Hi Jerry's Mom!

Now I am in self-isolation, hopefully just for a couple of days. Came down with cold symptoms (runny nose, headache) but to be safe I got a Covid test and have to self-isolate until I get a negative result. I've booked a Covid booster shot for 4 days from now and I really don't want to cancel it because the next available slot around here is not until late January. Hopefully it's just a cold, but even so, nobody wants a cold now. 

Covid is roaring back, thanks to a recent event in another university town and the high mobility of students and their parents at this time of year. From last Thursday until Sunday night I was ushering for several Christmas-themed musical events, mostly on campus. I felt lousy on Sunday and tried to beg off, but the organizer said they were short of staff and needed me. He called me this morning and was shocked to hear that I'd gone and gotten myself tested today; he had not thought of the risk, since everyone was masked. 

One of the events—a Matt Anderson concert—was sufficiently big that a lot of people came up from the City (another area of community spread) to see him. He does an excellent show, I'm glad I got to see/hear him. Since he lives locally, he chatted casually about local irritants, which was fun. And he gave a shout out to our local grocery store which has been handling the pandemic really excellently. Got a round of applause for that one, they really have. He had with him another local, Kim Dunn, a set of black gospel singers and a couple from Newfoundland (don't remember their names), and a great bass player whose last name might be Dixon. The gospel singers called him 'Uncle Baby' because he was the youngest of a large family and was already an uncle at the moment of his birth.

Rather ironically, my job was to check people's vaccination status at the door. So every single person attending got to stand in front of me, in close proximity, while I examined their ID and vaccination proof. It was cold outside and there was a long line-up to get in so the outside door was kept open and my hands froze. After a while of reading teeny tiny print my eyes were watering and I couldn't read at all. Not to mention the discomfort of wearing a mask with a runny nose and a headache, and the reflection of the overhead lights on the plastic IDs. The concert was delayed by half an hour due to us being so diligent about checking vaccination proof, a couple of people thanked us for being so careful. 

I had the official app on my phone for scanning the vaccination proof, but it worked haphazardly. Everyone had different versions of proof, some paper some plasticized, some big some small, some with a scan code some without. Some even from out of province. It was actually faster just to eyeball the documents rather than try to scan them.

People were trying to show me their driver's licence photo, thinking that that was what I was looking for. But it wasn't, with everyone masked a driver's licence photo is useless. I just needed to check that the name on the licence or other ID was the same as the name on the vaccination proof. It's a small town so a lot of people I recognized anyway.

One person said, "Hi! I'm Jerry's Mom!"

Jerry's mom?!? Who the heck is Jerry? Then I remembered. Jerry is a dog and I used to walk with Jerry and his 'Mom' when Hapi was alive. But by the time I remembered she was gone.

Hi Jerry's Mom!

Memory work

A couple of weeks ago I bought a painting. It's very Maud Lewis-ish, but I like it. I have another painting by the same woman, I told the saleslady that when I bought it. She said the artist will be thrilled to hear that someone out there is actually collecting her stuff.

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First major winter storm last night coincided with doctor's appointment first thing the following morning, necessitating getting out early to shovel snow. Not a fun time. On top of that, last night I was sifting through paperwork trying to find something or other and while I never did find whatever I was looking for, I did find the receipt for having paid the last installment of my property tax and noticed for the first time that the low income seniors rebate had not been applied to it. I then hunted for evidence that I had in fact applied for the rebate, and found none of that either. Not even a form that had been left unfilled and undelivered, just nothing.

So after the doctor appointment I trekked over to town hall to see if they had any evidence that I had applied for it and of course they did not. As the clerk said, they would have applied it if I had submitted the form. Well, I knew I was suffering from brain fog and memory issues, but this was one expensive memory slip. Sometime back in the early days of the pandemic I had requested that my bills be emailed instead of mailed, and that went okay for the first year but in the second year I was late paying two bills because I forgot, and I never applied for the tax exemption. I requested to go back on paper billing, so much for saving trees. The clerk muttered that she could never do online bills.

My doctor suggested that I get my memory tested, there's a local company doing some kind of study of dementia and looking for people to do memory testing on. My doctor doesn't think I have dementia but it might be useful to see how much the CFS has affected my memory. She also recommended a couple of other things which I asked her to write down for me otherwise I would never remember them. I've already forgotten what they were, but I have a piece of paper that she wrote on!

