Yarn and diesel, chocolate and cucumbers, city streets and back roads, fine dining and campfire cooking, toddlers and teenagers, close by and far away, cared about and caring for, knitting needles and hammers
I’m an ex-wife, mom of 4, fur-mama, truck driver, caregiver and crafter. I was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety almost 20 years ago and have been struggling with it ever since.
I decided to write this blog to get my story and experiences out into the world. Hopefully someone who feels as alone and confused as I did, will find their way to these pages and see that there are others who have gone through and how are still going through, the same things.
Especially since March 2020, the beginning of the Covid-19 worldwide pandemic, many people including myself, have felt very isolated, maybe my little blog can bring some of us together.
Don’t think that this blog is going to be all serious all the time, I love to have fun and fully intend to share those experiences as well.
It’s Wednesday September 21 and there are tons of people calling to schedule viewings of both houses. Everyone wants to be first. We tried to schedule them as best as we could so that Ma wouldn’t have to be alone when the people were coming to look through her house.
My house already had a couple people come through on Wednesday, and there were 12 more viewings scheduled for Thursday. Ma’s house had only 3 scheduled so far for Thursday but 11 for Friday!
Thursday morning I head down to Ma’s to continue packing and to be there when the people are coming through. Early afternoon, I got a phone call from Tracy asking to meet me at 5pm that evening. We arranged for her to come to Ma’s since I was already there and it would give me extra time to work on packing. At this point, I still had hope that I would get her house completely packed up before we moved, after all, we didn’t even have a house yet!
Tracy showed up with a pile of papers in her hands. Turns out I didn’t have an offer on my house, I had THREE!! I looked them over, discussed with Tracy and tried to make a sensible decision. One of the offers was from an agent that was really pushy. I didn’t like him or his offer. The second was from people who didn’t seem like they actually liked the place, and their offer was pretty low too. These days, buyers are attaching letters to their offers, kind of like a cover letter for a resume, to tell you why they should be the ones to get you house. Lastly, there was an offer from a young lady and her dog, yep, the letter was signed by her dog too LOL. I ended up deciding to accept her offer since it was going to be her first ever home of her own, and it was near her parents. I happily signed the paperwork and Tracy called the purchasing agent to tell them the offer was accepted. One down, one to go!
Friday morning, I found myself speeding to get to Ma’s house before the people for the first showing arrived. I got there just 15 min before, but on the way I had called Ma many times and wasn’t getting an answer. I figured she was outside working in the garden already. I had no ide what I was about to walk into.
I found Ma slumped over on the toilet and could barely get her to open her eyes and see that I was there. I didn’t know what was wrong, but I knew I couldn’t have people coming through the house with her in that condition. I quickly called Tracy and she cancelled all but the very first showing. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get a hold of them, so I just waited for them to show up and told them the situation when I met them on the driveway. They were super understanding and said they would reschedule.
I headed back in to Ma and with lots of effort and about 3 hours, I got her into her own bed and covered her up. All she could tell me what that she was cold and tired. (A quick return to Tuesday: I had noticed Ma acting strange so I had taken her to the doctor and we discovered she has a UTI. She got one dose of antibiotics on Thursday night, and one on Friday morning when I finally got her to pay attention to me for a couple seconds) I bundled her up in bed and left to run some errands and came back after lunch time. She was still sleeping so I just left her alone and kept on packing. Tracy called mid-afternoon to check in on Ma and to ask if she could swing by around 5pm again to talk about Ma’s house. Of course, I was there so why not.
I tried waking Ma before Tracy arrived, but she was just open her eyes a bit, mumble something and close her eyes again. Oh well, no big deal, she’s not feeling well so let her sleep. Tracy got there and we sat at the table and she presented me with THREE offers for Ma’s house. Turns out one of the offers was from a buyer and agent who hadn’t even seen the house, and that agent was extremely pushy and rude. They probably could have offered me double and I wouldn’t have accepted it. The other two offers were from a newly married young couple with a puppy and a family of four. As much as I would have liked to have seen Ma’s house go to a first time home buyer, the married couple’s offer was just too low, so I ended up accepting the offer from the family.
