This Aloe Vera plant looks like it’s doing the limbo.

I couldn’t resist the punny opportunity.

Saturday. Sometimes I have the day to do absolutely nothing, nada, nudding at all. On those days, I might sleep in, get up, shower, get a coffee, have a leisurely breakfast, and then maybe cruise around to the local hardware store or Costco or wherever looking for an excuse to spend money I don’t have.

But today… well that was a different story. Last week I started staining my fence and deck and I was set to finish that this week. My plan was to get up early, go for a haircut and then I was going to stain all the uprights on my deck and give the floor of the deck a quick once over with a roller as a second coat. Then I was going to go over to my neighbours and to some odd jobs for them… They needed some bracing installed along the bottom part of their fence and they wanted to have landscape ties installed around the flower beds out back.

That was the plan. A good honest handyman’s day’s work, a cool shower, and a good feeling that I didn’t waste my Saturday. But that’s not what happened. Not exactly.

Last evening my son asked if we could go to a couple of car lots in the morning looking at cars before he went to work. Sure, I said. I’ll just inject that little task into my plan… perhaps I’ll postpone the haircut. We left this morning around 9:30, picked up one of his friends and headed to the Dodge dealership. From there we went to Tim Hortons to get a coffee and went to the Hyundai dealer. After a little looking around and kicking tires, I decided we would head home. It was 11:00. I dropped my son’s friend off at his place of employ, and headed home. We were almost there, when we saw something cross the road. From a distance, it looked like some sort of bird, but it looked a little different, somewhat out of proportion. As we got closer, we realized it was a duckling. A single solitary duckling, in the middle of a subdivision. Nothing but concrete, asphalt, and lawns. No ponds, no marsh, and no sign of momma duck and/or a string of other little ducklings. This little guy was stranded. So, my son got out and chased the little bugger down and scooped him up.

“Can we keep him?”, said my 17-year-old son. Uhm. I don’t think so. It’s a duck. We’ll be calling the SPCA for some advice. So, that’s what we did. The SPCA took my name and number and said someone would call us back. In the meantime, my son laid the duck down on the back deck and it saw an escape opportunity and made a beeline for the edge of the deck and leaped off the edge to freedom under the neighbour’s deck. While my son was chasing it down, the forest ranger’s office called. (All I could think was, I don’t want to tell this guy that, in the three minutes since I left my name with the SPCA, the duckling outsmarted us and got away.) I explained to the dude how and where we found this little bird and asked for advice on what to do with him next… something that didn’t have “a l’orange” in the answer. He said to bring it to the nearest pond, perhaps Centennial Park, and set it free. Perhaps it will merge in with another family, grow up to be a strong healthy adult duck, and come back someday to rescue us from a fire or something.

So, off we went to the park. It was 11:30 by now. On our way there, I remembered that there was a big car show at Centennial Park. The Atlantic Nationals were in town and 1600+ antique and scooped up cars were going to be strewn about all around the park. Shit. That’s ok, we’ll go to Jones Lake. It’s a nice lake with walking trails all around it. Super.

Then suddenly, my cell phone rang. It’s my neighbour, Rennie, calling from my house. Hey Steve, where are you? He explained that he and his wife, Lorraine, had gone to Kent Building Supplies to pick up a couple of sheets of lattice, and couldn’t get them into his car. So, he left Lorraine at the hardware store and came back to see if I would go back down with him in my van to pick up the lattice. Oh, and hurry up please, Steve, cuz Lorraine is pissed at me. Ok, Rennie. I’ll be just a few minutes. But why don’t you go pick up Lorraine and bring her home. Kent will hold the lattice until we get there.

So, we arrive at Jones Lake. Yup, it does have some really nice walking trails around it, but not much of an easy access to the edge of the lake, at least not where the other ducks are hanging out. We drove up a little side street bordering the lake, got out with our little boxed duckling, walked to the edge of the tree line and peered into the woods lining the lake, looking for an easy path to the shore.

“Excuse me. Sir. Can you come over here?” I turned around, and there’s an old lady on her front porch across the street, waving me over. Ok… now I’ve got to explain to this old lady that we are just rescuing a duckling, not looking for a place to dump a body, or worse yet, potential recyclables. Turns out, she simply wanted me to take her flower box off her front rail, get two different pairs of pliers, and attempt to re-bend her wire flowerbox holder so it wouldn’t lean too much. “My husband is disabled, so I figured I’d watch for the first handsome young man to come along and ask him to help.” So, did you get tired of waiting? I fixed her flower box wire-thingy, but not before I skinned half the skin off several knuckles. It’s so hard for me to slam my fist into a metal railing after a vice-grip slips and NOT curse and swear.

After some chatting and several “thank yous” I was back on my mission to free the duck. We found a place that brought us to the water fairly easily, but it was nowhere near any other ducks. This place will have to do. It was after 12:00 and my son had to get to work by 1:30. That same duck, who, when placed on our deck bolted like he was racing in the Kentucky Derby, just sat in the box when we tipped it on its side within three feet of certain freedom. After about 5 minutes of gentle coaxing, the duckling was on his way. Once he splashed into the water and swam just off shore, he chirped gleefully as if to say, “Thank you, nice gentlemen. Hey, where the quack is my mommy?”

