Beverly, my pal from the old days of teaching the deaf in Prince George, and I are off to New York for a week of theatre in early May.  The sad part of it all is that I can’t understand Air Canada’s math.  It would’ve been straightforward had I not decided to use a voucher from a previously cancelled flight.  I applied this to the fare, paid, Bev repaid me that amount, and we thought all was well.

Then a while later Air Canada decided instead of flying us out in the morning, as we had booked, we would be leaving at midnight the day prior, arriving in Montreal in the morning where we would wait until 5:00 PM for a flight to New York.  We looked at that and went, no, and cancelled, and I got a promise for a new voucher.

I then found another flight, again allegedly leaving in the morning, arriving in New York early evening, and instead if waiting for the credit from Air Canada, just paid the new fare entirely.  Bev again sent half.

Now I got a weird refund from Air Canada, that’s around half the amount, and of course don’t have the new credit card bill with this recent flight booked/refunded, so God only knows what’s happened.  You have to remember I failed math 11 so anything with vouchers, new bookings, refunds, payments received from Bev, are a big head-scratcher to someone this mathematically challenged.

Oh well, I have yard work to think about and love to run away from these types of mental tests, so will kill myself out there instead.  I have an old perennial I wanted to dig out, and it’s so dry and compacted I couldn’t even get the shovel into the ground. The tip went in about a centimetre and when I tried to push my foot down on the shovel it boinged me over and I stumbled and went wow, that’s never coming out of there.

So I did the only sensible thing a person could do, I emailed Gilles the garden helper and said I needed him for hours of labour in this yard.  He came on Friday and the place already looks so much better as he pruned and hauled away a truck full of Ponderosa pine needles.  I stupidly told him I could handle the perennial garden, so that’s ahead of me as I left all the old stocks over the winter to help insects.

Calvin’s going to help me give the chicken coop a spring cleaning and I found someone nearby with hay bales.  Last fall I found straw but Calvin said either would do, so went with the hay this time.  The straw bales were so very huge that I asked this person if the hay was the same, as if it was, I need help to lift the bales.  She replied, no, they’re light.

Guess what?  They’re not light.  I went by myself as the owner had said just come by and help yourself and then e transfer the money.  So I parked and lifted the tarp and hauled out a bale of hay and went Jesus!  I had to drag it on the ground and somehow got it to stand on its end to flop it onto the back seat.  I had wanted two, but settled for one, given I could barely load it.

But I suppose these things are good for the retired person: hard mental exercises from planning holidays and difficult physical challenges from strange hobbies one has adopted in their dotage.