Conversations with Customers

Telephone: Ring Ring!

Me (middle-aged world-weary wife of Motorcycle shop owner): SuperSport!

Customer: (young male, talking on cell phone while driving, arghhh) Hi,  I'm going down Fraser Highway, heading to Route 10.  Do I turn right or left?

Me: that would depend on which direction you're coming from.  Are you heading North or South?

Customer: Ummmm.....

Me: (slowly and clearly) are you heading for the mountains or the States?

Customer: (pause, then triumphantly) the States!

Me: OK, you're heading south.  When you get to Route 10, turn East.

Customer: so....right or left?

Me: East would be towards Ontario, and West would be towards the ocean. So....?

Customer: so drive towards Ontario?

Me: Yes, but stop a few thousand miles before you get there.

Customer: (totally missing my pithy humour) Ok, are you on the right or left on Route 10?

Me: We're on the North side.  That would be towards the mountains! 

Customer: Ummm. OK, I'm almost there.

Me: What are you hoping to find once you get here?  Which part do you need?

Customer:  I have a 1998 blah blah blah (name of motorcycle) and I need a side cover.

Me: right or left?

Customer: when I'm facing the bike or sitting on the bike?

Me: There is only one left and one right on a motorcycle.  Does your left hand change to your right hand if your friend is sitting on your shoulders and then he gets off to look at you?

Customer: (long pause, deep thought) Ummmm....no?

Me: so which sidecover do you need?

Customer: Ummmm....North?

Where have I been?

It's been a while.  A few things happened.
We took a trip to Disneyland with our adult children.  It was stress, stress, stress, fun, fun, fun, stress, stress, stress.  After it was over, I realized that the fun far outweighed the stress.
We got busier at work (thank god).
Our son got hurt at work.  Not a lot, but enough.  He's OK, and I'm grateful.
I guess it's all just life happening.
There have been a lot of funny, and meaningful, things I'd like to blog about.  I've still been reading other's blogs and getting a lot of inspiration and laughs from them.  I've started following some, and un-following others.
I'll try to get back to blogging soon.  There are a lot of things I have to say.
Look out!

Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole

For Nancy, at Life in the Second Half, who is trying to eat more meatless meals.  Sorry it took me a few days to get this posted......

~~~~~~~~~

Lentil and Brown Rice Casserole:


(My family loves this - it's a good comfort food best served with crusty bread
for dipping, and a salad!)

1/2 cup dry red or white wine
1 & 1/2 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/2 cup dried lentils, washed (I use red lentils)
1/2 cup uncooked brown rice (do NOT use white rice-the casserole turns to mush)
1 cup mashed canned tomatoes
1 medium onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 tsp dried thyme
1 small bay leaf
1/4 tsp salt
pinch pepper
1/4 tsp dried basil
1/2 cup (approx) shredded cheese. (The recipe suggests Swiss cheese but I use
whatever I like...)

Mix everything but the cheese into a 6 cup casserole. Cover tightly with lid or
foil.
Bake in 350 degree oven for 1 & 1/2 hours (that's one and a half hours) or
slightly longer until lentils are tender and liquid is absorbed,
stirring 2 - 3 times during baking.

Remove lid, remove bay leaf, and sprinkle cheese on top. Return to oven for 5
minutes or until cheese melts.
Serves 4 as a main dish, or 6-8 as a side dish.
(Note: I always double this recipe because he-who-will-not-be-named will eat 3 helpings and then
have more for breakfast the next day....)
Enjoy!

Kathryn : )

I get it now.

As a toddler, she was given paints and crayons.  Encouraged to draw and paint, dabble and create.
She did well in elementary school, great marks on all her projects, and I marvelled at the fact that she spent as much time on the COVER PAGES as she did on the actual content.  As long as she got good marks, we didn't mind how long she spent on the extra stuff.
In high school. she took art and photography, as "easy" electives to compliment the maths and sciences into which we guided her.
She did well at all of it, all of it, and graduated with honours, and scholarships to two universities.
We thought she'd major in English, one of her best subjects, but she really could have chosen anything.

Her summer job, after Grade 12, was to work with a team to paint a Remembrance Day mural for our city.
"What a neat summer job", I thought.  "How great that she gets to have a little fun before settling down to her studies in the fall."

Here's her portion of the mural - four soldiers walking along a war-torn street, crosses from Flanders Fields in the background.

She went to university, and became bored.  Did well enough at her courses, but wasn't motivated to try hard.  She just wasn't interested.

"Maybe you should take a year off", we said.
So she did.
She got a job as a waitress (It's called a SERVER, Mom!), moved from the suburbs to the big city, and met her sweetheart.

Instead of going back to university she applied to Film school; to the Make-up and Specialt Effects department.

"What?", we said. 
"Well, I don't want to be a server all my life", she said.
"What about university?", we said.
"I'm not interested in university", she said, and paid the deposit at the Film school.
"What's she going to do with that?", we thought.  "I know we live in Hollywood North, but geez, the movie industry is so unstable, and how's she going to make a living, and when's she going to do something serious, and...and..."

She's an adult now, and fully self-supporting, so we really have no say in the matter, and she continues to make her quarterly deposits at the Film school.


About a month ago, my husband and I went to Mexico for two weeks, partly to celebrate my 50th birthday.
When we returned there was a present waiting for me.

It's a view of my favourite camping lake - with a white sandy bottom that makes the water an amazing Caribbean blue........and she's captured it perfectly.  She painted it for me.  She painted it.

And suddenly, finally, something in my 50-year-old brain clicked.

I get it now.

She's an artist.  An artist.

School starts this January, and I wish her ALL the best.

Congratulations, sweetie.  I know you'll do well.

I get it now.

Delkiboose

Canadian Thanksgiving is this Monday.  We're having our dinner on Sunday, like a lot of people do.
This year I've been hearing a lot about a "delicacy" called a Turducken, which is a deboned chicken stuffed inside a deboned duck stuffed inside a deboned turkey.  Who thinks of these things?

I've been thinking that we could do this in a big game version: a deer stuffed into an elk stuffed into a caribou stuffed into a moose.  Delkiboose.  If it's good enough for birds, then it's good enough for mammals, eh?
~~~
In other news, it's been a slow day here at work.  Out of 18 phone calls, 14 were from Dave's friend Lloyd.
When I see his name on call display I'm tempted to answer as some other business.
How about, "Alzheimers Pizza!  May I take your order again?"
~~~
The other day it was just Dave and me here.  No customers.  For some reason we decided to see if we could name a disease for every letter of the alphabet.

Asthma! he shouted.

Botulism!, I countered.