I tried to rouse Ma for her to sign the sales papers but I just couldn’t get her to wake up. I signed them myself, sent Tracy on her way to do her real estate agent things and went to check on Ma again. Right then, Bob showed up and I was telling him about what was going on with Ma. We agreed that it was best to call an ambulance and get her to the hospital. The firemen and ambulance ladies were amazing with her and they got her loaded and headed to the nearest hospital. They told me not to rush because I wouldn’t be allowed back with her right away, so I closed up the house, locked all the doors and headed out. A quick stop at McDonald’s and I arrived at the ER at around 8:30pm
By the time I arrived, Ma was already set up with an IV and the doctor had started tests. Poor old lady was crying that she was going to die and I told her to just settle down and she was going to be just fine. I stayed with her until about 2:30am and then headed home to shower and hit the road. We had to be up north at 9am to look at the houses and it’s a 4.5 hour drive.
Wow! I was sure when I came back here, I was going to see that it’s been a year or more since I last posted…what a surprise it was to see that it’s only been about 8 months. There have been an huge number of really significant things that have happened.
It’s incredible to believe that just 8 months ago, our lives were “normal”, a little complicated, but still “normal”. It all started around the end of August or beginning of September. Ma’s health started to decline more quickly, and her memory was getting worse. After the third call in 10 days, I was getting really tired of getting tear filled, panicked calls from Ma saying that she broke the toilet (she forgot how to flush), the house is flooding (left the tap on while she was outside for 10 hours), the TV won’t work (got switched to a different channel and she couldn’t put it back or the other time when she was trying to turn it on with the volume button) or my absolute favorite one, the phone is broken. Yes, you read that right, she CALLED me, on the only phone she had, to tell me that the phone was broken. Yeah! I know… that one’s right up there with her telling people, IN ENGLISH, that she can’t speak English.
The final straw came when she called me to tell me that there was water all over the basement because she had physically turned the tap in the kitchen, to a different position. We weren’t home when this call came, we were 8 hours away up north. Thank the heavens above for Bob. He went over and had a look around. Yes, there was water all over the basement, but that was because the hose from the central air has mysteriously jumped out of the laundry room sink, and was now draining directly onto the floor. Moving the tap in the kitchen had absolutely nothing to do with the water in the basement.
When we got home from up north, B and I went over for a visit, and I told her she needs to make a choice between two options. Either she goes to a nursing home or we sell both her house and mine and buy a new one together so I can take care of her full time. Visibly upset, she asked me if there were any other choices. My simple reply was that she could die, but she wasn’t allowed to do that until she emptied all the junk out of her house! (Now, you have to understand that the relationship I have with my grandparents, saying that kind of thing is totally normal and usually laughed about. And she laughed this time too.) With some mumbled swearing, she finally replied and told me to sell the houses and so began the hurricane that would last until the end of the year and beyond.
Ma had lived in that house for 43 years. That’s A LOT of time to collect and gather things, so before I even thought about calling Tracy (the real estate agent), we set to emptying as much out of there as we could. We figured maybe 3 or 4 runs to the dump and a few runs to the thrift store, and the house would basically be empty. How wrong we were!!!
I started packing and purging the next day and after two weeks of working everyday, there was a huge pile of boxes, but you couldn’t tell where everything had come from because there still wasn’t an empty space in the house. The fact that Ma was “helping” was really slowing me down too, and she wanted to keep everything. I kept telling here that she can’t keep everything because we are putting two houses together into one house and I would actually like to be able to keep some of my things too. She just couldn’t wrap her head around that, and so I resorted to getting rid of things sneakily when she wasn’t in the room. Yet, by the middle of September, other than the pile of boxes and one empty closet, you couldn’t tell I had done a single thing. Even still, I called Ms. Tracy up and told her to come and have a peak at the two houses to tell me what she thinks they can sell for, and then to help us find a new one.