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I am not recovering very well from my mini-vacation, there seems to be way too much stuff to do to prepare for winter and I am not sleeping well. The bout of snow shovelling this morning has flattened me, I spend way too much time in a recliner. I have books to read but no energy to pick them up.

I was joking with someone else who has insomnia, we were talking about our evening "cocktails", how every night we look at an array of pills and herbals and whatnot and try to guess which combo will work tonight. So far, I am not guessing very well at all. 

I received an email last night from a friend who said she hoped I was more relaxed now, that got my back up. I fired off a reply saying relaxing was not my problem, imagine having a bad 'flu for months/years on end and maybe that would convey a little of how I feel. Saying that to her feels like crushing baby bunnies, I know she means well she just misses the point. But I'm tired of it.

Okay, I remember now one of the things the doctor thought I should do: apply to get CBT-I (cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia) at the regional hospital. And get my blood sugar checked, I am apparently now in the "pre-diabetic" range. Still can't remember the final thing, or at least I think it's the final thing. Good thing I have that piece of paper … somewhere.

Mini-vacation at the seaside

Just back from fabulous weekend away. Yes it was fabulous. We turned out to be a very harmonious group of women, laughed and played a lot. None of us were great sleepers though, the morning hours before breakfast saw us slouched on couches and armchairs recovering from our rather sleepless nights. But the breakfast coffees and teas soon put everything to rights and all the meals were excellent. We swam, we walked, we hot-tubbed and sauna-ed, we watched the huge rollers crash on the rocks just offshore. Further down from our little cottage was a sandy beach where a half dozen or so wetsuited surfers played in the huge waves. A couple of them were able to stand up on their boards and ride the waves into the shore.

It was quite wonderful. The youngest woman was about the age of my middle son, the oldest just turned 80 this year. One woman was a 'retired' lobster fisher, she had her own boat and her own licence and for two months a year she worked her buns off fishing lobster. But the cost of fuel and bait was high and the market price of lobster low, so after ten years of that she put her name into a lottery and won: the government bought her out. Now her son fishes with his father, it's in the blood I guess.

I can't speak too highly of this resort so I will tell you its name: White Point Beach Resort. They've been around since 1928 and it's just a fabulous location on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. One of their hallmarks is the bunnies. Just before check-in time they spread bunny kibble and leftover veggies around the lawns and the bunnies come running. Kids buy little bags of kibble and run around the lawns looking for bunnies to feed, and of course the bunnies are not dumb, they come running too. It's also a pet friendly resort, I suppose that dogs who chase bunnies are severely reprimanded.

Hopeful bunny

I suspect that potential hirees of this resort must have friendliness as a prime requirement, all of the staff were cheerful, helpful and friendly.

Two of the women had mobility issues and were a little taken aback by the limited accessibility of our designated cottage. It wasn't great but they managed. The weather was cold wet and windy on our arrival and departure but lovely in between so we were able to get out on the various trails and pathways. Getting to the beach involved climbing over a steep bank of rocks so we left that to the surfers and their holiday companions. I found the roar of the surf quite mesmerizing and since our cottage overlooked the ocean shore it was constant.

The fisherwoman and her mother were from Cape Breton and while the fisherwoman now lives in the Valley, her mother still lives on the ocean shore of Cape Breton. She said waves like what we were witnessing at White Point were part of her everyday life; her home overlooks the ocean too. She invited all of us to come visit in the summer, there are five beaches near her home and a campground; if there's no room at the campground we can park in her driveway. One of our group has an RV that could sleep 4 or 5, but she said it was difficult to drive and she would have to bring her husband along as driver. Some of us know her husband and don't mind that at all. He has already agreed to do it so I guess that expedition is on.

We have a second expedition planned as well. Before I left for the weekend, another friend recommended that I go see Cosby's Garden Centre in nearby Liverpool. I mentioned it to the other women and one of them had already been and said it was wonderful but she thought it would be better to go in the summer. So we're planning a trip back to Liverpool to see that. My friend who recommended it was disappointed that I didn't go, she thought it would be quite magical in the winter time. Well, you can only do so much. It is a garden, but it's main purpose is to display the concrete sculptures of the artist owner. I am told it takes at least an hour, if not two, to view it all.

