Tirolese Family
Please help support our site by using the above link to go to
Amazon.ca
The Adventures of
Rubber-Man
Rubber-Man and the Door of Doom
(January - August 2004)
Chapter 1: in which Rubber-Man gets everyone up to date...
| Felicitations and greetings. Hi there! Hello. Long time no
talk I know. For those of you new to The Adventures of Rubber-Man, these are a series of e-letters detailing the goings on with me (Rubber-Man) and mine (Bride of Rubber-Man and the Wienerheads, Spazhead and Roobear) and our Amazing Adventures in Domesticity! Like those family Christmas letters, but more often. The observant among you will notice that this is Episode 10. It appears that Rubber-Man has become a bit of a cultural icon and has a fan-page. You can read episodes 1 through 9 at my old school friend Ana's family website http://www.tirolese.com/rubberman/rmindex.htm. Let's see... when we last left off, the Town-House of Solitude was suffering from the Velcro Flu. At least that's what I called it, since it seemed to hang on like burrs to a shaggy dog, leaving you dragged out and miserable. Rather ironic since we all dutifully get our Flu Shot every winter. Probably another of Lex Luthor's diabolic plots. I even missed a few days work, although I managed to get Overtime every weekend. But the planned bucolic week off visiting family and learning to play Mah-Jongg with my snugglebunny and the Wienerheads was replaced by poor sleep, coughing and drippy noses. It was an awfully snowy January around here. The one blizzard actually froze up our water heater! We heard a horrible rattling coming from the basement. "That doesn't sound good" I say, being the clever techno-wiz that I am. When we went downstairs to investigate we noticed the top of the water heater vibrating like something from work. We quickly shut it off and called the gas company. The next day the repair guy found a chunk of ice in the exhaust fan. (This despite dutifully keeping the outside vent clear at all times. The repair man suggested an extra strong wind gust had forced an airborne glob of snow up past the vent!) After that was removed it worked fine. Another snowstorm had the furnace shut off despite our frequent sorties to shovel out the vents (why do they put them so low to the ground?!). Our repeated attempts to restart the furnace failed and had me calling a service company, but he advised us that a late night call would be over $100. He suggested that ice might have formed further up the air intake vent and to shove a straightened coat-hanger up there and fish around. Worked a treat, saved us a $100 and saved the service guy making a late night call. And now you know too. Spazhead also had three (out of four) of her exams postponed due to the weather. February saw things clear up a little health, weather and Overtime wise. The Wienerheads and I finally got to see Return of the King and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Although the completion of the trilogy means I don't have anything to look forward to at the movies anymore, at least until Peter Jackson quits mucking about with King Kong and gets to work on The Hobbit. Bride of Rubber-man opted to stay home and wait for the DVD, since she usually falls asleep at the movies and misses the middle. The end of the month had both Wienerheads off camping in the snow with the Pathfinders. As part of her program Spaz was supposed to be one of the organizers of this expedition. When I picked her up from her grocery shopping excursion with the leaders and the other girl organizing the trip I find out that we're also expected to take up the tents, and the cooking gear and a cooler full of water! Plus two Pathfinders and their kit. In my Echo. Right... The leaders all seem to drive vans... anyone see a logistical problem here? But after I calmed down from my unfortunate flip-out we managed to get both the girls up to their camp. The trunk was stuffed, everyone but me had a box of food in their lap and the cooler was seat-belted into the back between the girls. After we flung the Wienerheads off into the woods, Rubber-man and his Bride then had a Nice Day Out. We went to three fabric stores as Elizabeth hunted for materials for a pair of quilts for my niece's twins. I managed to not be bored, gave what I hope were helpful comments on the materials and then we went out for lunch. |
Chapter 2: in which Rubber-Man's Winter of Discontent becomes... well the Spring of Discontent...
