Anger is a funny thing

Yesterday I was talking to a friend on the other side of the country who is dying. Can't visit except by phone. She's at home in palliative care with her husband taking care of her, she qualifies for MAID whenever she decides she wants to pull the plug. Right now she's trying to cope with a new set of drugs; every time the doctor switches her to something different there is symptom havoc until they get the right dose or discontinue. She said she was feeling sad and also angry to have her life cut short before she had what she felt was her rightful lifetime. Also a close friend of hers is angry that she is losing her best friend. So I've been thinking about anger and also about how I feel about what is happening with her. She's only a year older than me so I certainly understand her feeling about this being way too early to die.

We have been in and out of each other's lives for over half a century, I first met her living in residence at college in my first year. It was my first experience of living away from my parents home and she was certainly a good "partner in crime" so to speak for the kind of shenanigans one gets up to in those circumstances. We both left that college after only one year, she to another college in another city and me to a year in France. We met up again and had a few "drug experiences" together, then I met a guy and moved away to the other side of the country with him. A few years later the guy and I and our first kid were living in a log cabin back of beyond, and in the middle of the night she and her husband and dog showed up on our doorstep. They had hitchhiked and somehow managed to track us down although we had not exchanged any contact info since the last time we saw each other. They stayed a day or two and then hitchhiked on, I didn't see her or have any contact with her again until I was living here, on the opposite coast to where we met up in the middle of the night. Once again, no warning, no contact info exchanged, just here we were again. After a slightly longer visit we continued our lives in different directions in different places, and did not meet up again until decades later, on another coast as usual. By then, email and internet existed so tracking each other down was more doable. We continued to be in and out of each other's lives over the years, but at least now when we wanted to make contact we could do it a lot more easily.

I think Kurt Vonnegut's concept of a karass best describes the relationship.

Anyway, anger and sadness. I rarely feel angry these days, but I used to. I used to think I had "anger issues" which I had most likely inherited from my Dad, who in my opinion was also a very angry person. Although now I wonder about that.

Anger is a funny thing. Mostly I feel like we get angry when something bad happens that we have no control over, feel very frustrated about it, and end up trying to find someone or something to express that frustration at. Like when you hit your thumb with a hammer. Or when you can't extract yourself from the bad things that happen due to poverty or prejudice or injustice. You get overwhelmed and try to find a target for what you are feeling. Nine times out of ten the target is either misplaced or useless, the vented anger does nothing to change the situation, although maybe you feel a bit better for having expressed it. That's a big Maybe though. As often as not the expressed anger is just plain useless or actually makes things worse.

For me, the situation that I suppose was the cause of all my anger just changed, evaporated. No trigger, no venting. And then after a while I began to realize that I wasn't really a fundamentally angry person, just someone in a bad situation venting uselessly. That was probably my Dad's experience as well.

I do feel sad that I am losing a friend, and that there will be no opportunity to get together one last time, except by phone. I feel a little sad that I didn't make more effort to stay in touch, but at the same time grateful that I made contact before it was too late. Which it could so easily have been. Anger doesn't enter into it for me, but I can understand that her closest friend would feel that way.

Anger is a funny thing.

After the Sun

We just had a week of sunshine and warm weather, and I haven't written a thing here. I also have not responded to email, which is bad, I had at least one enquiry as to how I was doing which I should have responded to. I am doing great.

I've been working in my garden, walking with Hapi, and spending social time at the Reservoir in the morning and on the grass in front of a new friend's building (building is old, friend is new) in the late afternoon. Not every single day, sometimes I just want to stay home and putter or read or whatever. But it has been a good week, a welcome relief to the previous two weeks of rain, snow and cold wind.

I think pandemic social distancing suits me, I feel like I have settled into my Real Self. I always knew I was a funny mix of laziness and busyness, never more so than now. I am constantly surveying my little Queendom here to decide what needs to be done next. Then I am in my recliner reading and ignoring the list of things I should be doing. Hapi is okay with it all as long as she gets her daily walks. I think she enjoys dozing in the back yard, occasionally opening one eye to see what I am up to now. She's okay with my new lawn mower since it is less noisy than the old one.