There was a bit of a problem around cost. Due to a misunderstanding the cost quoted to M did not include meals but she thought it did. There was a tense moment at our first dinner when we discussed the matter with the manager. In the end he gave us a deep discount, but we did not fully understand how incredibly generous he was being until we got the final bill. Let's just say that he clearly made customer satisfaction a big priority.

There were a lot of guests over the weekend but most checked out Sunday before lunch and the new guests would not check in until later in the afternoon, so at lunchtime they closed the main dining room and only served lunch in the lounge. However when we arrived one of the wait staff directed us into the dining room where they had set the table with the very best view of the ocean, just for us! It was amazing!

Away for a bit

I've been procrastinating, about writing this post. But now I'm down to the wire so here goes.

I'm going away for the weekend to a famous (locally) la-di-dah resort. It's going to be very expensive and I am going to be sharing a cabin with five other women, most of whom I don't know. It could be a total disaster. On the other hand, I would never book myself into an expensive famous resort on my own and it could be quite luxurious. Spa, sauna, pool, ocean beach, entertainment, the whole nine yards. All meals included. And, if things go south, there are lots of oceanside woodland trails to escape to.

I was invited to go by a friend who wants to celebrate her birthday in a big way. It's not even a decadal or semi-decadal birthday, she just wants to do it. This friend is bigger than life: loud, overwhelming, kind of full of herself. When I've told people what I'm doing this weekend the reaction is almost universal: Wow it would be great to go to that resort, but with M? For three days in a cabin together? Wow. To her credit she also has a heart of gold. Everyone agrees on that. Just a little hard to take in large doses. And with CFS, just a little bit harder. But, I'd never be going otherwise and you gotta take advantage of opportunities when they arise, right? 

We are leaving tomorrow morning and today is a busy day of tying up loose ends before I can go. Not fun.

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So we had an atmospheric river—the In new weather phenomenon—followed by a significant dump of snow. They said "flurries" but this was definitely not flurries. We actually got off light though, Cape Breton and western Newfoundland were hit hardest with lots of washed out roads. Fortunately no loss of life that I've heard of. Watching the satellite views before it actually hit was interesting, our east coast atmospheric river actually originated in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, just like the ones that hit Canada's west coast. Ours headed more south, snuck across the continent along the US-Mexico border with little or no precipitation to speak of, then once it reached the Atlantic it loaded up, veered northward and dumped on us. The fun new weather event.

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I have a birdfeeder on my back deck this year that the blue jays have staked out as their personal feeder. During a major storm it has the advantage of being under a roof. The jays are messy eaters, they guzzle beaksful of seeds to fill their gizzards and in the process spill lots of seeds on the ground. In this case, on a tabletop below the feeder. So in warmer weather the squirrels come to clean up, and the mourning doves. The doves have figured out the jays' eating habits so they follow the jays around because the doves can't manage the feeder, they have to scavenge below it.

During the storm a lone dove arrived in company with a jay, but the jay left shortly after. So the dove waited. No more jays came, the dove kept waiting. It was getting dark out and my kitchen light was on so the dove could see me. He didn't fly away when I aimed my camera at him, he kept waiting. But the jays were gone for the day, eventually the dove had to leave too. I felt sorry for him.

November arrives late

November rainbow

November weather finally arrived: wet, cold and grey with a touch of frost and snow. Up until this past week we have had almost idyllic weather all summer and most of the fall, but it had to come to an end sometime. Meanwhile western Canada has been hit by phenomenally bad weather: a summer heatdome, lots of forest fires, and now intense rain, wind and flooding. A once-in-a-lifetime Very Bad Year weather-wise. But here we had an awesome year. I don't often use that word, awesome, but it applies this time.

Locally we're seeing a surge in Covid cases and deaths, thanks in part to "faith" gatherings where the participants did not see fit to follow Covid health guidelines. One pastor had the gall to comment that the subsequent deaths were unfortunate but just part of God's plan. Initially the provincial government was lenient, saying that they were more focussed on education than enforcement, but apparently the God's plan comment put our premier over the edge. When the powers-that-be give you a pass you don't go all smug about it.

