Much of this week was spent visiting family in the north. Thankfully, they don’t live as far north as the forest fires were located. There wasn’t a lot to do there because it rained most of the time.

On Tuesday, my brothers and I watched The Crow in 4K. It was crisp. An interview with the late Brandon Lee made me miss him all the more. He was intelligent, articulate, and skilled. Such a loss to the film industry and the world.

We had to postpone a theatre visit due to a storm knocking out the power for 4 hours. Cue swapping plans meant for another day because my brother’s house had power. It seems like far too many streets and homes are on the same piece of grid there.

Part of Wednesday was spent visiting the mall with a friend. In Walmart, I noticed these three girls staring and I turned to look at what they might be looking at. This little Asian boy was sitting against a pillar holding his knees tightly. I brought him to my friend’s attention and a search began for his parents. I sat on the floor with him while she got the staff to request his mom come to the front of the store. About ten minutes later, he moved to cling tightly to his mom as they were reunited. I was glad for the happy ending and I suspect he won’t be wandering too far anytime soon.

Oddly enough, just before this all, I had mentioned to my friend that I don’t think I could work with kids. Life is strange sometimes.

I need to mention that typing much of this week on my phone has been a largely unpleasant experience when it comes to any kind of editing. I installed and changed keyboards to remove the frustration that was the in-built iOS keyboard. It couldn’t tell what letters I was typing and wouldn’t let me move to a specific place in a sentence to edit it. So then I was using an Android keyboard with my Apple phone per Reddit. I’ve even tried Swiftkeys and my conclusion is that phone keyboards just suck. With everyone texting so much, why do they still all suck so bad?

I spent a lot of this week reading In the Company of Witches by Auralee Wallace. It’s a cozy murder mystery set in a small town bed and breakfast, which is owned and run by a family of witches.

On Thursday, my brother and I saw Evil Dead Burn. I found it more of a gorefest than actually scary. The original film series was campy and fun. This just had a lot of blood and gross body horror. And these days I prefer smarter horror like Midsommar and Get Out. I find lesscan be so much more with horror.

Friday was the long drive back to Ottawa with a stop at IKEA for a small loveseat to go in the space between my bookshelves. It went together fairly quickly and I was able to relax in the evening. It’s not fancy, but I’ll have enough seating for a small gathering once I ger things in order.

Next week is another vacation week and, aside from the ongoing kitchen work, I plan to get my living room in better shape.

Saturday was a lovely summer party just outside of Ottawa. The driving sucked, but everything else was fantastic. Ottawa seriously needs to do something about King Edward. It’s too easy to end up missing the turn that will get one back to the Vanier Parkway and then one is stuck in ridiculous congestion. I managed to get out of it by heading into downtown, but that wasn’t a lot better and I think there should be better options than totally screwed or semi-screwed. Especially at 10PM.

With my ear still messed up, I opted for self-care on Sunday. I also had virtually nothing to eat, so that was an important factor in missing martial arts. I had missed most of the rest of the month anyway at this point, so I figured I’d reset in August. I also booked a doctor appointment because it’s been more that two weeks at this point and my ear isn’t unblocking itself.

Catch you on the flip side,

Rae