**Side note here: Tracy has been my real estate agent from the time I moved out on my own when Ryan and I separated, and every purchase and sale since. When searching for the house that we were now going to be selling, that poor woman had to have travelled around every nook and cranny of Southern Ontario, looking at every house that was within my very limited budget. We ended up viewing over 100 houses before I finally gave up and bought the one I did. She sure earned her money that time. So, when I called her in September, I’m sure she was trying to find a way out of having to look at all the houses in Ontario with me again, and I’m surprised she was willing to take us on a clients.**
After discussing what we would list the houses for, and deciding that we were going to go ahead, we set up times for photos to be taken and the sign to be put up. In the meantime, I found a house that we thought would fit our needs, so we went up to see it. That house was located in Arnprior, Ontario, had a granny suite in the basement, sitting on 60 acres of land, and a good $100K below what we were willing to spend, so we went to see it.
Straight away when we got there, Bill and I had a funny feeling about that place, something wasn’t right. The first thing we noticed was that the driveway had a sliding gate across it, topped with barbed wire along with a private property/no trespassing sign. There was only a single house across the road from it and no other neighbors for at least a kilometer in any direction. Ok, that can be explained away. But that was just the beginning!!
We went inside…the tiny part of the basement that wasn’t the granny suite, was full of decorated and fully setup aquariums and terrariums…but they were empty. Where are all the snakes and other critters that were supposed to be in there? Next we went to look at the granny suite, what we saw, I would in no way, shape or form, call a granny suite. It was tiny, unfinished and just not habitable…I wouldn’t even let my dogs down there!! Seeing that, we were pretty sure that we were going to be passing on the house, but decided to look at the main floor and the property anyway.
The main floor was nice, newly redone except for the bathroom fan that didn’t work. The kitchen was modern, bright, and bigger than the one we had, but not big enough. That’s when we noticed a wasp. That happens, no big deal right? It’s the end of summer and it’s starting to get chilly, so they’re looking for somewhere to live. One little yellow jacket is not a deal breaker….but his two or three dozen buddies are!!!! Tracey was even taking pictures to show the listing agent because this was completely unacceptable. At this point, we KNEW that we weren’t just walking away from this property, we were going to RUN away from it. But just for shits and giggles, we went to look around outside.
We wanted to see the big shop and the apple and pear orchards that were talked about in the listing. Turns out, the shop was indeed large, but one strong sneeze and it would have fallen down around you. The apple and pear orchards? Two trees of each…that’s what they were calling an orchard. Out we went through the barbed wire fence and we didn’t so much as look in our rearview mirrors at that place.
We were disappointed, but we knew we weren’t going to be able to find what we were looking for, easily. I wasn’t worried though, the houses were not listed yet, and we were fully expecting it to take a couple weeks for them to sell because of their condition, so I lots of time to look and find something that was perfect. The following week or so was spent with me scouring the MLS website, trying to find THE house. If you recall, this is when the housing market started to slow down, resulting in far fewer houses being put up for sale. I looked and looked, used all different search words, raised the maximum price we were willing to pay…everything, and nothing was coming up.
That weekend (Sept. 16-17), the pictures and videos were taken, asking prices and closing dates were decided on, and contracts were signed. Both houses were set to go live on the MLS site on Sept. 21. Now I was starting to get a bit anxious that were going to end up homeless somehow.
Monday morning had me sitting at the computer again, looking at all the same houses that I’d already seen and hoping that something new would pop up. I got frustrated that it was all just the same things I’d looked at 42 times already, so I pushed the mouse away angrily and stood up. That’s when I realized that moving the mouse somehow made the map on the screen zoom out and show more areas of Ontario, areas that we weren’t looking at…and there was a picture of a house, I had to look at that house.