Some participants in the gathering thought they were adhering to the guidelines, that since church services do not require vaccination passports being checked, therefore a much larger gathering involving many hundreds of participants from far and away should also be allowed to go maskless and passportless. Dr. Strang said that was not so and the guidelines were clear about that. However, I will say that when I checked the guidelines with respect to another gathering I was involved in, the guidelines were not clear at all. I came away wondering what exactly was supposed to happen. So I will give the organizers of that faith gathering a little benefit of doubt on that score, but the God's plan comment was kind of over the top.

The other gathering I attended was the first in-person meeting since before the pandemic of an organization I belong to. I went to it just because I was thinking I'd get to see some people I hadn't seen in that long since I haven't been attending Zoom meetings. Apparently at least half the membership was thinking the same thing and so there were many more people in attendance than had been planned for. Where we usually got a dozen or maybe a couple dozen attendees in the before times, I am sure well in excess of 50-70 people showed up at this meeting. Passports were checked and everyone wore masks, but at a certain point the president of the club suggested that people could take their masks off. I thought, Nothing doing, mask stays put. I'd only just gotten my 'flu shot and didn't want to chance even getting a bit of 'flu.

We had a speaker that night as we usually do and her topic was the story of Abraham Gesner. You may or may not be aware that Gesner invented kerosene, and that he grew up not far from my town in Nova Scotia. I only knew that because there is a country road intersection with a stop sign not too far from town where there is a monument and plaque honouring him. It's kind of out in the middle of nowhere, the monument stands at the edge of a farm field. Every time I stopped at that intersection, which is not frequently but maybe once a year or so, I wondered who the heck is this guy. Well, now I know. 

Our speaker was a retired history professor who has written a book about Mr. Gesner and she had a lot to say about him. So much so that she went overtime and people were fidgeting and growing quite restless long before she finished. A vice-president finally stepped up and told her that time had run out. It was an unfortunate end to an otherwise interesting talk.

Briefly, Gesner grew up on a farm in the early 1800s but was not in the least talented at farming. He met and courted a young woman who was the daughter of a prominent physician, and the prospective father-in-law encouraged young Abraham to get trained as a doctor, since it was obvious he would never be able to support his daughter by farming. Abraham ended up going to London England for his medical training. In those days medical training was a loosey goosey affair, Abraham took a variety of courses including geology. It turned out that his real passion was for geology, not medicine or farming. Nevertheless he completed his medical training and returned to Canada to practice medicine in New Brunswick. He made lots of home visits around the countryside since that is what doctors used to do, and on his travels he collected rocks. Lots of rocks. Eventually he switched careers to become a geological surveyer and then his travels expanded to almost the entire province of New Brunswick.

Unfortunately Mr Gesner ran into trouble advising the province that they had coal deposits suitable for mining when in fact the deposits were entirely unsuitable. He lost his job. He experimented with liquefying coal to use as a replacement for whale oil in street lamps. He was eventually successful and came up with kerosene ("coal oil"). He opened a factory in New England for the manufacture of kerosene but ran into business trouble and was sued multiple times. I don't know the details but I rather gather it was bad luck, ignorance and the highly competitive market that he was operating in that was his downfall. He returned penniless to Nova Scotia. He did manage to secure a job teaching at Dalhousie College in Halifax, but before he could take it up he died, in his early 60s.

Nowadays kerosene is made from petroleum but Gesner's process of converting coal to kerosene saved a lot of whales. It was in fact the beginning of the end for the lucrative 'Boston coast' whaling industry. That industry revived somewhat when it was realized that whalebone was very useful in women's undergarments (corsets and such), but kerosene was definitely the first nail in that coffin.

Gesner firmly believed that the Earth was only a few thousand years old, as Bishop Usher had proven through his biblical studies. He was not to be deterred, he argued firmly in the defense of a youngish Earth. However towards the end of his career and studies he came to admit that perhaps it was not so, perhaps the Earth was millions of years old. I admire that he defended his beliefs so vigourously but in the end changed his mind in the face of overwhelming evidence. He was scientifically inclined and willing to change his mind with enough evidence for doing so. He died before Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species but the writing was already on the wall with the revelations of geological strata associated with a progression of fossils toward modern species. Darwin's big discovery was not so much about evolution but the natural mechanisms facilitating evolution.

I think I find this man interesting because he tried his hand at a number of different things, some successful and some not, and he loved exploring. He was training in England at the start of the Industrial Revolution and very interested in the potential for change it portended. He came back home to Canada fired up about the possibilities and in the end he made a contribution. As I said, he saved a few whales and provided an affordable source of light before electricity became the norm. Having myself depended on kerosene for light at a certain period of my life, I think that is notable.