| March was busy with Overtime and preparing for
Hotlead, my Annual Giant Playdate of
Miniature Wargaming Mayhem. It was our 10th Anniversary so we had a special
$10 for the weekend admission and lost money, but we had a surplus built up
so we're OK for next year's event. We just can't make any donations to the
Red Cross or the Canadian War Museum this year, which is what we like to do
with any excess. March Break had Spazhead going out for dinner with some
school friends and then shopping in London with another friend for her
birthday. On Easter we finally got down to Branford to visit with my sister and view her new grandsons. Bride of Rubber-man was exerting her Super Quilting Powers and putting the finishing touches on the last quilt as we hurtled down the 403. Part of the problem was a last minute design change on the quilts (read starting over again on all new quilts) as she realized that the quilts she had been working on were too 'girly' and my niece had gone and had a pair of boys. The next weekend I was working Overtime and happened to be walking by the front doors and noticed how black it was outside. "Geez is it Midnight Shift already and I didn't notice the time go by?" I wonder. When I got back to the Extruders we crack the side door to peek out and the sky is no longer black but gray, but only because of all the hail being blown horizontally across our faces. The next time we peek out we see someone's pick-up truck rolling across the parking lot to hit the side of factory! Yikes. We paged the guy to his truck (he'd left it in neutral...) and then the power went out and we all got sent home. Turned out there was a tornado that touched down near the next town which took off a roof, tore a 150 year old farmhouse in half and flattened a dairy barn. No one hurt but the residents of the farmhouse were a woman Zehr's Woman used to work with and her family who are also members of our Parish. Their neighbours organized a big fund-raising party for them. We've had 9 tornadoes touch down in SW Ontario this summer, which is more than I can remember in the last forty years. OK I wasn't paying very close attention to the weather for the first twenty or thirty, but it still seems like a lot. I'm sure my mother has something apocalyptic to say about it, but I don't want to encourage her. |
Chapter 3: in which Rubber-Man reaches a Certain Age...
| OK. It's true. I'm now officially
40. I'm growing less hair on my head
and more in my ears (the ear/nose hair trimmer I got in my Christmas
stocking is proving useful). The gray patch on my chest is getting bigger.
The songs of my youth are now being featured on the local classic rock
station. Inside I still feel like a clued-out teenager, and think "hey who's
the old bald dude?" when I look in the mirror. To reinforce the whole my aren't we old feeling I went to my Cadet Reunion. My old Cadet Corps (No. 9 London Secondary School Cadet Corps hoohaw!). To celebrate the 125th anniversary of Army Cadets, they held a reunion for alumni of the corps during their Annual Inspection. I really enjoyed Army Cadets during High School, so off I went, photo album in hand, hoping to see some old friends. I made it just in time for the start of the parade. I was sitting beside Chris, my oldest friend, who went through Cadets with me. I finished up as the Colonel and he was my RSM. So we're watching the parade and we're remembering having 200 kids on parade and nowadays they only have about 50. Well turned out though, especially the fife and drum band. The parade positions carried swords. "Geez, we didn't get swords" I said to Chris just a little enviously. "That's because we didn't trust you lot with swords, Mr. Manto" says the elderly gent on my other side who turned out to be one of my old training officers. No cadet officers anymore. The Cadet CO was a Master Warrant Officer and the two Platoon Commanders were Warrant Officers. A 'Warrant Officer' (WO) for those of you firmly on Civvie Street is a senior Non-Commissioned Officer, above a Sergeant. So your Company and Regimental Sergeant Majors (CSM or RSM) (the guys in the movies with the drill canes and sashes with purple faces, voices like thunder and steel rods instead of backbones) are usually Master Warrants (MWO) or Chief Warrants (CWO) respectively. Chris, as the RSM, was a Chief Warrant. I, as the Cadet CO, was a Lt.Col. As far as National Defense HQ was concerned Major Parker (a teacher and Reserve officer) was the CO of the Cadet Corps. My rank as far as the Armed Forces was concerned was 'Cadet'. But I was the cadet leading the parade so I got to be Cadet Lt.Colonel. Confused yet? Obviously someone at NDHQ was, because a few years after I finished they got rid of the Cadet officer ranks and only have NCOs. I guess it makes more sense, since I was never involved in any actual planning, only carrying out the plans (that's the difference, officers plan for the 'big picture', the NCOs make sure that the plans are carried out in a way that fits with reality). Spazhead has probably done more planning for her Pathfinder Camps than I ever did. But with the old way we had lots of ranks and parade positions to slot people into as they moved up in seniority. Besides, it was useful to have the NCOs behind the troops to stop the whispering