The Simpson Blog

Didn't take long for Bernie and his Coughlin crew to put the new roof on the place. A lot of noise and flying nails, and one instance of me catching one worker peeing on the side of the house, but otherwise, an incident-free installation. And, the sun came out later in the day. The front and back yards continue to be a wonderland of life forms. The front lawn is a diverse blend of clover, creeping charlie, dandelions, little purple flowers, chinchbug-eaten lawn, and some grass in there too. Amanda's on a gardening tear, so we spent Saturday digging two circles in the front lawn to make homes for more plants. Within the dirt was a few hundred ants, several white grubs, possible chinchbugs, spiders, beetles, and stuff I'm probably blocking from memory because they were so creepy. Birds love our place almost as much as we do. They've been coming by less in the rain -- which has lasted for what seems like weeks now -- but we've seen robins, blue jays, little black squaw

Well, *this* has been an interesting few hours. Last night while we were waiting for dinner, we heard some kind of bang. I went to the basement hall and saw the cats near the litterbox looking perplexed. I thought they were fighting or something. Then I heard a hissing noise. I scurried under the stairwell and saw a spray coming from the main water line. Uh-oh! A leak! I had Amanda grab a bucket and some towels while I shut off the line ahead of the meter. A call to the city's emergency number summoned a repairman about an hour later. He arrived ... leaving a trail of blood down the stairs. Yeah, apparently he'd cut himself on an earlier call and the dirty bandage just wasn't keeping the crimson nectar inside his body. Anyway, he muttered something about the packing in the valve being bad or something. And something about washers being made of leather. In the end, he fixed it. So, crisis solved. Then ... about 15 minutes ago ... that'd be about 7:30 ... we were awaked

Naughty backyard raccoon , originally uploaded by BigAssSuperBlog . One of a series of pictures snapped past midnight last night as I looked off the back deck and saw a raccoon causing mischief in our backyard. First, it reached up and started tugging at the yellow extension cord that runs from the deck to the shed. Then it walked over to the clothesline and pulled down a big blue fleece blanket ... and either planned to heist it, or make it a meal. I hustled down the stairs to ask its name, but it scurried off into the neighbour's yard. My kitty seemed intrigued by the smell of the blanket when I brought it inside. I hope it didn't smell like rabies.

Looks like Amanda's leg malfunction wasn't as serious as first diagnosed. The orthopedic hottie doctor at the Cobequid Health Centre squeezed and flexed her on Friday and told her to scram and resume living. She's not at full speed yet, but she's clear to return to baseball and other fun-ness as much as the pain allows. I was freakin' out thinking that this past weekend contained Father's Day, and that I'd missed yet another card-sending deadline. But on Saturday we figured out, courtesy of the interwebs, that Father's Day is this coming Sunday. So, if all goes well, I will have sent a card on time...for a change. Yard work is a blessing and a curse. I can't say that I enjoy mowing the lawn, but I like how it looks afterward. I've taken a few passes at the evil evil goutweed with the weed whacker, and I've enjoyed decimating the greenspace. It was a bloodbath. Imagine throwing a grocer's supply of celery into an open blender, and you get

Friends and family on Facebook (the place what I ain't at) are, I'm sure, already up to speed on this, but for the rest, the big news this week is that my fiancee Amanda is at home with no mobility while I'm here at work. We had a busy weekend of gardening and lawn care. Monday I was up early for an appointment, then had a frustrating day at work. Around 10 o'clock, Amanda went up to get a snack and I considered briefing myself on my work assignment for Tuesday and test-driving some new technology for work . Then, a crash, a smack, and a scream, and Amanda was in a pile at the bottom of the basement stairs. Looks like she missed a step coming down when she was a few steps up from the bottom. She came straight down her right leg, and says she felt something give. Her leg buckled and she flopped to the floor in pain. She refused to go to hospital by ambulance, citing cost. So, wincing in pain, we gathered up a few essentials and crawled to the car. It took, what, 20 minu