Mind afire at five

Woke up at five a m, my mind afire.

My feet were cold. Warming them up necessitated turning on the light, reaching for a blanket hung over a nearby chair, unfolding it and laying it over top of my bed; a series of actions sure to wake me up so thoroughly I'd never get back to sleep. And it was one of those nights when I'd been awake enough to note the passing of time: one o clock, two o clock, three o clock, etc. So I lay there trying to endure the cold and finally caving and turning on the light to reach for the blanket.

I have a 'firm' rule: no getting out of bed before six a m. Not that it does any good or that I stick to it at all costs, but still, at five a m I am not inclined to get out of bed unless I have to (for example, my bladder in distress). Hence my mind afire. When I say my feet were cold what I really mean is everything below the knee. The cold feet expand, I feel half dead below the knee and I know it is working its way up. Used to be just the feet, now it's not.

I had the thought, we create our own reality. I create my own reality. Not just attitudes and stuff like that but literally. Everything. The world I live in is of my own creation. I think we know that when we are very little, but by the time we reach adulthood it becomes entrenched: reality just is. You can mess with the edges, tweak it here and there, 'improve' yourself as it were, but the hard core of reality just is. And now, at five a m with my mind afire, I see that in old age the edges of reality are starting to curl up and disintegrate, revealing its flimsiness. If I wanted to I could just peel it all away, but I cling to it. Want to prolong it as long as I can, however unsuitable or knocked about or whatever.

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Friday nights two of my boys and I get together online to watch a show and chat. Last night we talked about Hallowe'en. My experience and my oldest son's experience are totally different; he and his wife live for Hallowe'en, I endure it. My son set up a kind of outdoor photo studio and invited all visitors to have their pictures taken in their Hallowe'en costumes. They had hundreds of visitors and he produced hundreds of stunning photos. Really stunning. I am in awe of his talent. The backdrop is black, the colours are brilliant, the costumes amazingly creative. The personalities of the individuals in the photos leap out at you. Whole families out trick or treating together and obviously getting a huge kick out of it. One photo after another of joyful people having a really good time. I guess in their neighbourhood they are renowned, everyone comes by on Hallowe'en. 

He was explaining the photographic technique he was trying out that night but it all went over my head, I was just stunned by the quality of the photos. He's shown me other stuff he's done and I am equally stunned by it. Why is he not a professional photographer?

I have dabbled in a variety of creative endeavours but have not developed any one talent the way he has with his photography. In some ways I feel like I have wasted a whole lifetime dabbling instead of getting down to just one thing the way he has. Well, not just one thing, he has a family and a job and a life besides photography, but you know what I mean.

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I called a friend yesterday to ask her help/advice with a landscaping idea I had. She came over in the afternoon and I laid out the idea and walked her around the property to see what she had to say or could do. She said that she could help me with some of it but not all of it, I'd have to get someone with a back hoe or some such for what I had in mind. But she did start to help me get some metal posts out of the ground around my vegetable garden. I had fenced it to keep Hapi out, but I was trying to get rid of the fence because it was more a hindrance than a help now. The metal posts are firmly embedded in the ground after being there for a decade. Nevertheless my friend being a lot stronger than me was able to pry six of them out of the ground, with a little help from me. All within less than an hour.

After she left I collapsed sick. That's what physical effort does to me now, I can make the effort and feel good doing it at the time, but afterward I pay for it in spades. That was part of the mind afire thing at five a m. This is my life now, I'm not seeing a good end to it. Things are only going to get worse. At some point it is going to become unbearable, the bad times outweighing the good times by a lot. 

When I first got sick, over twenty years ago, it lasted for five months. When I told my doc that I was getting better, he was sceptical. He said, Alright, but don't do anything for a year. He meant nothing strenuous or physical: no running, no sports, nothing beyond a bit of walking. I was scared enough by those five months of being sick that I took his advice seriously. Also my life was such that there was not a lot of opportunity for strenuous physical activity, it was a relatively easy thing to give up. And I got twelve good years out of it.

Ironically things went south after I moved to Nova Scotia. On the one hand my life opened up and I had lots of friends and lots of stuff to do, and after twelve years of health I believed I could have it all. My second and third bouts of illness happened after moving here, each one only lasted a couple of months, I still thought I was in the clear. Well, the honeymoon is over. My old doc's advice still stands, but is way harder to follow now.

