What To Do With Dick

Dick and I met on June 18th, 1996. Three weeks prior to our chance meeting, his dog Elijah died. Just a mongrel who walked up to Dick's house by the lake one morning. For days, they fed him, but left him outside. After awhile, they took him inside, figuring someone had dropped him off. He arrived in good condition and not in distress. Didn't appear like he was lost at all and walked up to Dick like he had simply come home to his master. He lived with Dick for 19 years! Nobody, not even me made it 19 years with that man! I wish I'd shaked that little guy's paw, but Dick was so full of stories and memories, that I still knew him and it is fact that Dick thought Elijah was a soul mate from another life. 

Sort of collie-ish with fur about four inches or so in length. I can only relay what Dick told me about this dog and what I could see in pictures because once again, I never laid eyes on him. The fur was black and brownish all in the same hair. You know blackish tips? Small, like a border collie, but clearly other stuff thrown into the gene pool. White ruff and coupla' paws. White tip on tail. Old soul who was his friend through two marriages and many houses. What that dog heard and saw? Several girlfriends, several nights full of anger and angst. I was always so grateful to this puppy to have been there for my guy through all his time of turmoil. Certainly when he'd needed a friend, Elijah had been there to listen and just sit with his master. 

Every boy needs a dog, right?

What To Do With Dick

What To Do With Dick

So stacked underneath that pristine, well turned wooden box is another. 

This dark stained one is rough and uneven though it's shellacked and lovingly marked with a brass plaque, it's obvious to all it's a crude sort of box that we'd put tools in out in the garage.

 And that's exactly what it once was. But now and for the last 16 years, it's held the ashes of Dick's beloved dog of 19 years; Elijah. Dick also added to this box Elijah's leash, food dish and a Kit Kat bar. (They would share one daily you see. Chocolate toxic to dogs be damned? No… A true case of ignorance is bliss!) This box had actually been a product of his grandfather's efforts and my Dick had lovingly placed his pet's ashes inside. 

That was my Dick for you…

What To Do With Dick

I have a smallish red cherry wood box on a shelf in my house.

Beautiful this box is and really quite heavy although I must say: "Dick you've lost some weight!" 

This tasteful, unassuming box contains the remains of my love and likely it's weight belies all the stuff I sentimentally had cremated with his body. Sent him wearing his brand new jeans we'd bought the Saturday before he died in Port Huron I did! Still had the tags from Walmart on them. He had this one favourite Tee shirt, black of course, with a 40's Caddy on it. Done like pin striping on a street rod and cost a small fortune ordered special from California. Socks. The nice thick wooley ones he liked to wear in his boots so his feet wouldn't hurt. His boots. The brand new ones we'd just bought in May with gift certificates his mom had given him her last Christmas. Oxblood with lots of stitching. A bit of a banty rooster was my Dick! The belt we'd just bought in Florida the March before he died. Black. Hand tooled with silver conchos on it. I also added to his cardboard casket a lock of my hair and some of his little cat girl Suzie's. I added a metal die cast model of a street rod he'd lusted after. I added a bracelet that I had worn 3 weekends before when we'd been at the Kitchener Blues Fest. I added the statue of the angel he sat on top of his mother's casket just 8 months before… There was stuff in that cardboard casket…. 

Making my throat hurt remembering….Stopping

_________________

The Optimist And The Pessimist

Did you ever hear the joke about the world's biggest optimist? It's one of my favourite stories and became one of my mottos back in high school. A lot can be learned from this little story if you so choose and sums up my life. I'd always believed that when one door closes, another opens and so even when your twin flame suddenly dies and you think you can't breathe anymore, you think: Hell! What's coming's gotta be a doozer! 

Here's the optimist and pessimist joke: 

It's a joke about twin boys about six years old. Worried that the boys had developed extreme personalities -- one was a total pessimist, the other a total optimist, their parents took them to a psychiatrist.

