she had put up in her apartment.  Then we talked to her and Dillon for a while.  Then Dillon played his guitar and sang a song that he made up about our conversation.  He also played and sang some songs and he wanted me to guess what the names of the songs were.  He was a pretty good guitar player and singer.

Then Julia went to her room and to sing Christmas Carols.  We put some karoke on my computer and we hooked up Julia on Skype on the television.  We tried to sing Christmas Carols but because of the transmission delay in Skype Julia was one beat late.  We would end a line and then Julia would come in one beat later and end the same line.  It was hilarious.  We repeated the song ourselves to show Julia what she sounded like to us.  We laughed and laughed.

Following Santa

We were coming home on Christmas Eve from my sister’s house in Marsha’s golf cart.  Barb was delivering Christmas cards to people in the park who had given us cards.  It turned out that as we were driving around we were following Santa in a golf cart.  He was smoking a big cigar and had just come from a party.  He complained that he was really hot in his Santa suit.

Accepting the Blame

I put my can of root beer on the carpet in the living room and got up and went to the bathroom.  While I was up, Sarah was on the couch bouncing the volleyball on the floor.  It rolled away slowly from her, hit my root beer can and knocked it over.  Everyone was screaming and I thought that I had spilled the root beer but it wasn’t my fault.  I was taking the blame again.

Racing Trucks

I was driving us to Hen Scratch Farm for a sight seeing trip and coming out the gate of the park, I waited for a truck to drive past before I drove out and turned left.  Barb got mad at me because she thought the truck was far enough down the road that I could have pulled out safely.

Later, we were driving on the back roads to Hen Scratch Farm and I was turning right.  There was a truck down the road but I pulled out.  The truck came roaring up to my back and I had to step on it and accelerate quickly so it didn’t hit me.  Barb got mad at me for accelerating so fast.  I told her about the truck behind me and said I only turned because got mad at me last time for not turning in front of a truck. 

The truck passed me and I could slow down to a normal speed.  We could then laugh about it.

Laura in a Hurry

Laura wanted to know the password for the router when she got to our house.  I thought I had written the password, which was stupid complicated, down on one of my little slips of paper.  So I got out all the little slips of paper out of my pocket and looked at every one of them one at time.  There were about 40 slips of paper.  Laura was getting antsy and I asked her if she was in a hurry.  Eventually I had gone through all my papers and didn’t find the password.  I told her she could look at the bottom of the router and find it.

Shaq

I was at the airport to pick up Laura by myself because Barb and Sarah went to the knitting club Christmas party.  As I was waiting around the gates, this big black guy walked by wearing sunglasses.  He looked familiar.  Later, he was standing right beside me without his sunglasses on and I recognized him as Shaquille O’Neill, the famous basketball player, who played for the Orlando Magic.  I should have pulled out my iPod and taken a picture of him or maybe better a selfie standing beside him but I didn’t think of it.  Aside from being 7 feet tall, he looked just like another lost traveller with a knapsack.

Facebook Settings

Barb got me a new iPod because the battery on my iPod was so poor.  Sarah was setting it up for me using my computer.  She said to Barb now she can hack my Facebook.  She looked at my Facebook page and noticed all these posts I had made that she never saw.

She decided to check my settings and found I had a setting so my posts would only be seen by Barb.  Sarah had been wondering why I never posted anything on Facebook.  She looked back at earlier posts to find out when the setting had been changed.  It turned out I had had that setting for the past 3 years. 

She went through each of my posts and read them to me and then said zero likes or one like depending if Barb had liked it.  Sarah and I were in hysterics but Barb was almost in tears because she asked me what I thought about no one liking my posts. I told her I thought no one liked me but it was really because no one ever saw them. 

Barb never noticed that no one else saw them because she always saw them.  I once mentioned to her that no one ever liked my posts but she didn’t think that there might have been a problem.  She thought I should have been more upset and complained more how no one ever liked my posts. 

