Weird, Wonderful Weekend

This weekend turned out to be productive, interesting, and relaxing.

As expected, Matt did not show up on Friday to put the curb in for the shower.  We finally contacted Mike who was on the verge of being rude to us, telling us that he had a very important, big job that he was involve with, so he would get to us when he could.  Translation: your job is a pain in the ass that I have to clean up, and since you already paid me, I am not interested in fixing the mess.

Rick contacted Keith, the man who sells us tile, to see if he could recommend someone else to finish the job.  I got a name from the neighbors who did their tile, and Rick got a really good lead on someone else who could come in to help us.  The plumber gave him that final lead, so by Friday evening we at least had options. Rick left a not-so-nice verbal message on Mike's phone that said we had waited 15 weeks for a job that should have been taken care of before Christmas, and that if he was not going to work with us, we would file complaints against his company.

Friday evening brought about doors slamming and unusual sounds from outside our house.  We peeked out the front blinds to see a firetruck parked in front of our neighbor's house and the Rescue Squad ambulance parked at the end of our driveway.  Soon the paramedics came out with our neighbor man on the gurney.  He was sitting up and talking to them, so we did not know how seriously ill he was, but apparently something was not right. They loaded him into the ambulance and took off without any sirens.  A short time later, his mother, who lives with him, got into her car and drove away. As of Sunday morning, we still do not think he was home again.

Saturday morning dawned cool but sunny.  Once a month our church has a "work day" to take care of the church property.  Since Rick and I are some of the youngest "old people," we decided to go and see if we could help.  While Rick worked with the other men on building a planter in front of the church and adding mulch to the gardens, I worked with one other woman and the pastor's wife on organizing the kitchen.  We labeled cabinets, sorted boxes and drawers, ended up with a huge "donation" pile on one of the tables, and climbed ladders to put the Christmas boxes on high shelves while bringing the Easter decorations down for the upcoming season.  We both had a productive morning, and we noted that the gardens looked quite nice as we entered the church grounds this morning.

While we were working at church, Rick got a text message from Mike.  Mike told him that our business was important to him and that he would have Matt at our house early Monday morning to put in the curb.  Could we have built the wooden structure for the curb?  Certainly, but Matt complained that Andy did not put in the first curb correctly, so we did not want to venture doing any of the work.  Then WE would be the ones he could blame if something else goes wrong.  Mike also said that we would have to work with him for him to find time to send Matt over to finish this job.  Work with him?   What the heck have we been trying to do for the last 15 weeks?!!? (Forgive me, Bonnie, for the unnecessary over-punctuation. Sometimes outrage just needs to be expressed.)

This weekend was the big Dunedin Art Fair downtown, but by Saturday afternoon we felt that the crowds would be too large for us to tackle.  Rick went outside to read his Kindle, and he got a bit of a sunburn when he moved into the sunshine for warmth and ended up taking a nap instead of reading his Kindle.  I worked on a sewing project inside.

After church this morning, we decided to go to the Art Fair.  We lucked out with a parking spot on a nearby street, and indeed found crowds that were almost too many people.  We saw many of the same vendors from last year.  I was looking for a certain vendor that I did not see, but on the way out we saw another vendor that we were looking for, and we bought an Easter present for our grandson, Owen.  He will have to wait until we get back to Wisconsin; then we will have to decide whether to give it to him while we are there, or make him wait until Easter actually arrives in April.

After we came home, Rick suggested that we go to Safety Harbor and dine at Crispers.  We drove down to Safety Harbor, had a delightful (although garlicky) dinner, and then spent some time walking around the shore past their marina and out onto their pier.  We took a longer walk along the shore, then, for a delightful early evening venture.  See, Lindsay, sometimes your Dad and I actually do take time out to enjoy ourselves and to see the sights of Florida.  Safety Harbor has a huge spa on the shore, built in the 1920's to take advantage of the five mineral springs that originally were "discovered" in 1539 by Hernando deSoto as the elusive Fountain of Youth NOT discovered by Ponce de Leon.  Actually, Native American tribes in the area had been using the springs for thousands of years before deSoto arrived, yet apparently nothing is "discovered" until a white European finds it.  Go figure.

At any rate, in my book we had an interesting, relaxing weekend.  Tomorrow we will be up early to greet Matt and to see if we can make some progress on actually getting our shower finished before Stephanie arrives next week.