and fidgeting that is endemic with 13 and 14 year olds. They were also useful for catching anyone who got dizzy on a hot sun-washed parade square. But alas, the old outdoor parade square is gone along with the old barracks and the Regiment that moved to a larger more centralized base up north a decade or more back. So I guess it's not a worry any more. There's another bummer; when I was in, our corps was affiliated with the 1st battalion, The Royal Canadian Regiment, the senior Regular Force Regiment in the Army with a proud tradition going back through Korea, the Italian Campaign, WW1 and the Boer War. Now that the Regiment has been relocated, the corps is affiliated with 22 Service Battalion, a militia unit of cooks and mechanics. Granted an army needs cooks and mechanics too, and the cadets now probably get more help from 22 Service than we ever did from 1RCR, because our regiment was always off on a Peacekeeping tour or training exercise somewhere. But it's just not quite as cool. There's a perfectly respectable militia armoured cavalry squadron and a militia infantry company still in town.... At the end of the parade they had us alumni fall in beside the Cadets and march past. That was amusing as all us oldsters, fell in, dressed ranks and tried to remember our drill, since most of us were last out of the ranks giving the orders. Standing in front of me was my old CSM, Wally Bedford, who was muttering about things not feeling natural without his old drill cane firmly tucked under his right arm. As we turned smartly to the right and started the march past (mostly keeping in step), I heard my old Cadet CO, Alison Gourley muttering "Great, and here I'm in heels!" After the march past the current Cadet CO looked rather embarrassed and not sure what to do with us old timers standing patiently at ease (since you don't break ranks until dismissed of course). It's not really covered in the drill manuals. "Um, Alumni can fallout... thanks..." We used to get much more creative in our day. So off we went to the Officers Mess for drinks and reminiscing until the formal dinner.
|
Chapter 4: in which Rubber-man subdues El Porto, Door of Doom...
| June saw the Slaves of Mordor
(CAW local 4451) vote on our new contract at work. We got kinda hosed at the
bargaining table, but they lubricated the deal with a $1000 signing bonus.
So the Overtime Smorgasboard is drying up and I'm trying to say "Yes"
whenever it gets offered, which isn't often. In July we had our Two
Week Shut Down, but the first week some areas still needed to run so
I worked it. We worked four 10 hour days so we'd have Friday off and started
at 4:30 AM. I fortified myself with bacon sandwiches and tea each morning at
6 as a reward. But we were done our production requirements 4 hours into day
3. So the last day I managed to take some exceptionally long breaks with my
new Pascoe and Dalziel (pair of detectives created by Reginald
Hill) novel and still be seen pushing a broom when my foreman wandered by to
check on me. I got the extrusion lines really clean. Of course after one day
of production when we got back you'd never have noticed. I had the next week off. One day was blazing hot, so Rubber-Man and his main squeeze decided to go to the Home Depot in Cambridge and look at screen doors. We'd been talking about putting one on the front of The Townhouse of Solitude for years and decided the time for action had finally come. We'd always been thinking wood, but realized that after we bought the hardware a decent wooden screen door would be more expensive than a decent aluminum one. Buy one door. Got it out to the car and realized the packing made it too wide to fit in the trunk. Fortunately Home Depot rent cargo vans by the hour to get your stuff home (it was cheaper than the delivery charge from Cambridge to Stratford). When we got back to return the van we decided we didn't want to make the trip again, so we shopped for blinds for the living room too. Nice blinds, double cell, insulating, no cords. Cost more than the door. Used up what was left of the signing bonus. Oh well. Later that week, having read through the directions about 5 times, Rubber-Man has summoned up the courage to try putting the door on. I've got the door standing on edge, am trying to measure things, hold it up and it's getting awkward, and I haven't even cut anything yet. It's laughing at me, I am El Porto Door of Doom, quake in fear puny mortal! I almost put my tools up on eBay and call the Home Depot 1-800 number to get someone to come install it for me. But I didn't want to wimp out. "Besides," I reason, "I can assemble model kits, I can do this too, it's just bigger." Although no one is going to notice or care if I glue the wings on a model backwards and end up chucking it out.... eek. Foolishly a very large friend had offered to help, so with his trusty side-kick Patrick holding things up, down or otherwise in place Rubber-Man measured, cut and screwed his way to portal splendour. Of course I had to later take the trim off twice to get the fit right (Bride of Rubber-man can be so particular), but it opens and closes and even locks. It should keep the bugs and snow out. So El Porto is now 'Porty,' the friendly guardian of The Townhouse of Solitude. |
Chapter 5: Rubber-Man and Dr. Phil...
