A Day Crowded With Incident

It was a day “crowded with incident”, to quote Lady Bracknell of Oscar Wilde’s play; “The Importance of Being Earnest”.  

Our weather has been a yo-yo of summer to winter to summer again. We had a day of heavy rain and then snow on Thursday, sandwiched neatly between hot summer days. Weather changes flatten me as effectively as a steamroller, and I was flatter than a crépe this morning. 

Add to that a subluxed L5 vertebrae which is impinging the nerves going down my legs so I feel as if I have a bad sunburn on my thighs. The darn vertebrae keeps slipping in and out, when it’s in I’m fine, when it pops out, not so much. Loosey-goosey me.  

I was sitting here reading at about 1:00 when the smoke alarm started shrieking. My first thought was, grab the cats, get them in the carriers and head downstairs but when I stood up and looked into the kitchen it was full of thick smoke! The fire was here! Yikes!

Tony came running from the bedroom saying, “What did I do?” He’d put the kettle on the front burner to boil water for tea, but turned on the back burner by mistake. I keep my bamboo cutting board on that burner because we never use it, and yes, I know this is a dumb/ stupid place to keep something flammable, and he'd wandered off and laid down for a nap, and now the cutting board was on fire!  

I grabbed the cutting board with my silicone glove, dropped it in the sink and doused the blaze with water, but the place was thick with choking smoke. We turned on the exhaust fans in kitchen and bathroom, put the fans in the windows to pull the smoke out and opened the front door to increase air circulation, but 12 hours later it still reeks in here. Guess I need to look for ways to remove the smell of smoke. 

But all that adrenaline wired me up, and when our older son Ian sent me an e-mail at 2:00 asking if I wanted to go for a walk later I said yes, despite my misgivings and the state of my back. 

When he arrived about 4:00 we decided to go in my car since I have trouble climbing into his Land Cruiser. However my car wouldn’t start. I haven’t been anywhere in weeks and even then I’ve not driven any further than to the doctor’s office 12 blocks away in three months. While I was waiting for him to dig out the trickle charger cord from under the hood I felt a tickle on my arm and, without thinking, brushed it away and got nailed by a yellow jacket on my right hand ring finger. That hurt!  It swelled up nicely and is tight and hard to bend. 

I used my walker as a step to crawl into the Land Cruiser and off we went to the newly reopened Inglewood Bird Sanctuary. This is a spot we’ve visited since Ian was four years old, and it’s been closed since Calgary’s big flood of 2013 when it was all underwater and the trails and bridges were washed away. 

It was a gloriously beautiful day, and we had a lovely walk across their beautiful, lush meadow and through the aspens and pines and down to the bridge that crosses a quiet backwater of the Bow River. We watched a little female merganser fishing for minnows, and saw some mallards sleeping in the sun. Other than the briefest  glimpse of a chickadee we didn't see any other birds. The only other “wildlife” we saw were grasshoppers and hornets, all of whom were madly attracted to me, and paid no attention whatsoever to Ian. Every time we paused or sat on a bench, pretty soon there would be a hornet or two buzzing around me. 

On the way home we stopped at the grocer’s, then squeaked in 15 minutes before the roads were closed for Global Fest, the annual fireworks competition which is held in the park across the street from us.  

I was happy to plop into my chair once the groceries were put away. And my bed now looks very inviting. As soon as my pills kick in I am headed there.