Good morning.... seems so, I think Sympatico has fixed it's issues. Now I can actually get down to business again. I think.

Here's another one of those stupid things. Causing me to pitch a fit. The building I live in is 35 yrs old so now the owners are putting 30 million into it and it's 3 'sisters' up the street. That's a lot of bucks. Not that the building is falling apart but it's getting a well deserved facelift. So they contract to an American company. This is the first issue. Are there no Cdn companies out there that renovate bldgs? I guess they are all out building igloo's!. And yeah, these buildings are owned by Cdns not Americans. ok... so anyway, they are hired so nothing can be done about that issue.

To keep the residents up to date we have one meeting after the other and a lot of them are redundant and of course, nothing is on schedule either to the point where they are ripping out some people's kitchens the week before Christmas. Boy were those residents happy campers. NOT!.

Anyway, there is a very large room in this building that I use for several of the community programs I run. One of which is the Senior Afternoon Socials. I do this because I like to ok? The seniors are wonderful, always glad to be there and it really helps break the isolation factor for many of them. We serve a nice, well balance hot meal with a fabulous salad of garden greens, fresh fruit and a ton of desserts. I have several volunteers that I couldn't do this without and they rock.

So now the building owners decide they want to show the residents what materials are going to be used for the common areas of the buildings. The foyers, halls, even what the new counter tops, cupboards, etc. are going to look like. Fine by me, I'd like a peek too. So what they do is shut down the room I use for all my committee's and decide to renovate it! I can live with this. The room really needs a major overhaul, matter of fact one of my committee's took the time to write them a letter requesting money be found in the renovation project to renovate the kitchen in it and make it larger. Seemed like a dream come true.

They kept the work a suprise. Pretty much always leaving the door closed, locked, etc. Allowing no one in so we all get a surprise at the grand opening. Yup..... we got a surprise alright! On December 21st some of were invited to the grand opening of the newly renovated room. I went. I walked in and WOW! Talk about turnaround. The main huge room we use as a serving room (holds about 60 seated) is beautiful. From the new floor tiles to the new porcelain tiling on parts of the wall to the wall colour. Everything. The small extra room to the left is similar. Slightly different colours and different floor. It holds about 20 people seated at tables. New tables, chairs, everything. Then I turned right to see the new kitchen and almost lost my freakin mind.
IT'S A CUBBY HOLE!!! I am not friggin kidding. As you can see in this picture, the new kitchen looks messy but all that's in it is what we need and not even half of what we need. In there is the salad spinner, salad bowl, knives to cut with, a toaster, a kettle, dishsoap, paper towels, dish cloth. Oh... and then there is the double sink. Take notice.. no outlets! More about that later.....

It's the size of something that goes into a bachelor apartment at best! The 2 fridges are now also in a stupid freakin cubby hole out of the way but it forces us to circle the entire room to get a damn drink. Can you imagine it when 50 seniors are all asking for beverages at a different time? The kitchen itself has room for one person, two at the very most. We need 4 - 6 people in that room. We are cooking and preparing for 50 here....... not 3. I dragged them into the kitchen. The contractor, the building owner, the designer and asked them what the hell this was? oh....... by the way, the best part....... the recepticle. The one and only kitchen plug was directly on top of the sink & so was the phone jack. This is obviously not up to code!! duh

Below you can see the fridges. Like this? They are so jammed into this cubby hole on the left of the kitchen that if one breaks down and is replaced by another fridge even as much as an inch larger it won't fit!!!

Anyway to make a long, long story shorter..... and less pics....... I called a meeting on Wed. and got changes made. Now I have yet another meeting next Wed. to check over the blue prints again with the changes and everyone at the last meeting will attend this one too and agree to get this done correctly once and for all!!

btw, my freakin sympatico is still cutting out........ arghhhhhhhhhhhh