Quiet Friday — The Tugboat

Woke with a start at half six to the sound of someone playing basketball in the kitchen. As it turns out it was just the clothes in the dryer. The term clothes should be taken loosely in this context, apparently there was a pair of shoes in there. Who washes shoes?! I came upstairs and after conversing with Mother I warmed myself up some leftover hasbrowns and fried a pair of eggs. The eggs were the star of a sandwich which featured the culinary stylings of a cheese bagel, a thicc slice of cheese and some sriracha ranch dipping sauce. It was a yum-yum for m’ tum-tum.

I spent some time in the morning on my work computer. I was booking my travel arrangements for my trip to the West. It was like a new experience because it had been so long since I’d done so. I got everything done except for the car, apparently the company has changed the policy so now you can only reserve a mini, compact or economy. Nope, not gonna work. I contacted my admin and she says I have to call the travel agency we use and they’ll do it for me. I cleaned up email and sent a few other things out, hopefully resolving issues. I set up a call for the afternoon to touch base with a colleague who is away next week to make sure there are no major issues going to fall into my lap on Monday, there was one we needed to talk about apparently. I went upstairs and sat with Mother. She was attempting to be a vet and had smothered the dog’s parasite in vaseline to try and starve it for air. She left it for fifteen minutes and then tried to use her tweezers to pull it out. It is critical you don’t squash or break the thing as it could lead to dog death. Her plan actually worked but the little parasite was much too small to grab. She saw it poke it’s gross head out several times. Picture playing peekaboo with a tiny maggot. The little dog was only sort of scared during the operation.

After exiting the surgical theatre, Mother made lunch. She made a prepared soup from Amber’s, it was sort of Indian in flavour profile, might have had some curry too. I supplemented the meal with the last pogos that STL sister had purchased and some of the large vat of juice I needed to drink. It was an odd pairing but delicious nonetheless.

The afternoon was spent with the Big T. He came home early from work having booked it off. The combine was still busted so he couldn’t get any field work going. He spent over an hour after lunch working on the dog much the same as Mother had in the morning. He applied vaseline to the wound on its back and then waited and then tried to nab the little worm. I tried to have my call but apparently my colleague left late and his partner was on the phone so we’d try later. Eventually Big T gave up on the surgery and we went down to the Farm to free up a wagon. We had to haul the auger down from upstairs in the barn and tie it to the roof, the board wasn’t sturdy enough so I made him do it properly. We pulled the wagon up, put the auger under and then found a skid and some totes and started filling them up. He predicted there would be five totes. I managed to listen to a podcast with my headphones during the process. It was very dusty work and Big T wore a proper respirator but I didn’t have mine so went without, which I would later regret. We got pretty good at filling them after the first one and it turned out to be five. I forced him to clean up the area we were in but the barn is a diaster. There were at least four chipmunks running around and evidence that some raccoons were living in there. Everyone seems to be content with living in their filth. I might have to go there in the spring or something and try to fix that, maybe Thanksgiving, it’s embarrassing. With that job completed we returned home just in time for the Family Feast. The meal this round was Crispy Chicken Schnitzel Dinner. There was some beating of the meat and then roasting of the vegetables before cooking the breaded meat. I was with my parents for this one obviously and we had the benefit of enjoying freshly dug potatoes that I washed and green beans that were picked hours before. You can’t get fresher food than that. It was a nice meal.

The version that Sudbury Sister created. She was fastest this time and well prepared.

Parents version. Big T made a smiley face on the chicken?

The only downside to the meal was that Big T did a couple of shots of tequila and smoked four beers in an hour and was a bit much to handle. For my part I was starting to feel pretty dozy after eating. I had planned to take some of my stuff out to the truck tonight in fears that it would be raining in the morning but immediately after dinner I went to lay down for a few minutes. I passed out completely and slept the entire night. That is pretty unusual before a big trip, generally I’m anxious to drive back and go to bed later than I should and then wake up ultra early. Hopefully this robust sleep will make the return trip that much more enjoyable. I woke up around midnight to pee and discovered a text from my parents asking me to come watch Rocketman with them and there was a bowl of jalapeno, crunchy cheesies on the bedside table. That’s a weird thing to wake up to when you’re not expecting it.