I put off shopping for as long as possible because that is the only stressful part of my life. Some shops have really good protocols in place, others not so much and you really have to practice a kind of self-defence to deal with it. They changed the bubble rules, now I could bubble with a close friend. I've had one request which I am considering. She's a nice person but I haven't known her a long time. She's quirky and entertaining, I enjoy her company but I have a few reservations. She asked me if I had a car and when I told her that I did she made her request. She wants to go to a beach and the only way to go is by car. It's tempting. I'll have to consult with Hapi, hot days in the sun are not her favourite thing, but she does like water.

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I've been binging on the books of Tamim Ansary, who I have mentioned before. He has two memoirs and three histories. I am halfway through one of the memoirs, have completed one of the histories and am more or less halfway through the other two. The histories are from such a different perspective than that we grew up with in Civilized Western schools that they seem like a peek into a completely different world. Which they are, really. One of the books is about Afghanistan, where the author lived with his family until the beginning of his teen years. I am at the point in the book where Ansary can bring in his own family's role in that country's history, the 1930s and forward. In the other history I am only at the time of the Crusades, as viewed from a Middle Eastern perspective. 

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Last night I read an article in the Guardian newspaper about the likelihood of a Covid-19 vaccine. They take a very pessimistic view. On the one hand there is the difficulty of learning about the virus and its weaknesses, developing an appropriate weapon against it and then getting that weapon into mass production. And on the other hand there is the very real possibility that no vaccine is possible at all, or if possible only one that gives very weak protection. They note the number of viral diseases that have never been tamed via a suitable vaccine, and the fact that coronaviruses are among the group of viruses that cause what we call the common cold. There has been no successful vaccine against that, although fortunately the common cold is not considered a serious illness unless you  have a compromised respiratory system. The main difference between a coronavirus cold and Covid-19, if I am correctly understanding it, is that the former is caused by a coronavirus specific to humans, and the latter by one that is not. It is conceivable that SARS-Cov2 could become adapted and its impact considerably lessened, but that is not likely in the very near future.

Here in Nova Scotia the strategy is to keep the lockdown in place for the time being but in the background businesses are gearing up for loosening of restrictions. Each specific type of business is expected to come up with a plan as to how they will open up while maintaining pandemic safety. A dogwalking friend was telling me about her acupuncturist daughter's involvement in that aspect of things. Her professional association is coming up with guidelines that will be approved by the provincial government for reopening and in the meantime the daughter is getting her office prepared for opening. She has a few friend-clients lined up who will test-run her practice to see what needs to be ironed out before opening to the general public. I think this is going on with all sorts of business associations in the province.

New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island are in talks about opening up their border (the Confederation Bridge) to each other, as they have very low infection and mortality rates and almost no new cases. They have said they will consider opening up to Nova Scotia as well, but first we have to get our numbers down as they have. Nova Scotia has had much higher infection and mortality rates than they have. Newfoundland is doing very well too, but their main connection to the rest of Canada is through Nova Scotia, so they will have to wait for us to get it together.

Push-ups and a beer bubble

At the end of the week there will be lots of sunshine. In the near future, what used to be three days of sunshine at the end of the week, has now turned into one day of sun and two of rain. That's been the forecast for the whole month: one day of sun, two days of rain and then at least three days of sun just around the corner. So after our one glorious day of sunshine we are back to nonstop rain (it was supposed to stop before noon, ha ha).

Much as I hate exercise, I now have an exercise routine. The other day I had to move one corner of my bed and could not do it. Just about zero upper body strength. I knew I wasn't in good shape but that was really bad. The bed had to be moved so I persevered and eventually got that one corner to budge in the right direction but it felt like a Herculean effort. Hence the exercise routine. Gotta get me some upper body strength, and while I am at it I may as well address the total lack of grip strength and the creaky knees.