The picture made me think of a chalet, with the dark brown trim and white walls. I started looking at the pictures, and liked what I saw. I REALLY liked what I saw. I sent a screenshot of the location dot to B, no info about the house or anything, just where it was, and asked him if it was too far from where we wanted to be. He looked at the map, and replied simply, depends on the house. I messaged Tracy right away and set up a viewing for that Saturday September 24. Since we were going to be driving that far, Tracy found 3 more houses that she thought might work and we made appointments to view them as well.
Wednesday morning, September 21 arrived and both houses were scheduled to have a number of viewings already on that very first day.
And that’s when everything went crazy!!
Stay tuned for part 2, where you will wonder how I didn’t completely lose my mind!!
Just hours before Pa passed away, I was talking to him, trying to reassure him that everything would be ok. I knew that he would be worried about Ma, he’d told me before when he was in the hospital, to make sure she wasn’t lonely and that she was safe. So I told him, I said he didn’t need to worry, I would take care of Ma and keep her safe and not lonely. He was no longer conscious at this point, but he was very restless and moving around, once I told him that I would take care of her, he calmed down and stopped moving. A few hours later, he passed away.
Now, I’m gonna be real with you folks here, Ma and Pa had been married just over 69 years when he died. They had a great marriage, cared immensely for each other and had been through all kinds of things together including WWII and immigrating not once, but twice within a single year, with a 10 year old son in tow. From the time I was young, we (mom, dad, me, my sister when she was old enough) all knew that when one of them died the other would be close behind. And that would be especially true if Ma died first.
With that thought in mind, we were prepared for Ma to follow fairly quickly, so I even put off taking care of some of the financial things, so that I could complete it all at once, instead of having to pay lawyers twice. My sister even came to Ontario a couple weeks after Pa passed away, thinking that it would be the last time that she saw Ma alive too. Well, lo and behold, Christmas rolls around and Ma is still living her best life. She actually came to my house for Christmas dinner with all four of my kids, the step-kid and the man…her head was spinning with the chaos, but she loved it!
For a 91 year old lady, Ma is super healthy. She only takes one little anti-depressant and Tylenol for her back pain. She does have pretty bad scoliosis, but that pain is what she takes the Tylenol for. She has a hard time getting around now, but she still manages, though I wish she would stop going up and down the two flights of stairs in her home multiple times a day. Yes, you read that right, she still lives on her own, in the home she’s been in for 40+ years. She refuses to have help other than me or her neighbors Bob and Linda. Those two are a God send for me as well. As much as I would like to be, I can’t always be there for her, so Bob and Linda are very generous at picking up my slack. The other wonderful help I have is Meals On Wheels. If you don’t know what that is, look it up, but basically it’s a bunch of volunteers that cook, prepare, package and deliver meals to people. The people who get them pay for the meals, but it’s a very low cost. Ma gets these meals Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. In my opinion, the meals are small, but Ma is rarely ever able to eat a whole one, she does eat the soup every day though. That woman loves her soup.
Ma has always loved working outside in her yard or garden. I remember when I was small, she would get so tanned that it completely changed her appearance. Pa would get angry cause she just wouldn’t come in the house. That has not changed. She is still outside all day, but at least I have convinced her to wear a hat and drink water. In the warm months, when it’s not raining, I know not to expect her to answer the phone or to call me. She’s often outside from 8am or 9am until passed dark. She told me more than once, that she loves being outside so much, and she’s out there doing her work, nothing hurts, she’s not sad or lonely and she feels like a young girl. So I figure, let her be outside all she wants. When it’s those super hot days, Bob usually goes over to chase her inside for a while so she doesn’t turn into a raisin, but she’ll sneak back out after a little while. I think having her own yard and garden is one of the main reasons that she won’t even think about going to a nursing home.
For the last year and a half, or more, I have been trying to convince her that we should sell both houses (hers and mine) and buy one together that has a little apartment for her, so she can feel like she’s on her own still. I even told her, I would make sure that the place has a ugly yard and garden and she could play out there all day, every day. She still won’t go for it. I don’t know how many different ways I’ve tried to explain to her how much easier it would be for me, and how much safer it would be for her, but she just doesn’t seem to understand or doesn’t care. I’m not the caregiver in my family, that’s my sister. I’m the one you come to when you need repairs, or things taken care of. My sister is the one that will hug you, take care of you and feed you. Ma really needs someone like my sister taking care of her and if we had a house together, at least that would be a little easier because I’d be around her all the time.