C-C-C-Cardiac Arrest! he said.
That's not a disease, that's an event, I said

Diabetes!, he said, ignoring me.

Then, it happened.  That perfect synchronization that can happen between couples that have been married a long time.  That merging of the minds. That pairing of souls....

Erectile Dysfunction! we chimed, simultaneously.

We basked in the glow of this for a few seconds, then resumed.

F-F-F Flatulence!  I said, after some thought.

I knew you'd say that, he said.
Then:
Gout!

Hirsutism! I trumpeted, then wondered if this means that my legs are officially diseased...

I-I-I....he gasped
I-I-I...(deep thought)
I-I-I've got to go and do some work!

...and just like that, as mysteriously as he came,
he was gone.

Back to work, leaving me groping for a disease starting with J.

and THIS is why I haven't blogged in a while.  It's all trivial around here.

Voyage of the Poo Sucker

Technorati Tags: jobs,poo,emergency,mess

I don’t have any pictures to go with this post.  You will thank me later, I expect.

My son has a job.  It’s one of those jobs that you talk about when you are older and you’re trying to tell your kids that life was harder “back then”.  In my son’s case, he will probably, hopefully, be right.

My son’s company does, among other things, waste removal.  For most of the summer my son does Catch Basins, or “CBs”  .  A pumper truck, loaded with 1 driver and 1 labourer, drives the local streets, stops at storm drains, and the labourer (my son) gets out,  lifts the grate off the hole and then  uses a remote control to position a boom (small crane) over the hole, lowers a hose, and sucks out the sand and silt.  The truck carries a tank for waste and another tank holding water used to flush things out.I think my son enjoyed the job for the first hour of the first day last summer; after that, not so much.  However he has stuck with it, and is still at it while he figures out what he wants to do with the rest of his life.  In the meantime, he has to set his own alarm, get his 19-year-old self up very early, make his own lunch, and be at the truck yard by a certain time each day.  As parents, this delights us to no end: valuable skills that will  stand him in good stead the rest of his life!

Some days our son doesn’t do CB’s.  Instead, he does laser cutting (digging holes for construction using concentrated beams of water that can “cut your arm off!” if you don’t watch what you’re doing).

Other days he works at cleaning out septic tanks and/or pit toilets.  Everywhere there is a basin and a substance that fills it, my son may be required to empty it out.  As he says, “It’s a SH***Y job, but someone has to do it.”

Yesterday was a pit toilet day.   For my more genteel readers: a pit toilet is an outdoor toilet positioned over a large hole.  One uses these at campgrounds and public places not connected to the sewer system.  If you’ve ever used one of these and wondered, “What happens when it fills up?” (and who hasn’t  sat there and pondered this while listening for the distant splash or plop), now you know.  It gets sucked out!

The community of Pemberton is located a few miles north of Whistler BC, home of the some of the events of the 2010 Olympics.  To get there, one must travel the beautiful Sea-to-Sky highway for 2-3 hours.  The road is winding, the scenery breathtaking.  The destination, in this case, not so lovely.  Somewhere in Pemberton six pit toilets are filled to capacity, brimming with a pungent primordial soup.    The two men locate the toilets and start to work.  The driver positions the truck, my son inserts the hose and the truck pumps it all into the holding tanks. Everything is as hunky-dory as it can possibly be in such absurd and smelly circumstances.  The truck is now full, and the two men set off for home. 

Purveyors of poo, exporters of excrement, these shippers of sh** sail down the Sea-to-Sky highway at a jaunty clip!  Talk turns to the weekend ahead and a pleasant drive continues until the frantic honking of horrified passers-by alerts the men to a problem.

The twisty road has set the boom a swinging, and this swinging boom has bumped a cap on the holding tank.  The cap has parted company with the holding tank, apparently some miles back up the road.  The result is an excremental exodus.  A trail of breadcrumbs this is not.  Pulling the truck over has mixed results. My son runs to the back of the truck to survey the damage.  What was formerly a steamy stream has now turned into a powerful pile of poo. A muddy mountain, if you will.

“How much poo?,” I interrupt breathlessly.

“Oh, bigger than dad’s Honda civic!”, say my son. “More sh** than I’ve ever seen in my life.”

A few million of my brain cells explode at this spectacle, but I urge him to go on.  He continues with the story:  apparently there is a valve inside the vomiting exit port, which is controlled at the truck’s dashboard.  “Shut off the effing valve”, my son yells at the driver, and the valve is shut off  forthwith.  At this point most of the contents of six pit toilets is now percolating at the side of the road just outside the town of Squamish BC (which I shall now ever more think of as “Squeamish” BC, for obvious reasons).