First the psychiatrist treated the pessimist. Trying to brighten his outlook, the psychiatrist took the scowling little boy into a room piled to the ceiling with brand-new toys. But to the doctor's dismay, the little boy burst into tears. "What's the matter?" he asked, baffled. "Don't you want to play any of the toys?" 

"Yes," the little boy bawled, "but I can't because I'll break them!"

Next, the psychiatrist treated the optimist. Trying to dampen his outlook, the psychiatrist took this smiling twin to a room piled to the ceiling with horse manure. But instead of wrinkling his nose in disgust, the optimist emitted just the yelp of delight the psychiatrist had been hoping to hear from his brother, the pessimist. Then, the boy surprised him further and he clambered to the top of the pile, dropped to his knees, and began gleefully digging out scoop after scoop with his bare hands. 

"What do you think you're doing?" the psychiatrist asked, just as baffled by the optimist as he had been by the pessimist.

 "With all this manure," the little boy replied, beaming, "there must be a pony in here somewhere!"

Yup! That's me! Shovelling all this shit! I just know I'm going to uncover a Clydesdale or maybe even a Unicorn!

Hello all my old friends

So here I am, sitting in my new RV in Rondeau Provincial Park, writing for my blog again. It's a Thursday night. 7:08 to be exact, or 19:00 hours for you military folks. I'll start this off with a short run down of where I've been for the last year and a half.

Dick died last August. Need I say more?

Surprise! Widow!

The while before that you ask? Well, Dick and I were having the best months we'd ever had! Funny that….

I'm going to look up my last posting on Secrets For Happiness to see when the last regular post was there. Right at this moment, I can't remember and I've used up my monthly quota for download on my internet stick, so I'll check when I'm back home and on my unlimited home plan. Once I look that detail up, I can cross reference the timing, but I do know that I tried to write just after he died. I apologize for making such a cryptic post at that time. (Eva - I couldn't reply. I tried…)

I'm healing nicely. I've got on with my life somewhat and can function, although most of that is because I met my Dick late in life and I'd been single for 13 years before, so I know how to be that. I'm also blessed with fairy tale types of friends and family. I have never lacked for help or someone to talk to. I do have Post Traumatic Stress disorder attached to the building where I worked, but that was not their fault and is just one of those flukey things we all must live with. I'm very much a cockroach. I adapt. And last but not least, the best medicine; I have my cat. 'Nuff said on that.

So! The plan:

I'm going to start blogging again. Almost Retired Handbook is going to be a sort of novel interspersed with some true occurrences and some flights of fantasy. I likely won't tell you which is which. (I won't get sued that way if I hurt somebody's feelings.) And I'll warn you. I'm not going to watch my language or try to be politically correct because… Seriously?

My Secrets For Happiness will be sporadic with photos of places I'm going in this new life of mine. (Called Lucy's New Life Plan I might add!) I just took some pictures of Rondeau Park today while I was out walking. Don't get the wrong idea… I walked to the restaurant, Rondeau Joe's, for a pickerel dinner! And the pictures might look different  because I'm taking them with my Blackberry because one of us scratched the lens on my Nikon in Florida a year and a half ago. We couldn't for the life of us think when we'd done it, but there it is, a half inch gouge in the lens and more to fix it than the things worth! I still use it for my Ebay stuff and have taken a few thousand pics since.

Now, bear with me if I miss a day or week or month. I still work a lot what with Ebay and my other internet store and you know with all the stuff I did around the house and all the stuff he did, I'm a busy girl. (Damn! I hate vacuuming!)

Enough preamble here…

I'll be in touch...

Yesterday was a week. My fingers are frozen. I need to write about him. About us.

Hobbies: Casino Mania!

Today, with the best interests of my readers at heart, I took myself off to our local casino on a trip of research and discovery.

No, not for my own pleasure and enjoyment, but simply to scope it all out and find the reason why so many seniors are always in there!


And if you believe that story, I've got a parcel of swampland in Florida I can sell you too!


Ok, so I do go to the casino once in a while, I admit. And I love it!