Sarah changed my settings and now all my friends can see my posts.  The she posted a long statement about the problem and one of her friends that knows about me was quick to comment typical Ivan.

Old Guy’s Softball

Barb and Sarah came to watch one of my exhibition games at the ballpark.  Unfortunately, they got there late and didn’t see my big hit.  They did see me make about five catches in the outfield and they saw me pinch run for the older guys. 

The game came down to the last inning with the score was tied and the opposition up to bat.  There were bases loaded and two out.  The ball was hit to the old guy who was playing the rover position right beside second base.  All he had to do was touch second base and the game would have ended in a tie.  Everyone on our team was yelling at him to touch second base. Instead, he threw the ball to first base and it was a bad throw.  The runner was safe and the runner from third scored and we lost the game 13-12.  Sarah got to see how bad the old guys play softball.

Marsha’s Neighbour’s Bike

Barb’s friend Marsha was going away for Christmas and we were having Sarah and Laura visit for Christmas.  So Barb asked Marsha if we could borrow her bike.  Marsha phoned me and told me that she would leave the bike outside of her house for us to come over and get it when we needed it.

When Sarah arrived we went over to Marsha’s house, there were two bikes in the driveway.  We didn’t know which one to take.  So Barb went over to the neighbour’s house and knocked on the door.  The neighbour said that the bike that we wanted to take was his bike.  He had put it in Marsha’s driveway while the people were washing his house.  It was lucky we asked because we could have taken the neighbour’s bike.

We didn’t like Marsha’s ten speed racing bike.  So Barb eventually borrowed two bikes from another friend.

Upside Down Cup

There was a mosquito in the house that I noticed when we were going to bed.  Barb goes to bed before me and reads and I stay up to work on my computer and listen to my radio station on Barb’s computer.

When I was getting ready for bed, I noticed the mosquito was on the bottom of the glass that we have in the bathroom for brushing our teeth.  I didn’t know what to do because I couldn’t get at him to kill him.  So I just turned the glass on its head and trapped the mosquito in the cup.

Barb wakes up before me in the morning.  When she went into the bathroom, she noticed the glass turned upside down.  She thought I was losing it.  She turned over the cup and noticed the mosquito in it.  Somehow she was able to kill the mosquito but we had been safe for the night with the mosquito in the house that was all I was hoping for.

Good Timing

I was just about to head out to the library to pick up a book for Barb that was on hold.  Barb was on hold with CIBC Securities waiting to make a contribution to her TFSA.  She finally got through and was about to make a contribution but the guy from CIBC Securities got confused and thought she was making a contribution to her RRSP.  Fortunately, I was still home and overheard this and told Barb, no it was to her TFSA.  If she had accidently contributed to her RRSP, there would have been terrible trouble with the CRA.

Sarah’s Picture

Barb got a lot of birthday wishes from her friends on Facebook but Sarah’s was the best.  Sarah calls Barb her cheerleader because Barb used to go to her volleyball games and there is a popular song on the radio called “Cheerleader” that Sarah and Barb like.

Sarah found a picture of Barb at one of her volleyball games.  Barb was in the stands and I guess Sarah’s team must have just won the game because Barb was standing with her arms raised high over her head with a big smile on her face.  It was absolutely typical Barb.

Singing to Barb

The Christmas party was a big disappointment.  They ran out of food before everyone was served.  Fortunately, we got served early and got some food but we sat with two other couples that Barb knew.  Not only were they grumpy, they left very early, right after they ate. 

Fortunately, we were also sitting with a couple who were very nice.  The lady was from Barb’s knitting night and the husband was a former president of the Home Owner’s Association.

About 12 of our friends snuck up behind Barb and sang Happy Birthday.  The lady we were sitting with asked me why I didn’t tell her it was Barb’s birthday.

Just In Time Delivery

We had the Christmas party on the same day as Barb’s birthday.  Barb is always complaining that she has nothing to wear to the parties in the park.  Today she was lucky enough to get a shirt in the mail that she had ordered that would be perfect for the Christmas party.  Another reason Barb loves the US Postal Service.