“Was there, er, toilet paper in the pile”, I ask, trying to picture the problem (I am a visual learner, incidentally).

“Oh Mom”, he says, “Toilet paper, tampons, diapers, condoms….”he trails off and his eyes glaze over slightly.  I feel another billion brain cells popping and decide to think about something else.  But I can’t.

“What did you do then?” I ask, wondering about post traumatic stress, if not for him, then maybe for the tourists driving by on the highway. Is there counselling for this type of thing?  What form will their nightmares take?

Fortunately there is a spare cap in the truck. Once the tank dribbles out it’s last, the cap is attached and an eerie silence fills the air. A cricket chirps, oblivious to the load of lava sliding his way.  Driver and labourer look at each other and consider their options. The phrase, “Oh Sh**” comes to mind, but remains unuttered. No point in belabouring the obvious.

There is only one option.  The driver flips a switch.  My boy manoeuvres the boom, lowers the hose, and a fresh round of poo-sucking begins.  “It’s different when you can actually SEE what’s happening”, my son explains. “ It seemed to take forever.”

He sucks up as much of the mess as is possible, and the driver calls the regional district office to explain that there is a stretch of highway where it is best not to stop to change a tire.  They request that a street sweeper truck be sent out.  The regional office dispatcher tells the men that they will take it from there, and my son and the driver once again set off homeward.  They get back to the yard after a 10-hour workday; some of it an easy ride and some of it a hot, stinky lesson in humility.

We don’t normally talk about poo in polite company.  Such talk is reserved for doctors’ exams when we are asked to describe it and encouraged to produce it daily. After that, we don’t discuss it, even though it is something we ALL have in common.

  When people ask my son about his job I don’t know what he tells them, but if and when he moves on, whether it be to a “cleaner” job or to go to acting school (his dream), he will have earned the right to be there.  I’m proud of him, my poo-sucking young man.

The Man in the Yellow Shirt - The Great Wall

My husband often wears a yellow t-shirt.  Maybe it's because he has 16 of them. 
This is the story of a backyard, a patio wall, and the man in the yellow shirt.  A story of danger, intrigue, mystery, suspense, courage, shovels, swearing, dirt, the wheel-barrow, the level.  Man vs. the elements.
The taming of one small corner of the planet, a triumph of the human spirit.....a wall going boldly where no wall has gone before...........and the man in the yellow shirt who tamed the dirt, tamed the yard, and ultimately tamed me (well, no, not quite).

First, he dug.  And dug, and dug.  And dug some more.

Over 70 wheel-barrow loads of dirt were removed from this small area.

I don't have a "before" picture, but it was all weeds.  Weeds, I tell you, weeds!

Then he put over 35 loads of stones in, as part of the patio foundation.

Then, he bought and carried all of these Allan blocks to the back yard.  They weigh approx 75 lbs each, and he used about 45 of them. This was the dangerous part.  Danger of dropping block on foot.  The courageous part was me watching him almost drop block on foot.  Repeatedly.

Did I mention swearing?

He carefully places each stone, mindful of my screeching reminding him to use the level.

A purposeful stride to the next block. Thinking "Whose idea was this wall, and when am I going to have some beer?"

These are the caps - about 60 of them were used, at about 30 lbs each.  He had to rent a special saw to cut them for the curved area and other tight spots.

Now some of the previously-removed dirt comes back to fill in the planter areas. this is the intriguing part.  Dirt go away - dirt come back.

He goes to get more dirt.  Things are shaping up.

The photographer is relentless!

Artful stepped planter area: to be filled with stunning greenery.

Bedraggled old greenery to be rearranged/removed.

Money to be spent at nursery; credit card to be further melted.

This is still the old greenery. Not enough form, shape, colour!

It's mostly shady back here, so a few hostas and other shade-lovers are in order, I think.

Another angle.  I love this wall, and plan to praise the man in the yellow shirt daily for the rest of our lives.

Or, until I get distracted.

I think my deck pots need scrubbing.

Oh man in the yellow shirt....another chore for you....

(Just kidding, I'll do it myself)

A final shot of his holy walliness.

We're off to the store to buy some plants.

We'll tackle what to put down as an actual patio some other day.  Now he's talking about putting in a Japanese garden instead of a patio.  We'll see. This is the mysterious part of the story...and the suspense.

Stay tuned for plantings, patio or garden construction, and more stunning images of the man in the yellow shirt!