| The biggest thing at The Townhouse of Solitude this year has been a concerted effort to eat better. Bride of Rubber-man has been reading Dr. Phil's book and finding it useful. We aren't going too wild, but we're eating more veggies and fewer treats. Many of our dinners come from the Looneyspoons cookbooks. Their veggie lasagna and black bean soup are really quite good. Ironically we can eat meatless no problem year round until Fridays in Lent, when due to time available, what's defrosted or some other reason it's more convenient to roast a chicken. We haven't gone veggie, we just eat less meat that's all. We still put sugar in our tea, because I can't think that all that aspartame can be good for you. We'd rather do without soda than drink diet. But we're picking lower fat, higher fiber options and not buying cookies. This isn't as hard as one might think since Marks and Spencers stopped production on their cookies for the Canadian market last year, deciding to concentrate (it would appear from their website) on yuppies needing pre-done posh dinners for one. Their Oat Crunchies were my absolute favourite and when they were gone from the supermarket shelves questions were asked in the House (well our house, not the House of Lords) and teddy bears everywhere went into mourning. Other manufactured cookies just don't grab me by the lapels the way these ones did. I was afraid of a vast treatless future stretching ahead of me, but I get pie on important occasions like Father's Day and Rachael's Confirmation. All my women have lost weight, roughly 13 to 15% each. People keep saying "Colleen, you've grown!" when she's the same itsy bitsy 5'1", she's just skinnier. Elizabeth and Colleen have taken up Tai Chi which they quite enjoy and Spaz takes some pleasure in being the youngest and bendiest member of the club (the average age being somewhere around 75!). I thought about joining them but with my shifts I'd only make about half the classes, so I'm making more of an effort to do my physio stretches at home and some push ups everyday. |
Chapter 6: Roo's Big Day...
We now have two (count 'em TWO)
teenagers in The Townhouse of Solitude.
Roo bear turned 13 this July. We asked her for some ideas for what she'd
like to do on her birthday. She gave us a list:
Experts will tell you that your North American Urban Roo-bear (gens. piglet) is a pretty easy-going and generous soul, and our Roo is no exception. She interpreted things pretty broadly, so going out for ice-cream the night before and then a trip into London for shoe-shopping and then to see Shrek 2 (loads of fun) followed by stops at Chapters and Micheals (a craft and art store) to buy her books and art supplies managed to fit the list pretty well. I'm not sure how we satisfied number 13, but she has it checked off. Fortunately, with it being such a busy day we had some lasagna in the fridge and Mom, of course, had baked a cake (numbers 14 and 21). She got to have her friends over for a sleepover the next weekend. Roo managed to have a pretty good year in Grade 7. All A's except for a B in Gym. She and the princesses managed to politely ignore each others existence and the teachers relied on her good sense to shepherd the "turd herd" about. The "turd herd" was a handful of boys who were perpetually clued out and quite often got lost between the door and their desks. She's also sprouting like a sunflower and has finally broken the 5' barrier. |
Chapter 7: Spazhead and the Infinite Michaels...
| Spazhead has successfully completed Grade 9 with straight
A's (even in Gym). She's made very good friends with a very nice girl who
lives so far away it's long distance to phone (thank goodness for
long-distance savings plans). Her friend is right in the middle of three
school districts and could have chosen to go to Pope John Paul II Secondary
in London or St. Mary's District Collegiate in St. Mary's rather than St.