My goal is to be able to do a push-up, you know, the regular one with hands on and knees off the floor. A couple of days in and I ache all over but I'm going to try to keep it up, I have a goal. Right now I can manage a few fake push-ups with my hands on a high bench, but my wrists are so weak that I can't maintain that position for very long. So the wrist strength has gotta improve too.

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One good thing about having been sick for a month this spring, I lost some weight. Mostly because I was too darn tired to cook, so I was rationing myself to save energy. Most people think I don't need to lose weight, but I have a pair of jeans that I could not wear last summer but I can now. Way back when those jeans were roomy on me, now they fit snugly, but last summer I could not close them over my butt. They're old and out of style but I am happy that they fit. Hopefully I can maintain this weight at least until the summer is too hot for jeans.

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So the rules have changed, now immediate family are allowed to form two-household "bubbles". Not having any family anywhere near, that doesn't apply to me, and even if it did, I'd have slim pickings as to who I could bubble with. But yesterday I got a small taste of what bubbling might look like.

I mowed my lawn in the late afternoon and left the gate open afterward, thinking that I'd have a bite to eat and then go for a walk with Hapi. But Hapi didn't know I was taking a few moments before going for a walk, and the gate was open so she took herself for a walk. I went looking for her, met a young man who said he'd seen her heading eastward, but the next person I met in that direction said he hadn't seen her and he was sure he'd have noticed if she had walked by. I walked a little further in that direction before giving up and heading westward, maybe the first young man was wrong.

I walked toward a couple of her favourite spots, a student garbage bin and a feral cat feeding site. She was in neither location, however I did encounter a group of four people in deck chairs spaced appropriately who knew both Hapi and me. After expressing concern about Hapi's walk-about they invited me to join them for a beer. How could I resist? Hapi was bound to return sooner or later and why should I hunt around fruitlessly for her? I stayed for the beer. I think that was my first social occasion since I don't know when, two months ago?

When I got home Hapi was in the back yard with the gate closed. Someone must have escorted her home. Small town life, I love it.

More May Snow!

It is snowing today. I think we have had more snow so far in May than we did in all of April. The pattern of two days of precipitation for every sunny day still holds. Yesterday I was particularly grumpy about it all. I am running out of wild bird seed and a grey squirrel keeps raiding my bird feeder so I am getting very annoyed with him or her. I rap on the window when I see it and it stops to look at me but then carries on with its raid. I have to put my boots on before I can go outside to stand under the feeder to yell at it. I used to take a broomstick with me but that proves to be unnecessary, the squirrel runs away when it sees me advancing toward the tree the feeder is hung in. I think it has made the calculation about how long it takes me to get out there and has decided to keep stealing seeds as long as it can before I get too close.

Hapi fell on the basement stairs twice yesterday, her rear end is weakening. She still wants to go down there so as much as possible I have to escort her, particularly coming up the stairs which is when she is most likely to fall. My mechanic's dog died as a result of a broken back from falling on a staircase so I am very conscious of that danger. In addition to falling she also had a "bowel accident" in the night. I am carrying on as usual but not thrilled about the possible implications.

I was talking to a friend on the phone the other day and she was telling me about a mutual friend who was tired of all the social distancing restrictions and didn't believe they were necessary. The mutual friend was saying that she was no longer paying attention to it all. My phone friend was thinking to herself, Okay! Good to know! We laughed and agreed that the mutual friend was someone we would definitely be physically distancing ourselves from, as much as we otherwise liked her. Frankly, as much as I previously disliked and disrespected our provincial premier before all this, I hugely respect his overly cautious approach to the pandemic. I don't know if I would vote for him again, but he would not be the worst choice especially in a time like this.

From my reading of current statistics and of the history of the 1918 pandemic, the overly cautious approach seemed to prevent the most deaths in both the short term and the long term. As well, after the 1918 pandemic local economies bounced back much quicker in jurisdictions that imposed greater restrictions for longer periods of time.