I do however, only go once in a while and have some little tips and observations to share.


First of all, our casino's here in Ontario are mostly located at our horse racing tracks.


We do have a few bigger, Las Vegas style ones within a couple of hours of my home, but I like the little ones the best.


They are a comfortable place for a person to go by yourself because they have security guards to help you and if you're uncomfortable walking back to your car, they'll go with you too! Video cameras are everywhere so nobody misbehaves for long and there is a sense of community sitting side by side with another stranger with a common activity.

My most frequented is in London, Ontario at the Western Fair Grounds. They have 750 slot machines only with denominations of 5 cents to five dollars. (No gaming tables.) It's a pleasant little place with a restaurant, lounge and free coffee and serve yourself soda kiosk. Waitresses circulate and the security guards all smile and say hi. (I think they are made to try to catch everyone's eye.)

The scene today. Of course it was freezing outside. Inside, they have a coat check and really huge, clean washrooms. All the staff is seriously nice and if you want, they are always glad to show you how to use any of the new machines and explain all the ins and outs.



tip 1- Only take the money you want to throw away and some sort of ID in with you. (You can't accept a big win if you don't have ID.) If you take any of your credit cards or bank cards, the urge to use them will be too strong. If you leave them in the car or at home, by the time you collect them to gamble MORE, your saner side will have surfaced to save you!


tip 2- Make sure you eat something! They pump those places full of good air and smells and anything else they can think of to keep you glued to the same machine for weeks! Eating does two things. One, makes you think better and two, gets you off your butt, away from the slot machine. If you can't afford the restaurant, then go over to the racetrack side and they'll have sandwiches and muffins over there.


tip 3- Get a membership card. They do give some freebees away and you might as well get them as well as anybody! Also for every penny that slides through the slot, you get a tiny little percentage back in points, which can be redeemed cash value or for free food in the restaurant.



tip 4- Give yourself a time limit. My limit is normally how long it takes me to get home before Dick does after his work!


tip 5- Remember, it's just for fun. Do not ever think you can pay the bills with your winnings. Look around you while you are there and see all the folks who are pounding machines and are desperate because they've gone over their limit!  Expect yourself to lose every single time and if you expect this, you won't ever be disappointed and the odd time you might win a nickle or two, you'' be on cloud nine!


So! To end my story. I donated $40.00 to the province today. (They say the money goes for healthcare.)

Lost Arts: Split Rail Fences!

For many years everywhere we drove you could see split rail fences.


In our north country, pioneer farmers used whatever was on hand and metal fencing being so expensive and mostly unavailable, the farmers cut cedar trees and split the trunks, layering them for miles and miles of fences. Very little else was needed for construction and the wood was free! They also gladly cleared the land of aromatic cedar forests so they could plant crops. The wood weathered slowly and lasted for years!


If you drive the Bruce peninsula, you can still see and walk nature trails through thousands of acres of cedar forests and they are a marvel!




These fences became in vogue when I was a girl. Of course they fell out of fashion. In, Out. In, Out. Enterprising folk traveled the north, bought and dismantled existing fences and trucked the weathered wood south to landscapers and lumber yards where it was sold at a premium.




I can't recall when I last saw a brand new cedar fence and was delighted when this one was constructed just before Christmas.

Isn't it just something!

Travel: Finding Medical Help!

Oh my gosh! You worst fears! Here you are in another country and you are sick!


Well, you'll be able to whip out your laptop and find good old Lucy's Blog and look up how to find a doctor in a foreign country!


Be prepared before you travel and save yourself some hassel. Dick and I never travel without our laptop, but, last year when we went to the Barrett Jackson Auction, we didn't bother to take it with us to Vegas, because we knew we just wouldn't have time to use it. Las Vegas is one thing, but if you're going to north Timbucktoo and you don't speak the language, you better go prepared!


Your Embassy or Consulate can provide you with a list of appropriate doctors and hospitals in their region. Before you travel, look up the phone numbers and locations for those in the areas you are visiting.


