Eighteen hours and counting!
Gawd, this was a friggin’ long day that’s a fact.
Considering that both sisters had an appointment to get their official residence documentation, I turned in early yesterday and set my alarm four hours prior to my usual waking time. I would have gotten in a solid five hours too, if Trin Trin the monster boxer hadn’t decided to start tugging on the blankets almost forty minutes before I was supposed to rise on this particular day.
No matter, though: I need to get up anyway and do so reluctantly so I can get ready to bring the dogs to the house, have a mug of coffee and eat a quick breakfast while I wait for the sisters to come join me and we can head on up to the car together.
Our tenant’s caretaker is along for the ride when I turn on the engine and start on our way towards town. She needs to get stuff from the pharmacy for our tenant, so we figure we might as well save expenses by “carpooling” instead of doing two separate trips.
The sisters and I get out at the bank, a block away from the ancient police station where we have to be for their residential card and pay the tax form for them (and little brother too, since his appointment is tomorrow). Luckily, it all goes well, not a hitch, and we arrive at the police station exactly one minute after opening time.
Number 1 is displayed on the dial and considering the sisters have their turn around the late forties, we decide on a quick trip to a nearby restaurant to get something to drink and a quick visit to the rest room (for some reason there is none at the station).
By the time we return, number 13 is up and we settle in for what we expect to be a long wait. Much to our surprise the numbers pass remarkably fast and within half an hour their number comes up, allowing us to settle at the desk where a foreign volunteer checks the papers and then hands them to the official.
Against hope, I inquire if it would be possible to get little brother’s paperwork done as well, considering that I have everything with me, and he has an appointment first thing tomorrow morning. The woman doubts that it is possible, but after a moment she inquires with the brusque looking cop at her side, he looks at us, ponders it for a moment and then gives a resigned nod to accept the third pile as well.
We’re all pretty darn thrilled with the unexpected turn of events, in particular because this means that I won’t have to head to town tomorrow to go through the entire procedure again with little brother in tow. Fifteen minutes later, with legal proof that all three sibs are residents at last, we’re out of the station and heading towards the car where our tenant’s caretaker is waiting with her purchases in the back of the truck.
Three hours later we’re back home, where both sisters head to their rooms for a quick nap…as is usual with this kind of thing, neither got enough sleep.
After I have quieted my dogs, poured myself another coffee and discussed the proceedings with big brother, I settle behind my computer in hopes of mustering the energy to write a scene for “Finding Maddie” the sequel to our present edit project.
I only manage a few paragraphs, really, at which time big brother joins me and we start on the edit once more.
Being the stickler that he is, he has been pondering what he considers to be a minor inconsistency in the story. We struggle with it for quite a while until he is finally satisfied with the changes I made, we read on through another chapter.
Knowing full well that with only the few hours of sleep, I won’t be able to keep up the mental work hours, we stop after that one chapter and head on outside. We don’t have sand left from the last batch, so there will be no major construction today. Instead I head on out through the new window of the pantry, to tackle the debris that still needs to be spread out over the ground.
For the next few hours big brother, grandpa and I work in the area, where we’re planning to reposition the fence a little in order to have a more useable stretch of ground to move around on in the near future
.
And old storage structure is removed, rock walls are chopped at to create more room and the sections of bricks that come from the storage is recycled into the small section of wall that we set up to keep more dirt from crashing down on the ground. Great how that works. It goes really fast what with the old bricks already bound together by dried cement.
Mixing one batch of cement by hand, we have just enough to finish the chore. While we were working, the younger sibs prepared dinner, so we head inside to eat. Macaroni with a fresh tomato sauce and veggies. Little brother’s recipe is delicious and we eat hungrily before it is time to leave to get a new batch of rocks.
With grandpa, mom, middle sister, big brother and me in the car we head back to the spot where we last picked up a large usable pile. Though the exact same area is void of the type of rocks we need for the stairs, a little farther down the road we succeed to fill up the back of the truck to full capacity.
Considering that driving the car (my turn) feels like pushing the vehicle through molasses, the trip home is a slow process. We might have overdone the loading a bit, especially since the cab is filled with five people, but we make it safely home, where I ask big brother to drive the car backwards down the sweep…I’m starting to get fuzzy around the edges and fear that my response time might be just a tad off.
After we unload the rocks…a speedy process with six people working on it…and head inside where the dogs are eagerly awaiting our return, I reheat a couple of portions of dinner and then settle at the table tow watch a recorded episode of “CSI” and “Bones”.
Ticks are slowly accumulating again, which is definitely annoying in regard to our recent washing session of the dogs almost a week ago. I had hoped that it would work longer, but according to grandpa, this is normal.
When it is time to head on up to my cabin I can barely keep my eyes open anymore, but with a little luck I’ll be able to turn in early again and get a proper night’s rest.
No comments:
Post a Comment