The main problem with trying to take lessons from 1918 though is the dearth of reliable information. The gathering and analysis of statistics was not that great in those days. In addition, all countries involved in The Great War were suppressing that information as much as possible; the only countries that allowed information about the pandemic to leak were neutral countries, such as Spain. Which is why it is often called the Spanish Influenza: Spain was one of the first countries in which the media were covering what was really going on. But the estimates of the death toll from that pandemic range from a few millions to well over 50 million (possibly up to 100 million), which gives an idea of how difficult it is to draw any definitive conclusions from the available statistics.

Already we are seeing the same thing with this pandemic. There is wide variation in symptoms and not a lot of mass and repeated testing. So we really can't say for sure how many people have contracted the disease or died of it or what the death rate really is. Our ability to gather that evidence is far greater than it was in 1918, but still we have a problem with it.

The tulips in the picture are from my garden, their stems broke before they could open up. One of them is supposed to be a red and white tulip in honour of Canada's 150th anniversary in 2017, but as you can see it is not. But it is a lovely colour nevertheless.

May snow

Lacking in sleep and cranky. I had a topic in mind to post butI'm just not in the mood now. It rained most of yesterday, with a brief late afternoon break for a dog walk but then back at it for the rest of the evening and night. The wind picked up, snow started blowing around and something or other was banging on the front porch outside my bedroom. I had to get up a couple of times to find out what it was and stop it. Now I can spit nails.

I drove to the Reservoir with Hapi just because I couldn't face walking. It has stopped snowing but it is still very windy and cold. A couple of people greeted me with waves and smiles and I tried to respond in a halfway friendly manner but really wished they hadn't noticed me. Maybe it was Hapi that they were smiling and waving at.

So far May has been despicable and there is no end in sight.

Will she ever return, no she'll never return

Window greenhouse

I feel like I have settled into some kind of terminal laziness, I am going to blame it on the weather. Endless cold drizzly rain, with the occasional partially sunny day. On those partially sunny days I think about all the things I should do and end up being overwhelmed by the list.

Taking Hapi for a walk is at the top of the list and that always gets done. Then I relax with tea and crackers and something to read. I think about the rest of the list, how much do I really need to do today and how much can I postpone until tomorrow? The 'really need to do today' part of the list looks reassuringly small so I relax some more. By evening I have a firm list for tomorrow, and since we only get one day of partial sun at a time, I will be doing those things in the rain. But that's okay, right?

As it turns out, wrong.

I light a fire to cheer me up and Hapi curls up in her doghouse resigned to no walk unless the weather clears. A cup of coffee and a cup of tea later I'm looking at that list of things I thought I could postpone until tomorrow and think, Yup, I can still postpone until tomorrow.

I read my email. Everyone is busy busy writing stories and making quilts and sweaters and baby clothes for newly arrived (or about to arrive) grandbabies.There are pictures of quilts, sweaters and baby clothes and attached files of stories which I am invited to review and comment on. In dismay I wish my email would magically disappear.

Before terminal laziness set in, I did start some seedlings and created a little greenhouse in the living room window. Almost everything sprouted and I am hoping I can get them outdoors before they outgrow their little pots. It's not looking good for that.

Back in the day when we used to have two sunny days in a row before the rain recommenced, I hauled out my brand new battery operated lawn mower and tried it out. There's a few kinks I'll have to get used to but it definitely solves the problem of being able to start the monster, and its roar is considerably less than that of its gas engine cousin. And since it can be stored in a vertical position with its handle bar folded down, it takes up far less space in the shed.

The major drawback is maneuverability due to its length and weight, and also because I can't pull it backwards as I could with the gas powered mower. This would not be such a big deal if my lawn was not all broken up by flowerbeds, bushes, trees and fenced off vegetable gardens. Not to mention all the holes Hapi has dug over the past nine years.

But at least I don't have to ask my neighbour to start my mower in these Covid-19 times.

Hapi trails and treat friends

Today Hapi and I walked on the university woodland trails that are newly reopened. The trails are just narrow paths in most areas, but there are very few people and the ones that I did meet were conscientious about maintaining physical distance. Even if it meant stepping off the path into the bushes, that's what we did, smiles all 'round. It was nice.

