So the pre-game warm up was attended last night by Melissa (who arrived on her motorcycle, causing happy sighs), ScaryClown (who immediately sat down in the ‘comfy chair’), LTGW, Rob of Nine, Robby the Bomb, Brian C., and most and happiest of all, Brother Jerome, who wasn’t invited but got a message from Brian C. and showed up with Thirsty Beaver beer! And took me to dinner at Himalayan Peak, where we ate awesome Indian food. Me Happy.
I can’t tell you how relieved I am that this work week is over and that I only have another week of hellish torture before my colleague comes back from a well deserved vacation and I can go back to sitting at my own desk and filing my nails (as….bloody….if….).
Hm. Anyway, I’m back at the Augur Inn, where I arrived at nineish this morning and got to work vacuuming in Dr. Filk’s old bedroom. I paused long enough to natter at Paul about the hellacious mess the ceiling painter left (there’s white paint tracked over the entire downstairs, ground into the bedroom carpet and some of it ended up (how???) on the panelling across the hall) and have a brief discussion with him about replacing the carpet in there (we decided against it) and made a horrid and unsuccessful attempt to get black wax out of the carpet and collected some breakfast, thanks Keith, and now a brief blog and back to it. I will run the vacuum over it AGAIN prior to pulling out the wetvac, but I don’t need to get the floor in there any cleaner before the painting is done and the trim is on.
So I’ll go back into the kitchen and continue to clean. I may get to the bathroom today, we shall see. There is one picture I will have to take, even if I never post it.
Brian C., may he blessed and adored, grabbed me by the neck and told me that I’m going to the open mic at the Railway Club today. So I have a deadline for getting out of here, which is good. I am thinking of dropping in again on my way through for the Dunnett Spit tomorrow at 11:30 at the Boathouse in New West. I should be good for a couple of hours.
Zeek! is very poorly. He limps, he’s very subdued, and we spent about fifteen minutes today making him a nest, which he refused to get into until we turned our backs on him. He’s resting in it right now. I think he’s got something metabolically wrong with him. His fur feels greasy. He doesn’t appear to be in pain and he’s eating and drinking.
Paul got new used appliances (another $400, ka-ching, but it had to happen).
My spidey sense tells me that this is the year we get a century flood. Snowpack is at record levels – it’s still snowing in the interior – and if we get a sudden flood it will do interesting things to the house market – there will be a good chance our house will still be on the market at that time. Here’s a quote from the Environment Canada site.
On June 10, 1948, the Fraser reached a peak elevation of 7.6 metres at Mission. Before the waters receded, over a dozen dyking systems had been breached and more than 22 000 hectares, nearly one third of the entire lower Fraser Valley floodplain area, had been flooded to this depth. The floodwaters severed the two transcontinental rail lines; inundated the Trans-Canada Highway; flooded urban areas such as Agassiz, Rosedale, and parts of Mission, forcing many industries to close or reduce production; and deposited a layer of silt, driftwood and other debris over the entire area.
Assuming your spidey sense is correct… I sure hope that measures have been put in place in B.C. since 1948 to cope with high water levels. That’s all you need (and everybody else too) is to have your house half under water after all the work you have put in.
The RCMP is already going door to door in Pitt Meadows telling people to get ready to move in a hurry, as 95 percent of the town will be underwater if the bad thing happens. This is unprecedented in BC history, but at least if the flood comes the fine citizens of Pitt Meadows won’t be able to say nobody warned them.
This is not the kind of prevention measures I had in mind! I’m talking about flood infrastructure like damns, dykes, large flood zones with no housing in them, redirecting water flow away from towns and cities.
The dykes in the lower mainland are in trouble. We can expect dyke breaches in the next flood. Fortunately Paul and I specifically bought a house which is a) on a level lot b) in the hardpack part of the lower mainland (dig six feet and you hit rocks) c) 150 metres above the high tide / flood line and d) centrally located. The folks in Richmond, Pitt Meadows, Mission, Chilliwack, Hope – they may have issues.
This makes me feel a whole lot better. You’ve had enough complications in your life this year without your house floating out to sea!! I just had an e-mail from your Mom and it was good to hear from her. She (like yourself) is a very special lady! By the way, she is welcome to share my e-mail with you if she thinks it would be helpful.