#293 - Visitors from Near and Far

I managed to stay in bed until ten AM before getting up to help tidy and clean the house for our arriving guests. They were slated to arrive a little after one thirty, so there was plenty of time. I cleaned the microwave and the surrounding cabinets, which often get splashed with aerosol grease droplets from stovetop cooking.

Then I swept and mopped the kitchen floors. It always amazes me how quickly the floor acquires crumbs and little sticky stains.

I went around the house, into each room and collected any stray dishes that had been left behind and added them into the dishwasher. Somehow, even with the air conditioning on I managed to work up a good sweat.

There was enough time for me to head out to the local library to do some research for my short story assignment. It is meant to take place in my town sometime in the past and be a crime story revolving around something new. An example would be the first car fatality.

Searching online hadn’t been very fruitful, and the local museum keeps very short hours almost designed to make sure no one ever visits them.

Over our phones a tornado warning alert clanged. I could hear all the mobile phones in the house going off at the same time. The thing about Oakville, is that weather tends to go around us, so I wasn’t overly concerned. I headed out to the library with one eye to the darkening clouds swirling above and the other on the road.

The library wasn’t very busy, and I immediately made my way over to a digital kiosk to look up any historical texts about our town. The librarians were moving around with purpose, something a libriain rarely does. I ignored them and kept searching the catalogues on the remember why I hate the library. Everything is so hard to find.

There were a couple of books that might have been useful, but they were either out on loan or at another location. I only had another half an hour or so before our guest would arrive.

I approached a librarian hoping they might be able to guide to something relevant only to be told that if I wanted to stay in the library we all had to move to a room without any windows.

And that would mean I would be in a room with a bunch of other people without any of the books I needed. The librarian had also received the tornado warning and were apparently preparing for an imminent bombing.

I left in disgust and sat outside on one of their benches, checking Amazon like I should have done in the first place. I came across a historical photo book that could be delivered the next and hit the buy button.

My time was up and I headed back to the house.

The tornado would never arrive, and I wondered how long those poor people stayed in that dark windowless room waiting for the end of days.

Back home, I headed up to our room to see if I could find any videos on YouTube. Sure enough, there was a recorded talk about the founding family of our town and their descendants. I thought that might have something I could use and got about halfway through before the doorbell rang and my brother-in-law and niece walked into our house.

I didn’t hear anything that really would help me with my story, so I shut it off and went down to greet our family.

They had driven from Michigan to come a visit. The faces had the rosy glow of people who had just visited Swiss Chalet. My niece really loves Swiss Chalet, and they make a point of eating there every chance they get.

We ushered them into the living room where Robyn had laid out a feast of snacks that they were, for obvious reasons, not interested in. We on the other hand were ravenous and tore into the kielbasa, cheese, cracker, fruit, vegetables, hummus and chocolate covered almonds.

We were able to chat a bit before the rest of the clan arrived and heard about their recent trip to Rome. They faced 105 degree days that exhausted them. But the city of Rome impressed them all.

Their visit to Venice was cut short when the temperature became unbearable, so they booked an earlier train and retreated to their airconditioned rooms in Rome.

Soon after, my sister and brother-in-law arrived with their kids. Since we had just spent some time with them up at the cottage, we received some big hugs from the kids. Behind them was the kids’ grandparents. It was grand central station at our front door for a little while until we all settled into seat in the living room.

We chatted a bit more and everyone got caught up on each other’s lives. Robyn and her brother left to pick up some Subway sandwiches for the kids and shawarmas for the adults.

After eating the kids wanted to go to our local splash pad and park. They had seen it on the drive into our place. The scent of wood smoke was in the air, but there was no burning of my throat or a tightening of the chest.

Their grandparents headed home at that time and the others walked to the park. I stayed behind to say farewell to them, then grabbed kiddo#2’s scooter and scooted over to the park to join everyone. The adults chatted while the older kids played with the little ones at the park.

I had the chance to chat with my brother-in-law while Robyn caught up with her brother. The kids went from hell bent on playing at the park to ready to go back to our house in an instant.

I had the scooter to ride back, while the kids carried the little ones on their shoulders.

We all chatted a bit more until it was time for Robyn to do her service worker job. The kids and their parents left, while Robyn’s brother and niece left to check into the hotel.

The kiddos and I cleaned up the downstairs and then I went up to our room to watch some YouTube videos until Robyn returned.

Robyn, her brother, the kiddoes and her niece had plans to do indoor roller skating this evening and they left almost immediately after Robyn returned.

I watched another half an hour of videos and then soaked in the spa bubbles for thwenty minutes before getting to my writing laptop. I did some research using Google’s AI to ask it specific questions, which was a little more effective than the regular google search.

I found a few incidents that might be useful for this writing exercise including two train fatalities and the introduction of electricity into the town. The electrical one seemed to be something I could work with, and I filed that one away as a possibility.

Robyn returned with the kiddos and our niece, who decided to sleepover so she could spend more time with her cousins. I have been nominated to make everyone crepes for breakfast. This was something I used to do for my niece an nephew when they were younger and came to visit us overnight.

I continued to search for some interesting incidents that happened in our town in the past and I kept coming back to the electricity story. I think I can come up with a crime story about the area in this period of time. Now I need to do some research about what it was like in this area in the 1890’s.

I am hoping the book I ordered today can help with that, otherwise it’s back to google image searches and a prayer.

I’ll be writing in the evening again as per usual. I suspect the morning will be filled with making breakfast and spending time with our niece. Then we head out to watch Christpoher Nolan’s Odessey at the theatres. It’s at a theatre that I haven’t been to before that apparently has really comfortable seats with an unusual amount of legroom. And I’m all about the comfort.

I realized that I’d forgotten to log in my word challenge results for June to the challenge. This is simply an email   them your word count for the month and the daily average per day. I quickly sent of an email with the all the stats for the month of June and hoped they didn’t mind that I was two weeks late reporting my progress.

It just shows you how busy things have been for me that I could forget such a thing that has ruled my life for the past seven months.

I was looking at the calendar and saw there was two weeks left until we go to the cottage. Like most years, I am jonesing to get there and am so ready for a break from the rat race. This summer vacation has become the thing I look forward to all year.

I can wait to take naps, float on the lake and take the kayak out for early morning and evening paddles. I can read all day and not feel the least bit guilty about it. The ways the timing works out, I’ll have a mentor assignment due at the end of our cottage stay and there will be no excuses for not getting it done early.

Well, it’s been another long day, and I am going to need all the energy I can muster for tomorrow, so it’s time to call it a night.

Until tomorrow.