Mike's in Stratford. Spazhead has also been dealing with the attentions of
many boys named Michael, [they don't all pay attention to me! Ew,
GROSS!!!] so many that they've all been given nicknames; Bobo,
Eyebrows (a.k.a. Hateletter Michael), Cowboy, Smoker Michael (he really
reeks), Tall Michael, and Rapper (or Short) Michael. You need a scorecard to
follow the names when she tells us about the goings-on at school sometimes. Spazhead has also taken to knitting in a big way. Her grandmother gave her a sock knitting kit for Christmas which Spaz looked at rather dubiously, but gamely gave it a try. Something clicked with her and she's made 5 pairs of socks (including a pair of toe socks and a pair with fuzzy cuffs that you have to knit backwards from the toe up) and two sweaters since Christmas. She had to take her knitting with her on camp-outs as a stress reliever. It keeps her hands busy and it's better than nervous eating. We've caught her walking about or dancing while knitting (the ball of yarn is in a pocket). She'd like to be as proficient as her aunt in New Brunswick who knits during business meetings (the knitting is out of sight in her lap under the boardroom table). She just finished her latest project (a sweater for Rachael) so we may have to make a trip to the yarn store to get some more supplies or she'll start knitting with stray threads, rabbit hair or carpet fuzz. She's also getting a few piano lessons in this summer and hopes to be finished her Grade 4 piano book by September. Spaz has also been pretty good with helping in the yard too, although not quite as keen as last year. She puts on her now out-of-fashion orange baggy pants and orange tee-shirt to work in the yard and the similarity to prison coveralls has been commented upon. |
Chapter 8: in which Rubber-Man Hopefully Wraps Things Up for Now...
| I believe I started this early in July, and it's now
approaching mid-August, so I'd better bid everyone a fond adieu. I've just
started my second week of holidays (although I worked Overtime yesterday).
This morning we were all out weeding the flower beds, but my back was so
sore at lunch Bride of Rubber-Man told me to stay in this afternoon. She
doesn't want to break me first day of my holidays. Such a thoughtful woman.
But we've been getting a lot done around The
Townhouse of Solitude this year; the screen door, the new
blinds, we finally got a clothes dryer set up in the back yard to save on
electricity in the spring and summer at least. Last year for Earth Day the
company sold us all discounted Rain Barrels and I finally got ours
installed. It's been so rainy this year I could have done with four really.
There's enough room on the front walk to get around a second rain barrel,
I'm sure of it. My Father-in-law installed some shelves in the downstairs
closet to turn it into a pantry and put a programmable thermostat on the
furnace. Spazhead used her shop class knowledge to help me change a faulty
light switch. All summer Bride of Rubber-man has been waging the Battle of the Weeds. It's been a struggle of epic proportions. The weeds really got out of control in the two and half years she was at Zehr's and she's still trying to repair the damage to her flower beds. The back shrub border was really overgrown and you couldn't see some of the shrubs anymore. But with the tenacity of Zhukov relieving Stalingrad, she's been throwing back the fascist weed invasion. Who knows, the yuccas might actually flower next year now that we can see them. Although today we were working on the flower bed out front, it's all weeded and mulched for another year at last. Later this week I hope to put our compost heap through a chipper-shredder and rebuild the sides so it's a little less of an eye sore. So I think that's everything unless my women folk have something to add. Elizabeth's Grandma said to "keep it interesting" and I hope I have. |
Loads of Love
James
--
See our website at
http://www.quadro.net/~hotlead
Page last updated:
10/30/2005
