Reno's With Rosie - A Tables Tale Retold

 There once was a table, a beautiful, round, mission style, tiger oak, wood dining table. This table had a good home, it was well looked after and it was happy. Then something happened. The table didn't know what it had done wrong, all it knew was that it was thrown out of the house, discarded like it was just some piece of mass produced particle board junk furniture. 

They hauled it outside and threw it into an old coal shed, dirty, dusty, dry and crawling with mice and other vermin. There it sat for many years, wondering, wondering what it had done wrong. Over time, parts of it were lost, the beautiful expansion leaf, gone! Now it wasn't even complete, instead of seating 8 or ten happy people, the best it could ever do was maybe 6. 

After many years had passed, a strange thing happened, people came into the dusty old storage room and picked up the table and carried it out into the sunshine and clear air, it could breathe again!

The new people loaded up the old table into the back of a black rambler, a 1972 AMC Ambassador and they drove off with the table inside. It never even looked back.

The new people seemed nice, "Ronnie and Bun" they were called, sometimes Bun and sometimes Bernice, it was all so confusing for the table, but it didn't care, it was going to a new home. Maybe there would be kids!

The new man, "Ron" then did a strange and alarming thing, he started up a saw and chopped off part of the base that made the table a table, now it was a tiny little short, useless, "coffee" table and they hauled it down into the "rumpus room" with the hideous wood paneling all over the place and they put their feet up on the table. "Oh no", the table thought, "this is almost like being in the coal shed."

In time, the table became one of the family and it was happy as a coffee table, almost. When the kids grew up and got married and moved out, it was still okay because now the table was old too. When Ronnie and Bernice moved to the acreage, "leisure acres" they called the place, they took the table with them. When they got sick and moved off of the land into a condo in Westlock, one of the few things that came with them was the table.

When they finally passed away, the table was worried. Would this be the end?

But no, someone wanted the table. A good looking young-ish couple (named Doug & Rose) came and loaded it up into a mini-van and drove it back to Edmonton. "Oh oh" the table thought as it was hauled down to the basement storage room, "Is this the end?"

There were no mice this time but there was a fuzzy feline that looked at it funny, "what was that cat thinking? Was it planning something bad?"

This time the wait was short, only a few years passed before one day the lady came down and looked at the table, "my, she is looking good" the table thought to itself.

A few days later she came back again with the man, they talked and he tried to talk her out of her plan, "we have a perfectly good table" he said, "that's true, but it doesn't owe us anything and this one will be great again if you can fix it and extend the base. You can do it, can't you Dougie? You are so talented, you can do anything!"

The mans stern expression seemed to soften and he squinted in concentration at the table as she squeezed his arm and smiled winningly at her handy husband.

"It wouldn't be hard, if we got a good piece of solid oak and made a new box, we could extend it back to it's original height."

The table listened hopefully, excited that just maybe it was getting another reprieve!

The man and woman went away for a time and then one day, they returned. They cleared a space and rolled the table top out and carried it upstairs. The table glimpsed a fine piece of oak sitting against the wall and did some quick calculations. "Yes! Exactly enough good quality oak to rebuild the base and bring it once again back to life as a proper table, of a proper height, elbows yes, but no more feet!"

And now, the rebuilding story in pictures.

The table (as a coffee table)  at Doug & Roses gift opening in 1983

Our $50 piece of solid oak waiting in the kitchen, 
thanks Windsor Plywood!

The operation begins, "anesthetic please."

Table top #222 looks on anxiously.

Ouch, I hope I can figure out how this goes back together.

Building the extension, good old elmers glue.

Now it's back together, time for some stain.

Stained, waxed and waiting for people. 
(elbows only, no feet!)

Looking good, all oiled, waxed and happy again!

That is the story of a table that returned to life, bringing joy and happiness to one and all!

The End (or is it?)

It’s a Beautiful Thing

When Rose and I were first married we had a lovely little cat named Chenille. She was the first cat that I ever cohabitated with and I enjoyed (almost) all of Chenille’s cat behavior as Rose and I “parented” our cat together.

We must have driven our friends crazy as they talked to us of their kids and the cute things that they were doing as they reached various developmental milestones. So often our natural response was “that’s just like our cat Chenille, she does that too!”

When you don’t have small kids around, your pet becomes just like a kid to you. Everything that your cat or dog does seems so endearing in the absence of a little human in your life (and sometimes even when you are lucky enough to have both).

Later we had kids of our own and realized how silly (and annoying) it is when people compare their pets to your kids! But hey, we did it too, we get it.