Now, I still need to rescue two more ducklings. The ones who attempted to fit two 4 by 8 sheets of lattice into a Hyundai Sonata. I rush home and Rennie is waiting for me on the front step. He’d gone and retrieved Lorraine already. “So, Rennie, I don’t understand why Lorraine would be mad at you.” Well, Steve, I tried to tell her before we left that the lattice wouldn’t fit. But she said we got it in your van before and the stuff bends fairly easily. “Don’t tell me, Rennie, that you used the I-told-you-so words…?” Well, kinda. “Rennie, Rennie, Rennie. You are 65 years old, and married more than 30 years. Don’t you know that you have a choice? You can be right… or you can be happy. Never both at the same time.” Sigh. Yeah, I know.

We went to the hardware store, picked up the lattice and came back home. I sat, had a glass of Pepsi, and headed out to start my busy day. 1:30 pm. Start by busy day? Start? Then why am I so exhausted already?

So, I stayed out in the yard, staining my deck until after 7:00 pm. It’s now, Sunday morning, and I’ll have to go out and start the rest of my Saturday list.

As I looked in the mirror this morning, I thought two things. I wish it had rained this weekend and I need a haircut.

Today, is our 10th anniversary. Yes, not only did we make it through another year, we’ve managed to tolerate each other for a whole decade.

When we were married for one year, I went to the jewelry store where I had purchased our engagement ring looking for something special to give her. As I perused their wares, I came across this beautiful ring that had some intricate gold work and 11 tiny diamonds strong across the front in a row. When I pointed to it, the sales clerk said “what a wonderful choice, how long have you been married?” When I told her it was a year, she said that this ring is typically a 10th anniversary gift. I said, “What if it feels like 10 years?”

I bought the ring and gave it to her then. She loved it and continues to wear it. I love to tell that story and I’m not so sure she loves to hear it. But, I can honestly say, that after 10 years has past, it doesn’t feel like 10 years. It feels like it’s only been a year. We are more like newly weds today than we were back then.

Happy anniversary, my love. Don’t expect your 10th anniversary ring today. I gave it to you nine years ago.

You know the feeling you get at the moment between doing something stupid and realizing how stupid it was? That two seconds of limbo where you don’t know exactly how bad you arsed things up? That juncture where you are certain you have gone beyond the point of no return, but you are uncertain what the consequence is?

That’s a looonnggg two seconds, let me tell you. Trust me.

Last evening, I tried to install new photo sharing software on my website. I had used other galleries and flashy showy things before, but they were either too heavy or too hard to manage. Then I found Zenphoto. It’s PERFECT. It integrated neatly into the site and I liked the design, straight out of the box. I loved it. But, my webhosting service offered an easy one-click install that, while very easy, did not allow me the convenience of uploading and downloading my photos using FTP. In other words, I didn’t have a backdoor. So… I tried to install it manually. I checked around, found others online that had done it, and followed their instructions. To the letter.

That’s when it happened. My website disappeared. When you go to ohmenerves.com you got nothing but a strange looking listing of garbage. I have a test site as well and it was messed up too! Oh my God. Oh… my… GOD! I could go to my administration panels and find my database and all my website files, but the site was down. PANIC!!!!

So I called upon Jody. My good buddy Jody. My hero. My lifesaver. He’d saved my bacon before… maybe he could do it again.

Well, so far, since you are reading this, you can see that he fixed my problem, but not before I got a couple of emails with quotes like:

• ha ha
• I don’t think it’s a problem
• what the hell did you do?
• that doesn’t sound good

When I finally got the note from him saying the site was up, I tested it. Here’s the first thing I saw.

The picture, the font on the website name, and the tagline all reflect exactly how I feel. Man!

Thanks again Jody.

I never noticed if I’d ever used this word, or even if I ever heard it regularly in conversation. Sure. Seems like a pretty ordinary word. At its base, its meaning is fairly positive. [Physically secure and certain, non-failing, reliable; "Yes, of course".]

Then why does my wife get pissed off when I use that word?

“You wanna change the laundry over?” Sure. “Grrrr… I hate when you use that word”.

“You wanna go out for a drive?” Sure. “Grrrr… if you don’t want to go, then just say so!”

I think it’s because there are connotations of informality in its use, and that informality implies a diminishing of the certainty of the commitment derived by the dictionary meaning of the word. Does that sound smart? Sure it does.

But what the heck. I figured I’d try to stop using the word. It’s not such a big deal, is it? Surely, I can manage that. I found myself using the word involuntarily and then tagging on a little extra to reinforce my commitment to be certain. “Sure… uhm… I’d love to clean the bathrooms.” “Sure… er… I’d be happy to start the BBQ now.” All those extra words were starting to piss me off.

Then I started noticing how often the word gets used. Everyone apparently uses the word on a regular basis and I’m pretty sure that they use it in a pretty positively intended way. “Hey, wanna go to the park?” Sure. “Yo, dude, can you skateboard on someone else’s parking lot?” Sure. “Mister, is it ok if I clean your windshield?” Sure.

And guess what? Wifey uses the word quite often herself. AND she uses it in a mostly agreeable way. Sure means “ok” to her. But that’s not how I take it. Not anymore! I choose to take it in a negative way.

“Hey, darling-wife-o-mine, you wanna go for a coffee?” Sure. “Jeez, you don’t have to be so saucy. I was only asking a question!”

“Hey buddy, can you put the receipt in they bag?” Sure. “Jeez… can you believe how rude that guys was?”

Heh heh… I’m such an asshole.

Am I having fun? Sure. Is my wife? I’m not so sure.

Sure.