Complexity

It's a good rainy windy day to stay indoors and recuperate.

I went to the clinic yesterday, about an hour's drive away on the highway. The highway goes through the interior forest of the province, rocks, lakes and trees. The reds and golds of the maples and birches were nicely setoff by the dark green of pines and spruces. A very nice drive.

The visit itself was long and tiring, I was there for 3 hours seeing a nurse practitioner and a care coordinator. They deal with longterm complex chronic conditions and I fit right in. I actually felt validated, this is not all in my head, it's not psychological, it's a real physical illness that is not well understood by doctors and medical researchers. The diagnosis I got is a kind of either/or thing; it's either Long Covid or it's ME/CFS or it's ME/CFS triggered by Covid.

They have two streams of treatment, one for Long Covid and one for everything else which they refer to as Central Sensitization (Fibro, ME/CFS, PTSD, and a bunch of others). They will let me know which stream they are assigning me to but they are not hugely different. The main thing is that they recently got funding for Long Covid and have to keep it separate, but seem a little vague as to whether a positive Covid test is a requirement. A lot of people had Covid in the early days but couldn't get tested because of the restrictive testing criteria at the time. So they believe I had it, they just don't know whether the lack of a positive test disqualifies me under the funding terms.

Ironically, when I was sick I was offered a test but I declined it because if it came back positive I would have to be quarantined and then I could not take Hapi off the property for a walk. She would have driven me crazy. At least without the test I wasn't quarantined. I did stay away from people and wore a mask when outside my house and got all my shopping done by neighbours, so I don't think I put anyone at risk.

It's going to be another few months before treatment actually starts, sometime in 2022. Not that there is a cure (there's not) or even an agreed upon treatment protocol, but simply guidance, support, various therapies for symptom management and referrals for testing as needed. So it doesn't really matter which stream I end up in, the only significant difference is that the Long Covid stream has a physiotherapist and the Central Sensitization stream does not. We have free physio at our local health clinic in town so if I needed that I could probably just get them to refer me there. Although I wouldn't even need a referral, I could just put myself on the waitlist. I don't feel like I would benefit from physio, but who knows.

I came away feeling quite positive about the whole experience, but exhausted by the time I got home. An interesting thing I learned is that many people in my condition often have good summers and then crash in the late summer/early fall. That has certainly been my experience. I was told that the crash could last till next summer. Or, I might improve a little over the winter and then crash again in the spring. That's more or less what happened this past year, so I guess I can expect more of it. I am glad I got a good summer. I also learned that I am very unsteady on my feet. I kind of knew that but the tests made it very clear.

The NP said, "I won't make you try to walk a straight line heel to toe because I can see that you would just fall over."

A couple of weeks ago I went for coffee with a friend who has been otherwise supportive, and she strongly urged me to not go to the clinic. That really I was just anxious about the pandemic. That kind of ticked me off, it's what I don't like about an invisible illness: people feel free to tell you it is not real. So it was nice to be somewhere that I was taken seriously and know that they deal routinely with a lot of people like me.

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I spoke to a neighbour the other day on the street, she's a lot more politically active than I am. At any rate she has recently written a lengthy letter to the town council about the student situation in our neighbourhood. She forwarded the letter to me and later in the day I read it; it was quite an eye opener. I tend to keep my head down about local issues because when I get involved I don't like what I see and it is a little upsetting. But she's younger and new in town and very gung ho about getting actively involved. We know each other because she has two big dogs who didn't like Hapi, we had to keep them all apart because Hapi would have been more than happy to set them straight about who was the boss dog around here.

So, our part of town has been zoned "R3", which is much denser than "R1". R3 is where all the poor people and all the students live, plus people like me who are not exactly poor but by no means rich. R3 is all I can afford here. R1 is where professors and doctors and town councillors and such live, nice quiet neighbourhoods with wide empty streets.

There's good money to be made by developers who have bought up all the big old houses in our neighbourhood and converted them to crowded student housing. They are still working on buying up whatever they can get their hands on that can be turned into the very profitable student housing. Bylaws state that they can't create apartments with more than 3 bedrooms, but they do. So a former single family home can now house 5, 10, or more students, each one with their own car. On the face of it, you see these big old houses in this neghbourhood and it looks not much different from R1, but the streets are packed with cars, there's garbage strewn around and properties are barely maintained. The town does not enforce the bylaws. The developers all live in R1 neighbourhoods, and so, for that matter, do all the town councillors. Out of sight out of mind.