Now we have a granddaughter (Juniper Jewell) and we have stumbled onto a very curious thing. Shhhhh!

I don’t know if I have developed a very selective memory over the years about being a parent or maybe I’m just turning into a great big softy. But there is definitely something very, very special about being a grandparent and the relationship that is possible with a grandbaby.

I say possible because like any relationship, one with a grandchild takes a lot of work and is definitely a big investment in time, energy, money and emotional currency. It’s a short term investment sometimes as you monkey around with a toddler trying like heck to coax a smile or laugh out of them.

And it’s a long term investment as well when you struggle to get them to eat something that they may not like, but you do it because that’s what they need. They don’t know any better, they’re babies! And discipline in particular is not fun, we’re not looking forward to that particular (NO!) stage of development!

But there is something incredibly beautiful about just….being there….loving them…..caring for them…..listening to them…..reading to them…..sharing your interests with them…..helping them any way you can.

You don’t have to be an expert in parenting/grand parenting or have a lot of money to make a difference in their life. You just have to be there for them and show them that you care. You have to make yourself available in a very accessible way, preferably on the floor if you can manage it!

Fortunately Rose and I have more time on our hands these days being within shouting distance of retirement, “HELLO RETIREMENT, DON’T RUN AWAY, WE”RE COMING!”

As an added bonus, being ready, willing and able to help out our daughter and her husband with Juniper (Junie) when they need help or a break, or she’s not well enough to go to daycare or whatever else they need has also helped to draw us closer to them.

Parenting can be hard and fortunately we’ve been able to help out from time to time and we recently started looking after Junie one day a week when Kait went back to work when Junie was eleven months old.

We had Junie (J, JJ, June, Juno) today and I just couldn’t stop looking at her and patting her and rubbing her back and playing with her and walking her around and thinking just how much I (we) love her! And how very, very lucky we are to have her in our lives and to be able to spend so much time with her, helping her to grow and learn and develop as she should.

And after she goes home and every other day as well, we pray for her, for her future, that she would thrive and grow and have opportunities and always be loved and cherished and that she in turn would be kind to others.

I see how much Rose loves her and how good she is with her, how available and caring and all of the other things I mentioned earlier and I get all teary eyed and think how lucky I am to have such a great wife. And I see Rose watching me and how much fun Junie and I have together and how much I love that little munchkin’ and Rose gets all teary eyed and says nice things to me.  And sometimes I see Kait smiling when she hears me call Junie my little “sweet potato” and I know she loves to see us together, being a family.

She’s a fortunate little girl to have parents who love her and grandparents on both sides who love her and aunties who love her and even a cousin (Leon) who I’m sure loves her in his own little guy way and even with all of this crazy love everywhere flowing Junie wise, I feel like we are truly the lucky ones!

That kid is a serious blessing in our lives!

Renos with Rosie - News Bulletin: Bigfoot spotted in Campground!

Here I am laying around with our cat Missy out on the driveway in “Mr. Big”, our 1985 17 ' Bigfoot fiberglass trailer, the two of us are listening to some tunes on our new Bose Bluetooth speaker and while Missy prowls around exploring, I get to do a little writing. How sweet is that?

Over the last few weeks we've been busy getting everything ready for our first actual camping adventure and it's been a lot of work and a lot of fun. The painting was a big job but it has made a huge difference. Going from the 1970s rec room fake wood paneling to a clean modern look with just about everything painted out in white has been huge!

Rose's new fashion accessory, wonder if it will catch on?

In the middle of painting

Me doing the finicky stuff

My lovely wife Rose did her usual magic and reupholstered the seat cushions in a nice, hard wearing gray fabric with piping and zippers and all of that fancy stuff. She started off trying to sew them from some cheaper orange fabric that looked like a steal at $2 a yard but soon realized that it was not going to work. So instead of the orange with floral accents that I showed you in the last post, we now have gray and yellow.

She also whipped up some curtains in a nice gray and white stripe and ordered a fancy custom made shaped rod to fit the 3 front windows so the curtains bunch up nicely in the corners and stay out of the way.

Of course nothing is ever simple so I had to adjust the rod a bit, but being a big time professional installer of window coverings, I pulled a rabbit out of the hat and made it work, with no grumbling!

(Hardly any)

Part of the new curtains project involved sewing and installing them on the cat commode that we built for Missy under one of the beds. This deluxe VIP (very important pussycat) area also has a new floor finished in the same wood look vinyl planks that the rest of the trailer got. It looks great and we haven’t received any complaints from the occupant……yet. 