Our Canadian Government also recommends purchasing travel insurance and frankly, if you don't you are an idiot to travel without it. 
If you have existing medical insurance, check to make sure it will cover you in the country you are visiting. For instance: our wonderful Canadian Health Insurance that everyone is so envious of, will cover my having a heart attack in Florida, but only up to what the same service would cost here in Ontario. (If a hospital room was $200.00 a day here and $500.00 in Florida, they would pay the $200.00 and I would have to cough up the rest.) We are lucky that our work coverage will pay most of the rest.

CAA and AAA and likely BCAA all have travel insurance you can buy. Your bank as well and also the up and coming AARP or in Canada CARP. 






Who wants to worry about this kind of stuff, I know! But better safe than sorry!


There's a list of Canadian Offices abroad, by country, can be found at the Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada website.




Good Links:


www.travel.gc.ca
http://www.caasco.com/
http://www.aaa.com

Government Know How! AKA What? I've never heard of that!

Archives of Ontario


Houses the documented memory of Ontario and is responsible for managing, storing conserving, arranging, describing and providing access to the province's irreplaceable documented history dating back to the 1700's. The current inventory is valued at $340, million and is held in trust for the public.
The Archives currently holds records created by offices of the government and the private sector, as well as a growing volume of records in other media (electronic records, film, photographs, video, audio-tapes, maps and drawings.)
The records of the Archives of Ontario are used for many kinds of research. For research on your ancestors, looking up the impact of provincial government policies,
find out when a particular company started operation, when a building was built, or how the earliest settlers lived.


The Catalogue can be found at:
www.archives.gov.on.ca.


Through this site, visitors can also access online exhibits and databases relating to archival records and photographs.
The Archives of Ontario serves researchers daily in person in their reading room, by mail, email, fax and by phone.


Email: reference@archives.gov.on.ca
Phone: 1-800-668-9933

My Mother's Scrapbook

This is my mother's scrapbook... or one of them anyway. I recall there were more, but I think my sister has those.

(That would mean it was 'our' mother's book!)

The first page had these cute clippings!

Does anyone recall this little pooch to know how old the book is?

Hobbies: Big Trucks!

Many men who earn their lonely living on the road will make their  truck a special one, hot rodding it or customizing it and Dick and I find them beautiful!

This is a local truck that only makes a couple trips a week. They also show it in custom truck shows that you can find a summer long. They meet at fairgrounds and racetracks and polish their rigs til the stainless and chrome shines! They have truck races each year in Sparta, Ontario and also run after dark. You should see how the lights all shine! It's like any carnival you ever saw!

This truck always holds this place of honor in the yard right where everyone can see it driving by.  This was taken on Sunday and it is normally parked just so!

It's a Peterbuilt.

This is nicknamed a Flat Top. Notice all the lights across the top of the cab?

We believe a young fellow drives her, hauling steel stateside.

 

The big box on the back is where you'll find a bunk.

The huge polished stainless canister on the side is one of the air filters.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and you can find awesome sights everywhere! All you have to do is look!

Cottage Wise

You want to buy a cottage or retirement home?


You want a large family monster you can fill with comfortable sofas and grandchildren and that enormous vintage dining table you saw last week in the antique store...

...and your partner wants a tiny, one bedroom elf house that isn't big enough to swing a cat in!

Help! 

I think it's time to sit down together and discuss the pros and cons and just what is it yer lookin' fer sweetheart? 


Let's talk about some of this stuff and I'm not going to do it all at once on ya either! 


Today's word is SIZE.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Look up size in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

The word size may refer to how big something is. In particular:

• Measurement
• Dimensions: length, width, height, diameter, perimeter, area, volume

First of all, you need to figure out what size of house you'll need when you move. No, not where you want to live, because different locals offer different sizes of houses. You can't find a one bedroom cottage at a prestigious address just as you can't likely find a castle in a small lake village.  So you'd better figure out what size of habitat you'll require of compromise on.



