Home stretch

We're juggling a bunch of things this week. The electrician finishing up the whole house rewiring soon. The floor guys are supposed to start Thursday morning (job will take 5 days), and in anticipation of that we pulled up the laminate floor in the second bedroom so they can do the whole shebang.  Still trying to get nails/tacks up and Greg is patching some holes.  Wed morning, got a bunch of garbage carted away, including the drop ceiling that Greg pulled out of the second bedroom over the weekend. And we're packing up the apartment so we can move out on Tuesday. Whew!

I hope to find time to post photos from a fabulous lunch we had on Sunday; Lighthouse Lunches at Cape Spear.  The event is completely booked for its run.  So fortunate that Greg booked in when he did.  Fantastic food and presentation; they had the last lighthouse keeper (he retired in 1997) to give a chat between courses.  Gerald Cantwell was the last in the line of eight generations of the same family to tend the light.

It's Alive!

I bought a clematis about a month ago.  I have a tendency to kill plants I purchase.  I've been watching this, waiting for it to succumb to my usual charms.  But lo and behold, after just having some new leaves, I finally have a flower.  :-)

I hope to plant it in our backyard against an old clothesline post.

The wind

It's been really windy this evening. 
And anytime it's windy, I think of Aunt Pat and the wind upsetting her as she walked home from school in Riverdale.

"Superstitious or skinny ?"

That's what our plumber asked me this afternoon when I backed off our narrow staircase as I started for the top step as he was coming up.  It made me laugh and also called to mind my Grandmother's penchant for "leaving by the door you came in".   I wanted to look up this superstition and some of the searches turned up a verse I like (it also creeps me out a bit):

'Yesterday upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away'
  ~~ Antagonish, by Hughes Mearns ~~

Today in History

On July 18:
1861    Union and Confederate troops skirmish at Blackburn's Ford, Virginia, in a prelude to the Battle of Bull Run.
1877    Inventor Thomas Edison records the human voice for the first time.
1872    The Ballot Act is passed in Great Britain, providing for secret election ballots.
1935    Ethiopian King Haile Selassie urges his countrymen to fight to the last man against the invading Italian army.
1936    General Francisco Franco of Spain revolts against the Republican government, starting the Spanish Civil War.
1942    The German Me-262, the first jet-propelled aircraft to fly in combat, makes its first flight.
1971    New Zealand and Austrailia announce they will pull their troops out of Vietnam.
1994    In Buenos Aires, a massive car bomb kills 96 people.

Born on July 18
1811    William Makepeace Thackeray, English novelist and satirist.
1887    Vidkun Quisling, Norwegian politician and Nazi collaborator during World War II.
1902    Jessamyn West, American author (The Friendly Persuasion).
1906    Clifford Odets, playwright (Waiting for Lefty).
1913    "Red" Skelton, American comedian and actor.
1918    Nelson Mandela, civil rights activist, first black president of South Africa.
1921    John Glenn, Jr., American pilot, astronaut and politician.
1929    Screamin' Jay Hawkins, American blues singer.
1933    Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Russian poet.
1939    Hunter S. Thompson, journalist.

And today is my mom's birthday and Janet & Jonathan's 25th wedding anniversary.  Wish I was there to celebrate with you.

Nice pipes

Greg & the plumber get started today.

And last night, we found out we have vintage spruce floors - not something many people refinish.  They'll replace it with a hardwood (spruce is a softwood).

After spending all the time and effort pulling up all those nails, this IS my floor, damn it.
We're debating to stain or not to stain.

(another example of spruce floors here)

Checklist

Iceberg
Moose
Caribou
Whale
Puffin

Crossed off #1 two months ago.
And now can cross off #4.  On our walk along the Biscan Cove Trail in Pouch Cove, while taking in this view:

Greg spotted two humpback whales (heard their spout before seeing them).

We watched them (and took lots of shots) for a while.  They swam down further to another cove and we sort of followed them.

I turned my attention to trying to find a geocache and chasing some butterflies.

The whales didn't breach but Greg did get a shot of a tail at one point.