When I lived here before, back in the '80s, it wasn't like that. There were students but the majority of houses were occupied by families. As kids grew up and moved away, parents either chose to stay or moved away too. The more houses that were bought by developers and converted to student housing, the more older residents moved away because of the declining neighbourhood quality. Now there are hardly any young families, just old people who either couldn't afford to move away, or stubbornly insisted on aging in place, or both. One older person in her 80s was told that if she didn't like how students behaved, why did she move into this neighbourhood? She's been here for over 60 years!

So, when the students rioted during Homecoming Week, I now blame the town council as much as anyone else. They let the developers create a ghetto, they even officially blessed it by calling it zone R3. What did they think was going to happen? Students are transient, they have no particular attachment to this town beyond the 3-4 years it takes to get a degree, they live in squalid conditions, why would they care?

What bothers me now is, should I go ahead and get solar panels? If this neighbourhood is going to the dogs and the town doesn't care, why should I take the risk of investing in my property only to have it torn down by some developer who wants to cram in yet more student housing? And how much of this noise and congestion and irresponsible behaviour can I take before I too want to pack up and leave? I am wondering now whether to sign the contract or not. They called me last week to say that funding for this year has been used up but there will be more next year so I should postpone signing the contract until December.

Yup. If at all…

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The birds aren't stupid, they've figured out the squirrel-proof feeder. I put the old feeder on my back deck so they now come to both feeders. The jays dominate the back feeder and the doves hang out on the deck floor below them because the jays are messy eaters: lots of leftovers for them. The chickadees, cardinals and nuthatches come to the squirrel-proof feeder in the front where they don't have to compete with the jays. So I can watch birds now from either my livingroom or kitchen windows.

Up all night

I got maybe 2-3 hours of sleep Friday night. It was a warm evening and the students next door (all boys) partied on their back patio until around midnight. That would have been not great but okay, except that they resumed the party at 4 am. I had previously made an agreement with the landlord to not call the police but to call him instead, and I didn't really feel like doing that at 4 am. I had also previously spoken to some of the boys and asked them to keep the party indoors after 10 pm, which is when the municipal noise bylaw kicks in. I was mad enough that I couldn't get back to sleep. I texted the landlord this morning and he says he'll deal with it after the student reading week. If there is a second occurrence in the meantime, I will definitely be calling the local police. I am not good at napping so Saturday was pretty much a write-off.

Last weekend was the local university "homecoming" celebration and boy did the students celebrate. Many hundreds of them in residential streets whooping it up, vandalizing property and generally keeping the neighbours up all night. Police were called but they said there was a limit to what they could do given the huge numbers of drunken students in the streets. Our little town made the national news as a result. Needless to say, citizens, town councillors and the mayor are not pleased. The university offers apologies and wrings its metaphorical hands, making vague promises of disciplining culprits. A neighbour had a conversation with the university president, who offered the excuse that first year students did not get adequate socializing in high school because of pandemic restrictions on high school social activities. The university bans alcohol on campus, so guess where students go when they feel like having an alcoholic celebration. The same neighbour told me that the female students living next door to her had to call the police because male students were trying to break into their house to party. They were really scared.

I was lucky last weekend, the students next door kept their celebration indoors, or else they participated in the street ruckus elsewhere. But not so lucky this weekend. The students seem to think that because they've been forced to stay home for a year and a half and because they are mostly all "double-vaxxed", that they deserve to party hearty now. What's a little Fourth Wave and Delta Variant? And who cares about the neighbours who don't care for rap music in the middle of the night? The university seems to take the position that because the partying was not on campus they have no responsibility. The town has to identify "the culprits" before they will do anything.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The weather on Friday was quite lovely, I went for a long walk downtown to collect my mail (in this town we don't get home delivery but have to go to the post office to pick up mail, which makes it a bit of a social occasion), then through town to a ravine that leads up to the Reservoir. 