Ticketgate

We decided to go to the Christmas party that was being hosted by the Crystal Lake Management.  We didn’t have tickets but found someone who had bought tickets and could no longer go.  The tickets were free.  So the lady brought the tickets over to our house. 

The next day the lady emailed and said that she wasn’t allowed to just give the tickets to us.  She had to give the tickets back to the park management and they would give them to the first people on the waiting list.  Barb told her that we were the first people on the waiting list.  The lady was very afraid of the management. 

Barb phoned the office and talked to the management assistant.  The assistant said there was nothing she could do the manager insisted that the tickets come back to the office. 

So the lady came over and got the tickets and brought them back to the office.  Then the manager phoned Barb and told her she could come and pick up the free tickets because she was the first person on the waiting list.

Pickleball Birthday

Barb got a lot of birthday wishes from her pickleball friends on Facebook and a number of cards for her birthday but she was very happy to get two pickleball related cards.  One was homemade from her pickleball partner, Deb.  It had a pickleball paddle and ball on the front and said Live Love Pickle.  My sister, Daphne, gave Barb a card with a dill pickle on the front and inside it hoped that her party would never have a Dill moment.

Personal Validation

I wanted to make a contribution to my TFSA.  So I phoned PC Financial and waited on hold.  When I finally got through they sent me to CIBC Securities where I waited on hold again.  The lady at CIBC Securities needed to ensure my identity.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember my postal code in New Hamburg.  So she wasn’t satisfied. 

She said she would send me back to PC Financial and I could verify my identity there and then they would send me back. 

So I went back to PC Financial and waited on hold.  The lady at PC Financial couldn’t figure out why I had been sent back.  She verified my identity and by that time Barb had come to my rescue with my postal code in New Hamburg.  Then the lady at PC Financial sent me back to CIBC Securities and I waited on hold again. 

When I finally got through I had to verify my identity again by telling the person my postal code. 

I should not have thrown out that little slip of paper with my address on it.  So now I carry around two little slips of paper, one with my address and phone number in New Hamburg and one with my address and phone number in Florida.

Fred and Ellen

I had fixed Fred and Ellen’s computer for them last year.  We weren’t here in Florida for very long before Ellen showed up at Barb’s knitting night and Fred popped his head in to ask if I could come over and help him with their computer again this year.

Their router had broken and they had to get a new one but they didn’t know how to set up the router with their computer and their wireless printer.  I went over to their house and tried to set it up for them.  They had written down the password but they written all the letters as capitals but the password was in all small letters and it was case sensitive.  It took me a while to figure that out but then I was able to set up their router and their wireless printer.

The next day Fred came over with a jar of pickled beets and a jar of pickled green beans.  They were very good.

I was on my walk a couple of days later and Fred was picking up Ellen from the pool.  I told Ellen that I really enjoyed the pickled beets and beans.  Fred was offended because he was the one who did the pickling in the family.  I guess I made a sexist assumption.

Special Place

I wanted to call the bank to make a contribution to my TFSA.  However, I couldn’t find my PC Financial Debit Card with the number to phone on the back.  I couldn’t believe I would have left it in New Hamburg, the same way I left it in Ottawa last year.  Last year, I had to get Julia to mail it to me in Florida during the winter.  Barb and I were looking all over the house for my debit card.  Then Barb asked me if it could be in my brief case.  I looked in one of the pockets of my brief case and found it there.  As Julia would say, it was in my special place.

Toe Nail

When we were packing to move to New Hamburg, it was raining.  We had a moving van with a ramp and I spent the whole day walking up and down the ramp.  My running shoe on my left foot kept pressing against my big toe every time I walked down the ramp.  After the move, I noticed that my left big toe was badly bruised and eventually the nail turned black.