I have no desire to “put her in a home”, but I’m not going to be able to care for her alone for much longer. Even though I’m not there everyday like I would like to be, it’s still a stressful thing to be a caregiver and it does take a toll on a person after a while. I’ve tried to find a Hungarian speaking PSW, but they just don’t seem to exist. Oh yeah, did I mention that Ma thinks she doesn’t know how to speak English? Ya, so she can’t speak English, but she talks just fine with Bob and Linda, the Meals on Wheels people, and even with the doctor when I finally got her to go. So really, I think if I could find a PSW that speaks clear English with no accent, Ma would be fine, but she doesn’t believe me.
Not knowing how to do things…AKA forgetting how to do simple tasks. This is another thing that is really starting to worry me. First it was the microwave that she couldn’t work, so she uses the stove to warm things up. I’ve worried for a while, even before Pa died, that she was going to forget about the stove and burn the house down, and now it’s even worse. Next is the washer and dryer. For a while, I had to keep resetting the washer to the proper settings because she would change it, now she just leaves it alone and so can do her own washing. The dryer on the other hand, she doesn’t remember how to work, and I haven’t see one like her since I was a little kid, and I don’t remember the setting either. She only know how to switch the TV on and off, if it happens to get changed from the weather channel, she’s in a panic and saying she’s broken the TV. The latest one was the telephone, she says she doesn’t know how to answer it or how to make it call out, but I’m calling bull on that one because she called me last night to ask for lettuce. Now, I suppose that it could come and go, the remembering, but she’s always been really bad for saying she was stupid and didn’t know how to do things, so I’m thinking some of it is just her saying it out of habit.
I’m not sure if I said this before or not, but when a family is expecting a new baby, there are many resources on how to learn to care for them, how to help them develop, when to call the doctor even. Why is there nothing like that for adults that teaches us how to care for our aging parents? Even an online forum would be helpful. If you happen to know of any resources either online or in Ontario, Canada, please leave a message in the comments.
For now, I’ll just chug along with the rolls reversed.
Growing up, I was very lucky to have my paternal grandparents (Ma & Pa), living right next door to me. Whenever my parents couldn’t take care of me, and lots of times when they could, I was with Ma and Pa. They taught me everything, from how to ride a bike to how to drive a car; how to plant a garden and shingle a roof; how to paint and how to build things out of wood; and they tried, boy did they ever try, to teach me how to cook and bake…that one didn’t work out so well. But they made me the person I am today and I’m very very grateful to them.
Shortly after I was born, Ma ruptured a couple disks in her back and was put on permanent disability, she was just 48 years old. When it was time for my mom to go back to work after maternity leave, which at that time was only 6 months, Ma was there to take care of me during the day. Pa was still working as a machinist at this time, and when I was older, he would always tell me stories about the one “dirty foreman”. Pa looked forward with great anticipation for when he could retire, so he would be home with Ma and I more.
Fun fact: I was born in Ontario to two English speaking parents, yet my first language was Hungarian. That tells you who I spent more time with in my early days.
The years came and went, and when I was about 12, my little sister was born. She too had the privilege of spending most of her time with Ma and Pa and as an added bonus, I was there too and I did my best to help raise her the way our grandparents had raised me. Luckily she did get the cooking and baking gene so her family doesn’t have to starve now!
More years passed, and I got married. In short order, we had our first baby, a big little boy. I had no idea what to do with this kid! All he did was cry and poop, I couldn’t get him to stop. When his father went back to work, I was even more lost as to what to do…well, there come Ma and Pa truckin’ over with food for me and arms to take the baby. Pa sat in the rocking chair for hours rocking that little boy. Ma cleaned and did dishes and fed me. I can tell you with 100% certainty, I NEVER would have made it through those times without their helping hands and hearts.