Private VIP - Cat Commode

After all of the various necessary but superficial appearance work was done, I figured I had better get busy on finding a vehicle to pull Mr. Big around with. Now that we have a "Two bed, two bath, 112 Sq. Ft. trailer" ready to roll, poor old Jimmy just isn’t up to the task anymore.

New vinyl plank flooring over top of old lino

Ready for the road.

Over the last few weeks we thought about it as we hunted through zillions of ads on Kijiji and Auto Trader and after vacillating back and forth between a pickup and an SUV we finally settled on a 2004 GMC Envoy with 158,000 km on it, practically new!

I can’t believe the shape this thing is in, it’s absolutely immaculate! It’s rated to tow around 5000 lb. so it should do okay with Mr. Big’s dry weight of 1850 lbs. We decided to name him “The Boss” and he seems to be happy with that, the only one who’s allowed to push (pull) around Mr. Big is The Boss, makes sense, right?

The Boss and Mr. Big at Moose Lake

After picking up The Boss I set about figuring out exactly what I needed for a hitch and trailer brakes. Everyone I talked to said, “GET AN ANTI-SWAY BAR!” My dilemma was that my trailer is light and I don’t need a big giant expensive hitch.

Not to be defeated by lack of information or experience with this sort of thing, I determined to search the internet and behold! There is indeed an adapter plate that mounts over the hitch, and the ball that comes with the anti-sway bar bolts right to it, I got it at “The Hitch House” and it works perfectly and saved me over $300! 

Sway bar mounted on hitch adapter

I also bought a trailer brake controller, mounted it on The Boss and Voila, now I have trailer brakes. Of course when I went to head out for a weekend foray to Moose Lake for a Men’s retreat, they locked up and the tires made distressing skidding noises, drat! 

I figured I would drive around the block and fiddle with the brake controller and sure enough, now they seem to be fine, although I will probably have to take it in and have all of the undercarriage stuff checked out before any other long trips.

So far everything has gone pretty well, the drive to Moose Lake was almost uneventful, I did have to stop and fix the latch on the storage compartment after it swung open on the highway but a couple of turns of the wrench and it was good to go.

The only other hiccup was clipping a rough approach at Franchere Bay store and bending the step mount a bit, “oops!.” I kicked it back into place however and now it’s as good as new. Now I know that there are low things hanging down under the trailer, who knew?!

I’ve enjoyed picking the brain of the guys who have trailering experience and I’ve learned a lot, including the fact that hauling a trailer adds about 50% to the cost of your gas, ouch! 

When I got home from Moose Lake, I answered many, many, many questions from Rose about what it was like camping in Mr. Big and it was soon decided that we needed to go for a trip together. Apparently hearing about my experiences at Moose Lake are not quite the same as being there. We also wanted to try out a short trip, not too far from home to see how Missy makes out spending an extended period in Mr. Big.

We decided on an overnight trip to Pembina River Provincial Park, just an hour West of Edmonton. Over the years we’ve visited the picnic area many times but never camped overnight so we decided it would be a good test of our ability as a family, (Mom, Dad and geriatric cat) to cohabitate in about a 112 sq. ft. space for a couple of days.

So far, so good! We managed to get out here, get parked, and get settled in with only a minor kerfuffle over setting up the awning, I hope that gets easier over time, it was definitely a bit of a hassle! 

It must have sounded something like this to an observer, “Hold this here, OUCH, my fingers are pinched, don’t let that arm go out too far, drat, you let the arm go too far, move that back, stand here, tighten that knob, no, the other knob……growl, grumble, etc. etc. etc.

Parked at Pembina River Provincial Park

Enjoying our first meal in Mr. Big!

It turns out that it’s a beautiful campground with lot’s of nice riverside trails, tons of wild roses and lovely songbirds singing their hearts out. We went for a nice walk, read our books for a while, cooked some corn, potatoes and pork chops on the BBQ and had a lovely evening playing checkers. After it got dark we set up our little 15” tv-dvd combo and watched “Stranger than Fiction” one of our favourite movies while cuddled up on the couch with Missy beside us.

Of course cats being cats, Missy decided to crawl in behind the water tank in a tiny little cavity and basically disappeared for an hour. Rose was rushing around in a panic looking in overhead cabinets, the fridge and inside pots and pans as if somehow Missy could have become half her size and a lot more spry and jumped into impossible places. I calmly told her that there was only one place she could be and not to worry, she would come out when she was ready.