There are a couple of brooks running through the woods, and they disappear into and emerge out of culverts in various places. Hapi loves culverts.

I used to like going to the Reservoir for the social aspect of dogwalking, I met other dog owners and had people to chat with while out for a walk. But now my priorities have changed, I am less interested in meeting up with people if it means taking risks I am not comfortable with. So the lonely woodland trails behind the university are much more appealing than they were before the pandemic.

I don't think Hapi cares one way or the other. I think she likes for me to have a social life (she often stops in front of houses where she knows I have friends) but is indifferent to having one of her own, other than what she can sniff out along the way.

I received email from our town clerk today with a form I needed attached. In the email she asked after Hapi, hoping we were both well. I used to stop by the town office so she could give Hapi treats. Hapi has a lot of treat friends on Main Street but we haven't visited any of them since before the pandemic.

Dog trails and Snowbirds

It has been great being able to take Hapi to the Reservoir but there is a downside to it that may limit our visits in the future. One is that her daily baths in the pond have caused her to stink. I don't want to be cleaning her up every day so maybe taking her to the pond every day is not a great idea.

The other is that there is a group of dogwalkers who like to meet there every day and stand around while their dogs play; they kind of clog up the arteries, so to speak. I have to go a lot earlier or later than I really want to in order to avoid them, so that kind of takes the shine off it. There are other places I can go that aren't as stressful.

A short while ago I was struggling to get out of my recliner in order to take my dirty lunch dishes to the sink and I was thinking that my daily routine hasn't changed a lot since I was sick, I am still spending a large part of the day reclining in one place or another. Sickness has been replaced by laziness.

Gardening is progressing, I planted a few more seeds yesterday and setup a chicken wire screen for peas to climb on. Since it was very warm and sunny I took all my seedlings outdoors for a few hours, but today is a lot cooler and cloudier so they are staying indoors (more due to laziness than weather).

Yesterday the Snowbirds were supposed to do a fly-over but I never heard or saw them. I went looking on the internet to see what happened but there were conflicting stories so I give up. Somebody told me that they cancelled due to cloudy weather but I didn't think it was that cloudy yesterday. I just looked it up again and apparently they skipped my part of the country due to fuel considerations (see what The Beaverton has to say about that).

Hapi in her happy place

I took Hapi for a long walk on the dyke this morning and then did a little shopping. I had a list, it would be too dangerous to just browse. Two stores were relatively safe, no other people around but the third was the grocery store and that can be a little hairy. But I stuck to my list and got out of there as fast as I could and went home, put everything away and washed my hands.

I thought I'd have a bath in the afternoon, the weather was supposed to get unpleasant anyway, so why not. I hardly got out of the bath when I got a text message from my former neighbour, E. She just moved out yesterday to another smaller place in town but we still text back and forth. Anyway, she sent me a pic of the announcement that our premier was opening all the municipal parks and trails, effective immediately. I was so excited. The Reservoir!

I didn't even wait for my hair to dry, I grabbed my raincoat and packed Hapi in the car and drove to the Reservoir. The parking lot was almost full, I guess everyone had the same thought as soon as they got the news. There was a family fishing, and lots of dogs. Hapi went into the pond, of course. The park maintenance people have been busy, there are a few changes, but otherwise it is our old park.

Tiny birdhouse

I met one older fellow, I didn't recognize him but I did recognize his dog; usually his wife walks the dog. But I know that he is responsible for all the Fairy Doors in the park and I thought he was also responsible for all the new miniature bird houses (too small for even a tiny bird). But he said No, they weren't his. His creations were more sturdy he told me. That's true, one of the tiny birdhouses had already fallen apart, but his Fairy Doors are still there.

Purple Fairy Door

It's good to have our park back, he said.

I went on a news website later where the premier made his announcement. He said that we had seen too much tragedy, we needed to get out in the fresh air for our mental health. But he said he'd be watching and if we misbehaved, well, there would be consequences. The number of positive diagnoses is still rising, and so is the death toll.