Not too much longer after that, along came another little baby boy. We moved into a new, slightly larger, place and Ma and Pa were again there helping. They took turns watching and playing with the little boys, then they’d switch and help me paint. It was right around this time, when baby #2 was about four months old, that we knew he was a different kind of little guy. Doctor and therapist appointments started, and again Ma and Pa were there to watch our bigger boy while I dealt with the smaller one. At this same time in our lives, tragedy struck, my father died. He was a pill popping, alcoholic and he committed suicide one day while mom was at work. Dad was Ma and Pa’s only child, so you can imagine they were devastated, but there was relief too.
A year later, my mom took my 12 year old little sister and moved 4 provinces away. I was heartbroken! That little girl meant the world to me and I would miss her with all my heart. It’s still my biggest regret that I didn’t fight my mother harder, to keep my sister with me.
More years passed and I had two more babies, both girls. I got older, the kids got older and Ma and Pa got older. They were always there for me. I spent hours on the phone with them each week and went to visit them every chance I had. They were slowing down, but they were still always doing something in the yard or the house, or at my place. They spent every minute they could with my kids. I soon realized that Ma and Pa weren’t just getting old, they had gotten old. Having myself and 4 rambunctious children come visit them was getting to be too much, so we trimmed back on the visits, but still saw them often.
My children are all pretty much grown now, they’re 15-20 years old. They work and have their own lives and I barely get to see them, so the visits to Ma and Pa pretty much stopped a few years ago. I still go all the time though.
February 2020, right at the beginning of what would become a world pandemic, I was shopping at Walmart when I got a phone call from the local hospital. I normally wouldn’t answer my phone in the store, but that day I did and it changed our lives forever.
The person on the other end of that call was a very patient and caring doctor. He was calling me because Pa had been admitted to hospital for what they thought was pneumonia. They did chest xrays and found that it wasn’t pneumonia, it was a very large mass in his right lung. Prior to calling me, the doctor spent hours in with my grandpa talking about choices and chances and what to do. Pa had it all decided, but he didn’t want the doctor or me to tell Ma what was going on. He wanted to do it himself. The doctor informed me that the mass was taking up most of Pa’s right lung and just from the xrays, they could tell it was a very aggressive tumor and it would take over very quickly. The doctor told Pa he only had a year at the most to live, but confided in me, that the chances of him making it even 6 more months were very very low. What a conversation to have in Walmart!!
The next day, Pa was discharged and I brought him home to Ma. It wasn’t until much later that I figured out that Pa had actually not told Ma what he was sick with and that it would kill him. In fact, I discovered this, and had to explain it all to her myself, just 3 days before he passed away.
Luckily, I had just quit my job a month before to go back to school. I was going to get my commercial drivers license like I had wanted to for so many years. Pa was so excited to see me driving a big rig, and I promised him that he would be the first to come for a ride with me. We were both more excited than a kid at Christmas.
Pa’s health took a very sudden and sharp turn for the worse. I spent hours each day on the phone with service providers, nurses, palliative care doctors, and hospice centers, but Pa wanted and we were determined to let him stay home for the rest of his time instead of being stuck somewhere where we couldn’t be with him. I organized PSWs and nurses, doctor and lab appointments, I did everything I could to help. After all, they did everything in their power to help me from the time I was born until I was well into adulthood.
Sadly, a little less than six weeks after that phone call in Walmart, Pa passed away. He was finally free of pain and distress, but it was only just beginning for us. Due to Covid and the world being shut down, my little sister never made it to Ontario to be able to say goodbye to him, and that will break her heart for the rest of her life. Pa never saw me get my CDL, and I never got to take him for that ride.
Little did I know, that the real hard days were still to come.