Of course that was “not good enough Joe” so she had me move the cushions and lift the cover and sure enough, what do I see but two wide cat eyes staring back at me. We left the cover off but she was happy as a clam in there and Rose eventually lifted her out.

Missy's hidey hole

The one other fly in the ointment, (bone of contention) is the ongoing saga of the "Ottoman wars". It started when Rose brought home an attractive but completely impractical yellow rope poof, whatever the heck that is! My first (and continuous) reaction was “this thing’s got to go!”

I rarely get my way, but I convinced her  that being round, it just might present a hazard to everyone but especially the cat, in a trailer designed to move. Yes it is a cat palace, but a rolling one! It also looked very expensive, (not that cost is an object when decorating palaces.

Eventually, she returned it and came home with a slightly less ridiculous alternative that I would still dearly love to get rid of. Unfortunately, the girls are sticking together on this one and Missy voted with Rose to keep it.

Missy votes with Rose to keep the cube thing that I have decided to love.

So there you have it, a 17' Bigfoot has been spotted in the woods, and everything worked out just fine, thanks for reading!

P. S. If you enjoyed reading this story, please feel free to: like, +1, share, recommend forward or otherwise promote it. Thanks

 

Renos With Rosie - A Trailers Tale....in search of Bigfoot

All winter I heard it, "tap tap tap" then the sound of a squirrel or cat video and then again, "tap tap tap, tap tap tap". I should have understood what it meant! After all, I've been here before - in the scary place, that season when a bored wife with a few bucks in her pocket is searching, searching for, "A PROJECT"!

Noooooooo!!!

Rose talked about "the cuteness factor" and I remember her mentioning "Bolers" and "Scamps" and maybe even "Bigfoot" and still I didn't catch on. "Perhaps she's talking about some kind of mutant squirrels" I said to myself. Instead, it turned out to be tiny trailers she was searching for.

I imagined that when the winter was over and we could get out to the cabin and spend some time there relaxing, her new hobby of searching for small, lightweight trailers would come to an end, but "little did he know" as they say. 

When my lovely wife get's an idea, sometimes there is really nothing to be done but get on board and eventually, after much leg dragging, nail biting and clenching of various body parts, that's what I was forced to do.

I got into much trouble the first time she found a trailer that she thought was just right because these things go fast, one minute they show up on Kijiji and the next minute, they're sold! She mentioned it, I think I said "sure, let's have a look, but not until the money clears the bank" (it just so happens that we had just sold a rental property and we were waiting to have access to the funds) and bang, it was sold, "oops". 

Of course she kept looking and the very next week she found another one for sale right here in Edmonton, only 10 minutes from our house. This one was a 17' Bigfoot molded fiberglass trailer in great shape and it had just been listed so we immediately called the seller and made arrangements to come around the next day and view it.

If you know Rose, you won't be surprised to hear that she immediately hit it off with the young family selling the trailer. Of course I played the part of the slightly stand-offish, skeptical, tire kicking buyer while Rose ooohhhed and awwwed and gushed how perfect the trailer is and how cute their little daughter is, (she was very cute). When the time came for negotiating the price and Ryan fixed his low end price at a firm number, Rose offered him $100 more if he could deliver it to our driveway. So much for negotiating!

So we wrote out a deposit cheque and shook hands and went home to talk about what the plan is to transform our new family member into a rolling cat palace.

I forgot to mention earlier that one of the big reasons for getting a trailer is so we can bring our 17 year old diabetic cat named "Missy" on our holidays this year. Since we don't have any kids at home anymore, there's no one around to give Missy her twice a day insulin injections when we go for holidays so now the plan is for her to come with us in the Bigfoot trailer.

So now, where Scarlet (my old 1968 Ambassador that I sold in the fall) once stood on our driveway, we now have "Yeti" (name under review). 

Over the last week I fixed a bunch of little things, set up the trailer wiring harness on Jimmy to match, registered the new trailer and now we've started on the upholstery, window coverings and preparing for painting.

Rose has spent many hours thinking about what the final look will be so right now I'm just trying not to get bowled over in the rush to invoke "the cuteness factor" in the plentiful, but as yet untapped, raw potential of our 1985 Bigfoot trailer.

It's going to be a good summer, right Missy?

Before.....

Stripping out the old curtains.

Rose, making new upholstery covers for the seat cushions.

The new orange upholstery fabric along with the accent fabric and the dusty old striped stuff.

Goodbye dusty old drapes.

The authentic, still working clock.