Do you want to fill it with furniture or have no furniture to buy?
Do you have forty two grandchildren that will all come over at the same time and you need bedrooms instead of sleeping bags on the floor?
Do you want to spend all your time cleaning or can you afford a cleaning staff? Can you find cleaning staff in the area you think you're going to move to?
Does what you have now suite your lifestyle?
Are you capable of looking after the size you're looking for?


Size. It's always meant more to men than women, but it's the first step to take when relocating and you need to figure it out before looking for a home.

Five Little Beeps

The whole world is one huge, hairy annoying beep these days and I 'm going to vent a little.... just as a treat for you in todays' post.


And you all know what I'm talking about here...


This morning was certainly a normal one with Dick getting out 'o bed about 5 am and me about 8. So, by the time I get up, he's had a couple of hours out in his lazy boy surfing the old web and sometime around seven forty five, he decides he's sleepy again, lays his chair back and goes soundly asleep. (Remember I just said when I wake up it's eight?)


Now, I don't know about you, but when I wake up, my whole being screams to first wash my face, second brush those pearly whites of mine and third DRINK COFFEE!
So before hitting the bathroom, I click on our awesome Cuisinart coffee maker, (which I pre-load the night before,) and by the time I'm out of the Loo, nectar of the gods is ready!

...And when the water is completely empty and the pot is full of nature's goodness, yes, you know what's coming, the damned thing goes BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP, BEEP!
Yes, Five, count them five (%&@#) times!


Dick flings his chair to the upright, grabs the arms of the unsuspecting chair and in a fashion quite similar to a bull in a Mexican fighting arena, flings his head from side to side searching for the location of the offending noise.
I am also alarmed because his eyes stare wide, I can tell his heart is pounding and I guess even after six years of owning the same pot, he's still alarmed by waking up to the sound of five beeps!


I want to wage war on this modern world we've created of warning beeps.


Since we did our renovation and bought all new appliances, this is the list of beeping things we have just inside our own house: Washer, dryer, coffee pot, frig when the door's open too long.... stove when it reaches temperature and then again when the food's cooked....


And then outside is a whole bunch of other stuff!


Absolutely, hands down, Dick's most hated is our coffee pot, but mine has to be the beep that the whole population of North America seems to find absolutely necessary is the one in your car. Don't you all hang your heads now... the one that honks your car's horn when you press that lock button on your key fob?


I find it so annoying and invasive to be sitting in my recliner, one of my neighbors come home and yep, you've got it, Honk! (We always wave!) You're walking across the mall's parking lot and all you can hear is honk! Honk! And then there's the people who think they have to double check everything and they press the remote oh, six, seven times?

Whenever I sold cars for a living I would take just two minutes in the presentation to show the new owners how the fob would actually turn off the horn and they would invariably all say: 'How would I know the the car had locked?"
(Eva, you can picture this, can't you?) And I would grit my teeth, smile my best car salesman smile and explain that they would still be able to hear the door locks go thunk when they used the button on the armrest.


I would also and I guess it was desperation really, plant the suggestion that on some older cars, the locks stick and just because the horn would blare it didn't mean the locks had activated! (And wasn't I always sorry to have suggested there might be a future problem with their new car!)


I would like to rid our world of the offending and I do mean offending beeping and honking! It's nothing but downright noise pollution and I want it stopped! Now!



Strap on your sandwich boards and hold your placards high and let's march on the nation's capital....


Oh wait! Something's on TV I want to watch...


"Dick! Make some coffee! Desperate Housewives are on!"


What are the beeps in your life? Let me know!

New Years Day: A whole beginning!

Day one if this whole new year! 


The family has just 'left the building' and the cat has crawled back out from under the bed. 

I am logged in and Blogging... all is well!

What will will get up to in this next 365 days you ask?

We will talk about finances for old folks like us.

We will discuss the ways of the world.

We will do some traveling here and there.

We will talk about the perfect house to retire to.

We will share some laughs, some experiences and some history!


It'll be great, won't it!



