November 3th, 2007: It’s Saturday night as I write this – we are going to be busy hauling another load to Saskatoon tomorrow so I thought I had better get ahead of the game.
We made our big move last Sunday. Lloyd came down with his cube van and we jammed it full, then took a bunch of stuff in the car. Mike, Aaron and Jenny came to give us a hand packing and loading. Lory Sproxton and his boys, and Sara and her friend helped unload in Saskatoon, so by the time we got here the big job was done. Sandy and Laurie both did yeoman service helping to pack, so we have had the whole family involved.
Doreen can wake up at six-thirty, work like mad all day, and still put a good meal on the table at suppertime. I get up about eight, work fairly briskly all morning, plod around after lunch, have a nap that usually lasts an hour, then complain about my feet until suppertime. We both rest after supper. Must be getting old.
We got ourselves one of those fancy LCD TVs, four feet wide and two feet tall, with surround sound or some such thing, a whole bunch of speakers and miles of speaker wire, and I haven’t a clue how to hook it up, plus a five-disk DVD player which we’ll never use because we get all kinds of free movies with SaskTel Max. For four months we get free subscriptions to every channel on their list. Know what? We flip through all seventeen hundred and fifty three channels, watch the news on Saskatoon TV, watch Everybody Loves Raymond, then turn the stupid thing off because there’s nothing worth watching.
Oh, yeah – Doreen also watches Wheel of Fortune, which I can’t stand. We can’t get High Definition TV because this benighted area of the city isn’t wired for it yet. One strong plus, though, is an endless supply of music and radio channels. We needed a big, expensive system for that? If I ever get the sound system figured out, we can listen to music from the fifties. Then we could buy a CD of Fifties Favorites and play it on the hundred dollar CD player and ghetto blaster that we gave away.
We have a very good location. It is about two minutes to an Extra Foods store, three minutes to a very good Co-op store, twelve minutes to Lucille’s place, and about fifteen minutes to Lloyd’s. We can be at Preston Crossing in five minutes, McNally Robinson in not much over ten. The liquor store is only a few minutes away. What else is there?
We sent out a change of address e-mail to everyone in our address book, and got some very gratifying responses. Everyone is wishing us well in the city, and hoping we continue with the Greenwater Report. I told the guys at coffee row that I was counting on them to keep me informed on doings at the Park. Even though not everything will be totally flattering to the people mentioned. I’m sure you would like to hear about it.
Maurice’s adventures with his pacemaker are always interesting, especially the way it fluctuates when a red tractor drives into the yard. Merv’s bears, and his occasional lutefisk attacks, are valuable historic events, as are Alex’s adventures spilling grain over at Riel Bosse’s. Then there’s Jack, who loves me dearly but does his best to hide it with his comments about how it’s damn near time I was vacating the country.
Helen is on e-mail, but I’m not sure she has figured out how to send e-mails. I sure would love to have her slant on events. Somebody is going to have to tell me when the lake freezes over, and when it opens up in the spring. I can’t be everywhere, for Heaven’s sake.
We are only a couple hundred yards from the Co-op store, where I understand Kelvington people gather for coffee. Unfortunately, there is no gap in the fence, so I have to go a half mile west, then cross Attridge and come east again to get to the Co-op. Not like I need the exercise. There is a McDonald’s at the end of our street, where I understand Ron Weber hangs out at coffee time, so maybe I’ll try that.
We drove back to Greenwater on Friday; that is, Doreen drove and I slept. Around Archerwill we saw snow on the roadsides, and by the time we got to Greenwater the ground was covered. It was almost all gone by suppertime, though.
Did you catch that leaders’ debate? I watched it for about three minutes, Doreen hung in for a couple more and we shut it off. That’s no more a debate than a free-for-all is a duel, and it seems to be the pattern. My mind has been made up for quite awhile anyway.
Joe Rusteika has been spending time here looking for elk (not very successfully) and checking out the cottage. Old-timers may remember Joe as a teacher at Archerwill, Mozart, and Wynyard. It’s his son, Kelly, who bought our place. We turn it over to them on November 23rd.
Maybe by next week I’ll find my camera and send a picture or two.
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