Mindless Chat and Other Stuff

 I just switched my writing font from Aptos to Arial. I am not sure why, as Word is pretty determined to have me use the former. It may be a classic ‘old fogey’ thing. I also like Times New Roman for some things. But when I write, I revert to Arial 12. Stuff it, Word.

All of this ‘Word’ labelling can be annoying as well. I used to play on-line Scrabble. Sadly, it got improved and dressed to the nines and saddled with all sorts of add ons and it is now Words with Friends, version 2. There was just a fill in posted that asked how we liked the latest addition to the gizmos and gimmicks. I told them.

Our finish carpenter has, um, finished for now, packed up and departed for another job. He is due back in a few weeks to do more finishing in our downstairs. But, for now, I have doors on rooms and closets, tile on the landing of the staircase, baseboard and quarter round throughout and really nice finish panelling in the kitchen where we eat. He did his cutting in the garage and so I also have a layer of sawdust on the floor there, even though he did sweep it out once. Otherwise, he cleaned after himself amazingly well, in spite of his sad report that he had left an open tube of epoxy in his toolbox and the stuff was now floating his tools. Not only a fine carpenter but a fun and gentle man. Referrals on request.

Now Grammarly wants me to substitute ‘despite’ for ‘in spite of’. Weird. I do have to ignore some of its strictures if I want to sound like myself. And I do.

I have to quit playing here and go and vacuum a ton of dirt off the front hall floor. We have had no snow, but we do have dead leaves, sawdust and dirt from the laneway. All of these things seem to want to migrate into the house. JG is off to the city to see about a repair to our big canister central vac, but I have a small hand pushed one that is about to get a workout. After I post this, of course.

Sunday will be the first day of December when one can think about Christmas. Just because the stores have been decked out for three weeks is no excuse. I read about people who have already decorated the house and surrounds, and I pass several houses where the house and yard are full of shine and half deflated Christmas ‘stuff’. Our prompt for this month’s photo club is 1.) a Santa Claus parade and 2.) red and green. Muttering to myself. But it is an interesting club. Members from phone photographers to highly outfitted mavens. We put photos from the prompts up on a screen and discuss. Politely but with determination. I got one kudo last month from the ‘orange’ prompt but there is one purist who does not approve of cropping, and so I did not get overall applause.

I did get applause on Wednesday evening. We held our annual dinner for the hall staff (Watson’s Corners Community Hall of which I have often written). I have worked there in various capacities for about thirty years now and our hall manager recognised this in a speech and I was loaded with flowers and thanks. It was sweet of them and I admit to tearing up a bit. You have to notice that this is one really big bouquet.

A Phishing Story

At a bit after 9:00 am this morning I received a call from someone representing himself as an employee of our bank. His voice was accented but his English was clear. He said that there were two questionable items shown on our Access card and proceeded to read off the sixteen numbers on the card at top speed. I bit. Luckily, I do not keep the numbers of this bank’s access card in my head; I do recall most if not all of the numbers of the card I use to make online payments but this card is one that my husband mostly uses.

And so I asked the man to wait while I got my wallet and found the card. When I got back on the line, the voice requested that I give him the card numbers. At this point, I became cautious. He had, after all, given them to me. And so, I asked him to repeat the numbers while I tracked them on the card. No, he responded. I should give them to him. I was pretty sure that I was smelling a rat by this time and so I told him that since he had given them to me once, it should not be a problem to do it again. The bank rules prevented it, he said. Not credible. I hung up and, to be sure, I decided to call the bank and check.

 I looked up what purported to be a number for our local bank and called it. What I got was the main phone complex for the whole bank, with mindboggling option choices. I chose credit cards and had to sit on hold for almost half an hour. By this time I was annoyed enough to put the call on speakerphone and do my jobs with one hand while I waited. When I got a rep, I told my story and was assured that the call I was reporting was a scam and that I had done the right thing to report it.

Two takeaways from this. One is that this scam is pretty catchy; the bank rep was glad to be told the details. The second is that the bank’s phone policy is extremely annoying, even though the music piped during the hold is broken by recorded assurances about call importance and requests to stay on the line. It should be possible to call the local branch without being redirected to the main number and put on hold. If the redirection is, in fact, necessary, the bank should have enough people on the main complex to prevent long waits. Not to mention using better music.

A Door Able(s)

  

We are almost at the end of the decent weather for the months to come. While it is still mild most of the time, we have had one snowfall. It lasted less than the full morning that it fell, but there have been what my family always called ‘hard frosts’ the last few days. And, a major marker in the year, deer hunting started here today. I have heard a few rifle shots, but when I passed the hunt camp next door to us this afternoon, there was no deer carcass hanging, so either that camp has not been successful or it was another hunter that I heard. I can still go out into the screen room with some comfort and so I do hear the guns.

Most of the leaves are down, as well. The oaks are hanging on, but even the tamaracks are pretty denuded. The palette in the bush has gone to greys and browns with a few notes of rust and, of course, the deep greens of the evergreens. JG has been sweeping and raking to get the worst of the leaves off the ‘lawn’ (there is so much twitch grass that it is a bit presumptuous to call it that). And yesterday was a grey day with drizzles of rain that did not amount to much. What it did do is wet down the leaves and now JG is raking by hand. I used to be able to help, horrible job as it is, but now all I can do is watch.

But inside things are improving. JG has hired a finish carpenter to … finish … the bits of the house that he never got around to doing. Window surrounds and baseboards, mostly, upstairs. And doors, glorious doors on my office and to close off the storage cupboard in the wall opposite the brick chimney wall. I will add photos! There was some question as to whether I would get the office door since there is a bookcase just inside, but the door swings and clears. And the door to the bedroom is framed in as are the closet doors in our bedroom. They are going to get a lick of paint, too, in time.

 

Our presently fully occupied carpenter is a character. As he measures and installs, he talks to himself, muttering about measurements and fit. And there are sighs heaved. And deep breathing. I am trying to stay out of his way but I am on the same floor of the house, and the ongoing chat, at full volume, is hilarious. Once he gets this floor done, he is going to be sent down to the television room, an area which is really, really unfinished at present, needing mudding on the walls, a ceiling and a partition and door into the furnace and workroom part of the basement. I think we will have his company for some time to come.

It is past time to have these things done. It will make a great difference in the ability to sell this house at a reasonable price and in reasonable time. I don’t want to think about this ending. The house is the home we built ourselves. Our forever home. Planned just for our needs. Our sweat and a few tears and smears of blood from punctures have gone into it. But it is a long way from anything else. And we are getting old and older. I am not capable of cleaning the inside myself any more, so it is done for me, but JG is still doing everything outside but the tree cutting himself and finding it more difficult and exhausting each year that passes. I must believe and act in the belief that our days here are numbered and few remain.

Change of topic after a pause while I wrote cheques. While looking for something else, I just fished four pens and three snap lighters out of my purse’s pockets. I swear the things migrate. Next week I will find them all on the dining room table or in the pockets of my fall coat. This spring I got out my raincoat and found half of a dog biscuit in the pocket. I think the last time I walked the YD’s dog and fed her biscuits was 2018, or thereabouts.

Okay, time to stop maundering on and post this.