It’s been almost 18 months since the whole world was turned upside down. About 70 weeks since our lives all irreversibly changed. Roughly 500 days since the worldwide pandemic started it’s very own chapter in future history books. Twelve thousand hours since anybody was able to say with any certainty what would happen the next week, the next month or the next year. Around 720,000 seconds since we first heard how dangerous the Coronavirus/Covid-19 could be to any of us.
We’ve all had very different experiences in the “new normal”, (I really hate that saying.) Fortunately, most of us got lucky and weren’t affected by the actual virus, staying healthy and safe the whole time. Sadly, hundreds of thousands of people around the world, have lost their lives. The families and friends of those victims will forever remember this time.
Nurses and doctors were pushed to the limits, making incredible sacrifices to keep themselves, their families and the rest of the population, safe. Hospitals that were already severely understaffed and underfunded, were expected to magically have all the space and equipment to help all the people suffering from the virus. Many morgues were over crowded and running out of space for the deceased.
Schools and daycares were shut down. I myself was in school when Covid hit, so my program was delayed causing the 11 weeks to turn into 6 months…and I got lucky. With children having no school or daycare to attend during the day, many parents were forced to stay home. The lucky adults were able to continue to do their jobs remotely, but many had to take unpaid leaves of absence or permanently leave their place of employment. “Essential” workers continued working, struggling to find care for their children and to keep themselves safe, added a great deal of extra pressure to their already stressful jobs.
I am greatly relieved, as I’m sure most of us are, that the world seems to slowly, but surely, finally be opening back up. With the vaccine rollout, and over 70% people (in my area) already having both doses, people are starting to venture back out into their communities. However, the pandemic, and the reopening of things, has created anxiety in many people.
Whether your anxiety is about going back to work or going back to the salon for your first haircut, it’s going to be rough on many people. There are many businesses struggling to find employees, but there are just as many, if not more, people who can’t find employment. People are in limbo and it’s a big nasty circle for lots of them. The schools and daycares are planning to open fully in September (again, in my area), so people are starting to plan their return to the office. But what happens when a couple weeks, or a month later, the schools have to shut again? Limbo, no one knows what’s going to happen. So really nothing has changed since March 2020.
Myself, I’m very hesitant to make any sort of plans for anything. Whether that’s a haircut or a camping trip, or repairing my truck or replacing the dryer, it’s all the same unknown. I’m extremely lucky that my partner has a steady full time job, (he’s one of those essential workers I mentioned) but who knows if or when that could change. I care for my elderly grandmother and she lives in her own home still. It’s always on my mind, what if something happens and she ends up in the hospital? She will be alone, no visitors allowed (as far as I know) and she doesn’t speak English, what will her care look like and how will those nurses and doctors that are already so stressed be able to communicate and care for her? So, I do my very best to make sure she’s safe and healthy. That’s all I can do.
One way or another, we will all be feeling the effects of Covid-19 for a long, long time. Until we’re all completely on the other side of this, please take care of yourselves and your families. We never know what’s going to happen next as the world keeps on turning.
Murphy’s Law…we’ve all heard of it. Murphy gets cursed when the thing you least expect to happen, happens! You’ve made sure to check all the little things off your list, and end up forgetting something major. You just bought the milk and it doesn’t expire for 3 more weeks, and yet it curdles as soon as it hits your coffee…when you’re running late for work. Planning to go camping in a tent? You can be sure that Ol’ Murphy will send the thunderstorms.
Murphy decided to pay us a visit a week ago. We got very lucky to be given an amount of money to spend on something for ourselves, instead of the kids, house or bills, so we decided to upgrade the MV Wreckoon to a larger boat.
MV Wreckoon
A few weeks ago, we went up to Ottawa to look at a boat. It was nice, needs some minor work, but other wise, pretty much what we are looking for. AND it came with a trailer! When we left, we were discussing what we thought about the boat itself, and my comment to Bill was that there was something wrong with the trailer. I don’t know trailers well at all, so I wasn’t able to point out exactly what I thought was wrong with it, but I knew there was something “off.”
