Maggie Turner: Page by Page

Attila completed the fix for the leaking garage floor. Over Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, he dug a 3 1/2 foot deep, five foot long, two foot wide trench in hard-as-rock clay, cleaned and caulked the concrete wall and foundation, filled in openings in the concrete foundation with spray foam, trimmed the foam, applied plastic waterproof sheeting to the exposed wall and foundation, back-filled with gravel and stones, then with earth. When he was all done, he graded the soil away from the foundation, and installed a large patio stone an an easy step out into the yard. He was very relieved to have the whole job completed in three days! Last evening, as Attila and I sat on the porch, the weekend heat wave came to an end. Within minutes the humidity dropped, as did the temperature. It remained warm on the porch, as the the decking, the chairs, etc. were still super-heated after sitting in full sun when the temperature was 31C. Breathing became so much easier. The hot weather killed most of the third planting spinach seedlings, there are seedlings left, out of dozens. I think that is all that perished in the heat wave. The second planting … Continue reading →

Attila took a day off work on Friday. The heat wave arrived on the day before, Thursday. We had been planning a trip to Toronto on Friday, to get supplies that are not available in this area, but decided against it. Our vehicles are far from new, and the thought of being stranded, even for a short time, at the side of a highway, in this heat, is unthinkable. With temperatures and humidity as high as it has been since yesterday, I have simply stopped moving about. We have AC, set to a high temperature, and it keeps the humidity under control, and the temperature steady, so if I remain inactive, I do not feel physically stressed. When I go out onto the back porch, it is like walking into a sauna, I can sit for a while and chat with Attila, tend to my cooking projects, but after about fifteen minutes I begin to feel physical distress, so into the house I go. Attila, on the other hand, decided that since he had three consecutive days off, he would tackle digging up the foundation of the garage, to fix a floor leak. He spent most of yesterday digging, and … Continue reading →

I was dropping stuff off earlier in the week, at an office building. As I emerged from the front doors of the building, I saw a woman standing directly in front of the door area, out in the parking lot, she was texting. She struck me as strange at the time. She was very well dressed, quite pretty, walking back and forth with her cell phone, long jet-black hair, thicker than I’d ever seen on a human being, makeup, she looked a bit out of place and odd, pacing in the parking lot. I proceeded to my nearby car, unlocked the door, and as I opened the door and was about to get into the car, she came around the back of the vehicle that was parked between my passenger side and the door to the building, and in an agitated way said to me, “did you see that!” “No”, I said. “That guy almost hit me.” she said. I thought, what guy, I didn’t see any moving vehicles? “He didn’t even care,” she said, “and he said to me, “what’s wrong with the sidewalk.” I thought, I heard no voices, and you were less than twenty feet away from … Continue reading →