Today 12 April, was a ridiculous day. Do you know when you get one of those days? Those days when you can only find one of your shoes or your car keys are in your hand, and then they aren't and you don't find them for weeks? Well, today was one of those....
Bollocks part 1...
The car was booked in for its first service today, at 6000km, I booked it in early at 8am, so I didn't miss too much work. They told me it would take 45 minutes including changing my winter tires out for my summer tires (I am not waiting till this crazy storm is done - if the roads are going to be so bad I won't be driving anywhere anyway). So when after an hour they said it was still being worked on I was a little peeved, but not too bothered really. Then after 90 minutes, they said it was ready. I paid the bill, went out to the car and it still had the winter tires on. The summer tires were in the boot. So I went back in.
They claimed not to have known about the tires, even though I had mentioned it on the phone when booking and when I arrived this morning, even asking them to store the stores which they agreed to.
So, the car went back in to get the tires changed. Twenty minutes later I was told that one of the summer tires had a nail (in) which is possible I suppose, but they were fine when they were taken off in November and have been sitting in eth garage ever since. But they said they would fix it for me. I was sure this was to make it more expensive. It took another 30 minutes and then nearly 2 and 1/2 hours after I arrived it was ready - and they said they would not charge me for the tire change, nail repair or storage - so that was a bonus I suppose! I needed to get some fuel so I stopped at the garage on eth way home and Buffy called...
Bollocks part 2...
When Buffy called she told me she had been called by the police. Apparently, they had arrested someone and when searching his house or bag it whatever, they had found old tax documents with all our personal information on. Buffy recalled that Liberty Tax had called about a year ago and told us they had been broken into and documents were stolen, so it was probably something to do with that. The police said we should check our credit rating and history and make sure that no one had taken credit out in our name - so that was the next couple of hours.....
In Canada, there are 2 companies - Equifax and Transunion, who can log into your credit history and give you access to all credit and loan applications made in your name - so that's what we did. I had one weird entry where someone had tried to get credit to buy furniture on 28th February. Buffy had a few more where someone had applied for an American Express Card and tried to buy a cellphone online. We were told it was best to contact the companies involved and tell them we had had our IDs compromised as well as get our Credit accounts flagged so that no one could get credit n our names without checking with us first. This was actually reasonably easy enough and everyone was great except American Express who didn't really appear to give a shit. Bell MTS, with whom the cellphone was attempted to be bought, actually gave Buffy the address where it was to be sent! So we now think we know where the arsehole lives! Anyway, after 2 hours of ringing around Buffy and I had sorted out all attempted id thefts and got our accounts locked on both Equifax and Transunion, so it would be impossible to use our id's now to get credit unless someone actually took us over like Invasion of the Body snatchers! So finally I could start work...
Bollocks part 3...
At work, we have a phone installation that requires government clearance, that I applied for last week, taking 3-4 hours to complete security and clearance questionnaires. It was all done and out of my mind. Until today, when they sent another email, asking us all to complete the exact same forms, AGAIN, because apparently the process has been updated (So use the old forms you dicks) So I spent another 2 hours filling out the history of the last 10 years of my life plus all the details of my closest relatives - again - just because??? I finally got to the work I was supposed to be doing around 2.30pm.
Tuesday, April 26th..
Yep, the last two weeks flew by in a haze of snow, rain, wind and more snow. This winter has now officially the third-highest amount of snowfall ever for Winnipeg and is only 1.7cm short of being the 2nd worst.
This last weekend we had between 3 and 5 cam of rain, which washed away a lot of the snow but caused flooding. Then just for shits and giggles, we had another 4 cm of snow and the coldest April25th ever ( a high of -3.5 celsius), which was lovely because the melted snow re-froze and had new snow, mixed into it - which leaves just about the most dangerous roads and pathways you could imagine.
Here is a photo of a car that was caught in rising floodwaters, but is now trapped in thick ice....
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/southern-manitoba-overland-flooding-monday-1.6430477
A lot of other roads in Winnipeg and surrounding areas arent quite as bad but are definitely not good. But they are still pretty shit. As my boss at work said today - The Roads in Ukraine are probably better at the moment - Apparently, the City has repaired around 33,000 potholes so far this spring, but you wouldn't notice. The roads ate just atrocious at the moment and are only going to get worse in the next few days.
In un-weather-related news, everything else is pretty ok at the moment. The sun has started to shine, which is nice. The snow is beginning to relent (a month later than is usual). The kids are doing great ( or as great as kids can)...
Hannah is growing up every day - She is still suffering from tantrums/terrors or whatever they are during the night. Probably every other night at the moment she wakes up screaming and thrashing around in her bed. This started a week or two after the dog bite, but we don't know if it's related. At first, they were definitely night terrors - she didn't recognise us, didn't make any sense and couldn't interact with us until she fully woke up. But recently she is there - she answers our questions and makes sense, but doesn't actually want anything - she thrashes around, kicks her legs and screams, but has moments of clarity without actually making any sense - she just answers NO to every question, but if I pick her up she reaches for and asks for Mummy. It usually takes between 15 and 25 minutes to calm her and get her back to bed, but ist tiring and frustrating for us and at the moment we don't have an answer to how to deal with it. The only good part is that we are used to it now so we are able to stay calm and rind out the storm.
The morning after she is able to remember the incident but can't explain what was wrong with her. We always tell her how good she was and how much better she is coping with it, in the hope that she is able to remember this and stay as in control as she can - It does seem to be working as she is normally less upset than she would have bee a month ago.
We are waiting for a date for an evaluation to see if there is any trauma, mental or stress issues related to the dog bite and wonder if this will give us some answers.
Oliver is doing so great!
He is now repeating so many words - He loves to look out of the window before bed and watch cars going past as well as point out any puppies he sees! He said 'Grandpa' for the first time yesterday as well as sang along to some of the books he likes us to read to him. Hannah and he sometimes play together - their favourite game is to run around the main floor of the house and jump to sit down on their foxy and doggy chairs when we tell them to stop!
They also love to paint dinosaurs!!
Buffy and I are also able to get out every now and then - Because of the storm a couple of weeks back we missed out on a night at the theatre. Luckily, Jon and Susan offered to make up for that by looking after the kids for a night -so we had a night out at the WAG - Winnipeg Art Gallery and its new Indigenous wing called 'Quamajuq'.
We really enjoyed a different night out in what is a spectacular new building with some really interesting and funky art and exhibits.
My favourite was the spacesuit made from seal skin. But we really enjoyed the whole thing - even the walk there on a windy, rainy and chilly evening. If you are ever in Winnipeg with nothing to do you should go take a look!
Finally here is a quick look at the last few weeks outdoors - consisting of a little bit of playing for the kids and a lot of snow...
These photos are in the order they were taken day by day and you can see how much change we have had... From snow, to thaw, back to snow again and finally where we are now - 4th springtime! - The winter looks like it's finally over now though as it's warm and sunny outside today and a lot more rain is expected this weekend which will clear away a lot of the shite stuff that remains.
No comments:
Post a Comment