We came home and talked about it over the weekend and the following week, and decided that we were going to offer the guy a price and see what he says. He didn’t like our price, but we did come to an agreement of $2000 less than he was asking, it was a fair price. We let him know that we would come up again with the other truck in two weekends time, and pick up our new boat and so Bill started the countdown of days!
Picking up the Phoenix
We should have realized, that Murphy was planning something really epic when we got there and all 4 of the trailer tires were completely flat. Thanks to a nice lady who let us use her compressor, that was corrected pretty quickly. But then….the trailer lights won’t work…Bill and the guy checked all the wires and could not figure out what was wrong, so we decided to take a chance and drive like that since it was the middle of the day. We both looked over the trailer, truck and the hook ups to make sure all was good and we hit the road.
I’ve never seen, let alone driven, a trailer like this. It has surge brakes instead of disk brakes. No big deal, Bill’s driven one before. I noticed when we were hooking up and just before we left the the hitch of the trailer was really strange looking too. Like I said, I don’t know trailers so I didn’t realize something wasn’t right.
The wonky hitch
The drive from Ottawa, back to Golden Lake is about 2 hours and 15 minutes. All was good and we were cruising along, just heading into Orleans on Hwy 174, hitting just a wee bit of construction. Stop at a red light, then get going again. Go over one small bump in the road, then another….I’m telling you, neither of these bumps would have spilled a full coffee with no lid on! They were nothing! Except they must have been something because the next thing I hear is metal hitting the road. I figured it was the ladder off the swim platform falling off, it’s cracked and we have a replacement, so no big deal. I looked at Bill just as he yelled “Holy F*ck! We lost the trailer!”
Not where the boat should be parked!
Turns out that those two little bumps, coupled with the fact that the trailer hitch was completely worn out, (which we didn’t know until after the fact), caused the boat to tip a wee bit backwards and the hitch UN-COUPLED!!! The chains held for a few seconds, but they straightened out into almost straight lines.
We got so lucky! Bill stayed completely calm, and knew what to do. There was a median to the left, and it’s so deep that if the trailer/boat had gone that way, we’d have been picking it out in pieces. Luckily there was a lane to the right that was blocked off by construction cones. Bill was able to steer the lose trailer into that lane without the boat tipping and in fact, without the truck or trailer even touching one of the construction cones!! I couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was over in seconds! It’s taken me longer to type this paragraph then it did for the whole situation to unfold.
Unfortunately, the only way that Bill could steer the trailer was to let it hit the back of the truck…twice. Again, it was the trailer that hit the truck and not the actual boat. The truck, has some damage, but fortunately, the frame of the truck wasn’t bent and it should be a fairly simple repair.
Poor Power Wagon
We had just passed a Canadian Tire, so we hopped in the truck and zipped over there to get new chains and a new bigger size ball. I was super nervous leaving the boat on the side of the road like that, but we had no choice, and it was only for a short time.
Turns out that the bigger ball was too big, and the one that we were using was the correct size…that’s when we figured out that the hitch was super worn out. We attached the new chains, added some ratchet straps to the back of the boat, (securing it to the trailer), put a wee little pin in the lock on the hitch just as an added measure, and got back on the road.
We drove the whole distance at only 70-80km/h with our four ways on and it ended up taking a bit more than 2.5 hours to get back to Golden Lake. The Phoenix arrived safe and sound, but Bill and I lost about 5 years off our lives on that trip, so we decided that the boat would have to stay there until we got a new, safe, secure, proper sized trailer.
Bill and Uncle Dennis went over the boat and made sure things were as they should be, then launched it. We went out for a small tour just to see what it was like, and to see if I got seasick on it (which I didn’t), but the ride was just too short.
Beautiful sunny day at Golden Lake
Now, we wait….the new trailer should be finished being built in 2-3 weeks and we can go retrieve our boat. Until then, Bill is like a little boy at Christmastime, anxiously waiting to be able to play with his new toy, and I’m praying that Thursday’s events are not an indication of what the rest of our time with The Phoenix is going to be!
Catt On The Run 