In Florida, my toe nail finally fell off as I was putting on my socks to go and play softball.  I left my black toe nail on the kitchen table and left for softball.  When Barb got home from pickleball, she noticed the black toe nail on the table and was surprisingly happy for me to have a white toe nail again.

Early Christmas Present

Near the end of last winter here in Florida, I broke the hinge on the toilet seat in the spare bathroom.  With the broken hinge, the toilet seat did not stay up.  So I had to hold the seat up when I went pee.  It was not very convenient. 

Barb looked on EBay for new metal hinges.  The old hinges were plastic.  She bought new metal hinges but when they arrived, Barb found that they didn’t fit on the seat or the toilet.  So she tried to return them but the supplier wouldn’t take them back.  They would also only give her half her money back.

So Barb went to Walmart and found a whole new toilet seat with metal hinges.  She installed it one morning while I was sleeping and surprised me with an early Christmas present.  The toilet seat is very solid and stays up great.  So I no longer have to worry about the toilet seat falling down when I am peeing or breaking the hinges again.

Satisfying Silver

Barb is not usually satisfied with a Silver medal at her pickleball tournaments but this time she was sort of satisfied because her and Deb beat the mother and daughter team of the Elliots and were happy about that.  The 4.5 and the 5.0 levels were combined and Barb and Deb play as 4.5’s.  They beat 3, 5.0 teams to win the silver.  When the beat the Elliots, the Elliots had a lot of fans there cheering them on and they even had coaches there that tried to help them.

Strange End to Batting Practice

I go to batting practice on Monday and Wednesday mornings and to exhibition games on Tuesday and Thursday mornings.  I was at batting practice this morning and we each get 40 swings and there are usually about 10 of us there.  There were 2 more guys who needed to hit and suddenly the sprinklers came on to water the grass.  The sprinklers come right out the ground and sprinkle the whole outfield.  We didn’t stop.  We just cursed the groundskeeper and continued batting, trying not to get wet.  It had never happened before and never happened again.

Neighbourly Shortcut

I was sitting in my big comfy chair in the livingroom and I saw a golf cart stop at the end of the driveway.  Our lady neighbour who lives in the house behind us got out of the cart.  Then she walked up the driveway with her golf cart.  I was still in my pyjamas and was afraid she was going to stop in for a visit but she walked right up the driveway and out through the backyard to her house. 

I found out later that her next door neighbour sits out on his front porch all day long and every time she goes outside he calls her and invites her in for a drink.  So rather than go by his house on her way home from golf, she has decided to walk through our backyard to her house.

Sprinklers

Barb noticed that the sprinkler system in the backyard was broken.  One of the sprinklers was not squirting and that was causing all of them to fail.  Barb dug around the broken sprinkler and figured out how to take it apart.  Then she went on Youtube and found out how to replace the head of the sprinkler.  She went to the Lowe’s hardware store and bought the replacement part.  She had it fixed it in a minute or two.  She was surprised at how easy and cheap it was to repair.  Now all the sprinklers in the backyard are working fine.

Barb’s Good Deed

Barb was telling John about how we go to Florida for the winter.  John said that his best friends were planning to go to Florida again this winter and were looking for somewhere to rent a place.  Barb asked them where they went in Florida and they said Avon Park. Barb thought this was a real coincidence because who ever heard of Avon Park.

The next day Barb was on the Crystal Lake Facebook page and found out that someone in Crystal Lake was looking to rent their place for the winter.  So she got the couple from Morningside in touch with the guy from Crystal Lake and they worked something out. 

When the couple from Morningside came down to Florida, Barb asked them how they were enjoying themselves.  The husband was into the golf at the park but the wife wasn’t finding much to do.  She missed all of the activities in Morningside.  I guess she was into everything there.

It turned out the husband was an old friend of Gerry Hergot, the husband of Daphne’s friend Sharon.  They had been best friends 30 years ago and they had fun getting re-acquainted.  Gerry told me that the fellow from Morningside was really enjoying himself with the other Canadian golfers.