August 2006

bubble machine

I found a cheap bubble machine in the toy department today on discount. When I started examining it in the truck after shopping I realized that as a battery operated toy it could ride on my bike!
Well we were planning to attend the civic centennial birthday celebration today so what better occasion to launch a crazy new gadget? So there I am on my fancy pink bike with the bells and lights and streamers, chrome and whitewalls and all, and on the back, mounted on that gorgeous chrome rocket style rack, is a bubble machine. As I ride bubbles stream out along the road behind me!
Bubbles, bubbles and MORE bubbles! Everyone we passed laughed and smiled and children grabbed at them. I kept laughing all the way! Unfortunately I didn't bring enough bubble juice to last the night.
tomorrow I'm doing it again for the big show and shine event downtown although I'll have the bubbles off when we're around the pretty cars. Soap isn't that welcome on shiny waxed paint jobs worth thousands of dollars.
It was just so cool though to look back and see bubbles streaming way down the block behind me! They shone in the sun and swirled behind my back. I kept joking "I gotta stop eating beans!" Hehehe.
At the end of the evening Saskatoon put on a fireworks display better than anything I've ever seen in my 42+ years of life! No fooling, it was incredible!
They laid it out on the old iron trestle bridge. Fireworks laid out on, above, over and behind. From the struts, from the deck, from the walkway behind, and even along the front rail with a cascade into the river below while rockets shot up to the air. Fireworks that made giant sparkler sticks. Fireworks that made palm trees. Galaxies in the air. Colors and explosions. One was weird, it went up with large gold sparkles then whirred in circles with tiny gold sparkles and made patterns like that fancy curly bamboo you see in the flower shops.
The show lasted 16 mins and they hired the best in the province. 5,400 individual fireworks units were used to create the show and it cost $27,000.
We had a great spot on the river bank overlooking the river valley and bridge. Dan was sitting in our spot and I went back to my bike for a shirt. When I came back a strange young woman had plunked herself down beside him as though she were an old friend. I figured out pretty quickly that this weird drunken girl with a bike had mistaken Dan for a single available man. He cuts a pretty good figure in a tee shirt. doubtless it was a disappointment to her when I returned but we all made the best of it and I chatted friendly with her. I didn't take it badly. I know my man is pretty attractive ~grin~ After awhile she called me a nice lady, probably because most women in their 40s whose man is targetted by a young woman under 25 tend to put on the frost. Hehehe. Dan still finds it hard to believe a woman that young would have thought of him that way. He has a daughter older than her.
Biking home was fun as we laughed about the bubbles, amazed over again at the fireworks we'd seen, and marvelled at the curious mistake this chick had made.

new appliance

Well Wow anyway... I didn't want a new washer. I felt very attached to my washer. Sure it's old tech and hard work but it was good in the control I had over my laundry and the fact that I could wash all loads in the same water, going progressively through the dirt and color categories. I was saving water!
Dan just didn't like the poor old girl. Wringer washers are not very respected. He kept bugging me and then we found a washer that met my criteria for replacement, a front loader. See, they're so damn efficient it's worth dumping the old girl. It uses way less water and power than the wringer ever could. Doesn't get things as clean but that might change as I learn to use it. It is kinda cute. It sings when you turn it off and when it finishes washing. Little tweedle-birp whistles. It has a fuzzy logic controller with sensors to help it adjust better to the load in it. We named it Fuzzy.
Now you see, not just any front loader would do. I wanted one of those ones that dries your clothes too but that really was asking too much and I knew it. However it DID have to fit in the closet as using the tub for a laundry sink to drain and fill was the only practical way to have one. No 220v either. So small, front loading, and, did I mention cheap? That part had the deal killed till this week when we found a scratch'n'dent reseller. There she was, the little front loader that could steal my heart.
Poor old Mangler Maytag now sits forlorn against the back fence tightly shrouded in a blue tarp praying for a good new home. I need to get in touch with wool spinners and dyers as one of these folks would use Mangler with great appreciation and her life would continue as a good old working washer. Yes, I shall look them up.