Tomorrow I start. Tonight, I'm just going to my Lazy Boy and try to digest the pie!

My New Years Resolution

New Years!


Wow!
I got to thinking about my past New Years Resolutions because you all are posting yours for this year!


Some of you are posting warm wishes and kind thoughts.


Some are posting memories of family and snowflake nights of stars.


Some are posting incredibly funny commentaries on life with illustrious speeches.


I'll tell you about my New Years Resolutions of the past:


I was alone for 14 years until I met Dick when I was 44. I was married a couple of times in my youth and sure a few fellas came and went, but after the first two nasty, nasty husbands... I wasn't going to be tricked again and it was just easier to be by myself.


I got to liking myself and actually still prefer my own company to many others' and hence why I like this Blogging thing...


And so during those years of solitude I would make the same resolution every year.


It was this:


Get up every day.


You think it's easy? Think about it for a minute?


I almost didn't one day, but I got up at 4:30pm on a Sunday and took my sorry ass off to bed at 6:30pm, but I still got out of bed that day.


May everyone be able to get out of bed every day of this year 2010. No Space Odyssey here, just my wish for everyone to have some sort of normalcy in your days, that's all and to not have any reason what so ever to wallow in the sheets in misery!



Happy New Year!


PS... Wallowing in the sheets with someone else or a good book is accepted!

An Old Household Hint: Tinfoil and Mice!

I have a little secret that only a few farm people my way know about.


Plagued by mice in your house because you have holes and cracks they can crawl through? Do they come in around the sink pipes? 

And traps and poison just won't do?


Stop them getting in! 

Did you know that they don't like plain old tin foil?

  

Come Spring, just pull it all out, tuck it away so you have it again for next winter!

Gas prices today.

I had to go buy diesel today and there was a lineup! 

Probably because it's just before a holiday and everyone expects the price to jump!

The good news is, gasoline was 87.9 cents a Litre! 

Diesel however, was 88.9 cents a liter, but I have to keep the old girl's tank quite full when it's this cold, or she won't fire.

(Due to ice crystals in the fuel!)

I waited about ten minutes to even get to the pump, of course because I can only use one pump and it also dispenses gasoline.

(Nice Escalade in front of me! Me want one!)

87.9 cents a Canadian Litre and you say hunh?

Here is the conversion to US:

There are 3.87 Canadian litres in a US Gallon

so!

That means it costs $3.32 Cdn for a US gallon

Equals (at today's currency exchange rate) is

(drum rolllll)

$3.18 US.for a US gallon at our prices!

OK! Now how much did you pay today?

 

My Christmas Gift: A lesson In Giving

My sweet man blew me away this year and I had to share it with you!


He has witnessed me working away at my blog. Coming home after working a full day, cooking and sitting here at this table in the kitchen so I'm not too far from him... working on these Blogs.


He has listened to me moan and drip about my camera. (It was my mom's and I inherited it when she died.) 

He asked if I needed one and I exclaimed 'No'! Because I didn't see spending the money when it's just my little Blog... I know you understand...




Then, after everyone had left Christmas night and we had sort of tidied up.. Dick did the dishes as I sat in my Lazy Boy, my whole being just humming from exhaustion...


He goes downstairs and comes back up and plops this package on my lap! Here's what it was!

You see, I had been shopping with a friend and brought home the Black's flyer with all their cameras shown. I had narrowed it down to a Canon and this Nikon, but I liked and circled the Nikon because it has more features. I circled it in pink high lighter so that when the time came, if ever my old Canon broke, I could just pick up the flyer, go to the store and buy one.

He blew my away! It was the exact one I had picked!

 

He went into a Mall to buy it!

He didn't buy one that he or the store clerk thought was better.

He didn't buy one that was cheaper or more expensive.

He just bought the one I wanted.

Do you all know how important that was to me?

No wonder I love the man more every day!

Old photo with my Canon

New photo with Nikon

 

The closeup's are awesome and I haven't even finished the demo and manual yet!