Saying "Goodbye" to my First Love.....my 1968 AMC Ambassador

Before anyone who knows me gets worried, my lovely wife Rose is doing well and we are still happily married, "whew!"

The "first love" that I am writing about is not a woman, it is a car, the very first car that I ever owned. I have been sentimentally and some would say foolishly hanging onto her for the past 20 years or so, ever since the poor thing was unceremoniously dumped off (by me) at my parents acreage like so much scrap.

Scarlet (that's her name) came into my life on a bright sunny summer day when I was thirteen years old and it was love at first sight! I hadn't really discovered girls yet so a well turned ankle held considerably less fascination for me than did a red bucket seat with a center console and a 343 cubic inch, high compression V8 engine with a 4 barrel carb!

Scarlet and I in 1982, both of us in our prime!

So the girls in my old neighborhood of Goldbar in South Edmonton swallowed their disappointment at my distracted fascination with Scarlet and went on about their lives: a little discouraged maybe that the cute blonde fellow that lived on their block was temporarily off the market.

This is me around the time "Scarlet first became one of the family

For a 13 year old that was accustomed to his dads big 4 door Ramblers, the new 2 door, 1968 Ambassador with it's snazzy 2-tone red and white paint job seemed to be a pretty sexy, exciting mode of transportation!

Gold Bar was a very sedate suburban neighborhood in those days and the Petry household was probably about the weirdest and wildest bunch on that particular block. Between my dad "Ronnie" my mom "Bernie" and my older sisters Cheryl and Chris along with my fuzzy headed older brother "Terrible" (Terry) we all at one time or another gave our neighbors fits.

This was in the early seventies of course so a lot of people were sort of going through the whole "turn on, tune in and drop out" groovy psychedelic phase and the Petry household was not immune. Heady times, what with the moon landing a few years earlier (if you believe it was real!) and the 1972 win over the Soviets in the "Summit Series" Canada vs our arch nemesis, team USSR. Who can forget the last game in Moscow with the Canadian team coming from behind and Paul Henderson scoring the final series winning goal with 34 seconds left! Go Canada!

Final game 1972 Summit Series in Moscow

So for the next few years, Scarlet was a part of the Petry family and I think it was mostly my mom who drove her and of course when I was finally old enough to drive when I was in grade 11 it was mostly the red rocket that I drove. For me there was a very real emotional attachment to the car that I learned to drive in and so when a friend of my dads smashed up the front end one day, I was more than a little bit sad.

Thankfully it all turned out okay when my parents decided to give their smashed up car to me and all I needed to do was find a way to fix her up and get her back on the road. With help from my dad and his buddy "Rolly" a mechanic who worked at my dad's service station "The Saratoga" a Pacific 66 truck stop in South Edmonton we soon had her back on the road.

Of course as soon as that was accomplished my new priority was getting a great stereo system installed. In those days that meant a cassette tape player and I bucked out for a good Pioneer system that rattled a few eardrums as Scarlet cruised down the street. Ah those were the days, faux sheepskin seat covers, Appliance chrome mag wheels on "slicks" (extra wide tires with almost no tread) a leather wrapped steering wheel and Steppenwolfs, "Born to be Wild" blasting from the stereo! Sweet!

But life goes on and Scarlet being a product of the North American auto industry of the 1960's had a few reliability and utility issues and eventually I decided to park her for the duration or at least until I could afford to really do her up nice.

In the mean time I had met Rose, who I might add was never jealous of Scarlet, seeming to understand our complicated relationship. She very kindly made room for "the other woman" in my life and seemed to develop an attachment of her own to my baby.

Scarlet as she looked sitting forlornly on our driveway (for 10 long years)

The cockpit, with some of my embelishments

Kait and Lola say goodbye to Scarlet

Today's me, holding the picture of Scarlet and I taken by Rose in 1982

Speaking of babies, along came Kait and we decided that what we needed was a more reliable, modern car and Scarlet retired to my parents acreage in the Rochester area south of Athabasca and there she remained until my parents sold the place and I had Scarlet delivered to my driveway.

I wish that my kids, Kait and April had been able to go for a ride in Scarlet and had a chance to get to know her a bit but I just never had the perfect combination of money, time and inclination to rejuvenate her once again, oh well.

So after having her sitting on my driveway for the past 10 years or so, I finally gave in to the whispered words in my ear, "sell Scarlet, sell Scarlet" and I did it, I sold her down the river....or hopefully I sold her to a better home where she has at least a chance of being restored to her former glory and once again classing up the streets of Edmonton.

Goodbye Scarlet.....thanks for all the memories!