I met a neighbour at the beach and we chatted for a bit. She said her husband had gone to the city to see the opening of Dune. She asked him if he had read any reviews before he went and he said no he hadn't, he planned to see the movie regardless of what critics said about it. She was a bit mystified by that, why would you not care? I laughed; if you're a Dune-fan then you really don't care what the so-called critics have to say about it. I told her that lately I've been looking at "puppy porn" online, pictures of dogs available for adoption. Of course I particularly look at the Malamute puppies. She wondered if I was one of those people who favoured a particular breed, I said not really and the Malamute is absolutely the wrong breed for someone like me. But they all look like Hapi and Hiro and I guess I'm kind of imprinted on them.

Later she sent me a Facebook link to a video about New York dogs. The city has banned dogs on the subway unless they fit in a bag, so ingenious New Yorkers have bundled their dogs up in all kinds of bags to take them on the train. Dogs as big as Golden Retrievers have been bundled into bags, and some dog owners cut leg holes in their dog-bags so the dog can walk onto the train. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As noted in a previous post, my birdfeeder is up but now the squirrels have discovered it. So I bought a squirrel-proof birdfeeder and put that up. Apparently it is more than squirrel-proof, the blue jays and cardinals can't use it either. Yesterday I watched a frustrated downy woodpecker pecking away at it, it clearly couldn't get at the seeds but was determined to peck its way through to them. The chickadees are okay with it but the goldfinches still haven't shown up. I am hoping that when the weather gets a little colder the squirrels will hibernate and I can put the old birdfeeder back up.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The greens sprouting indoors

I started my winter indoor greens crop: arugula, leaf lettuce and romaine. They are all up and doing well. 

The greens taking in the sun

On good days I put the planter outside but otherwise it resides under a grow-light. 

I can start another planter under a second grow-light (lower shelf in photo above) but I am holding off on that, I may just bring in a couple of pots of chives and thyme instead. 

I still have greens in the outdoor garden, they will probably survive into November. By then the indoor greens should be big enough to start harvesting. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I finally upgraded my Macbook to a newer operating system. I've been putting it off for a over a year because I have to do a clean install, involving deleting all my files and then replacing them afterward. I was afraid of losing stuff, of having the clean install go terribly wrong and not being able to recover from it. But it was getting harder and harder to put off because my browser was no longer supported in the old operating system and was not functioning properly. I finally bit the bullet and did it. Mostly it went okay but my latest photos are not reappearing. That means until I get that sorted I may or may not be able to include photos with this post. 

Later: As you can see I did manage to post some photos but the there is still an unresolved problem with the photos updating on my computer. Apparently it is frustrating a lot of users but so far (two years now) Apple is not offering a viable solution.

Fall catch-up

I was invited to Thanksgiving dinner this afternoon but had to bow out. Had a bad night's sleep and woke up this morning feeling like I was coming down with something or other. I feel a little better now, but better to be cautious these days. A couple of years ago I would have taken the chance of giving a cold to other people—maybe—but now it just seems terribly irresponsible. I am very disappointed though.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I put my birdfeeder up this week and after a day or so the blue jays discovered it and now there is constant activity just outside my living room window. So far I have also seen a couple of chickadees, a pair of cardinals, a nuthatch, and a song sparrow. The goldfinches are so far missing in action, I hope they are just slow to get the memo.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I have an appointment later this month at a clinic over an hour's drive away that may be able to give me a formal diagnosis, and yes I'm still sick. Both summers, 2020 and 2021, were moderately healthy but by fall it was all back in full blast. Something about the fall I guess. The house badly needs a paint job and I thought when the cooler fall weather arrived I could tackle it, but now I don't have the energy for it. The yard work has pretty much come to a halt now but there is still a lot left to do. I did manage to get the garlic planted but I don't know how much more I am going to be able to do.

I have a stack of library books that I can't read and am wondering why on earth I ordered them. Even the titles are daunting. I harvested a whole bunch of cabbage which I am wondering why I planted because I don't like cabbage. Now I have a bumper crop and no idea what to do with it. I managed to trade the two biggest heads for a couple of hubbard squashes, so that's something, and the person I traded with gave me a recipe for pickled red cabbage which she said was really good on tacos, so that's something too. If I ever get up the energy to pickle.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In spite of feeling crappy this is one of my favourite seasons in this province. Especially October. It's still warm but not hot, lots of sun and because the sun is so low in the sky a beautiful yellow tinge to the light. And of course the fall colours, which are really only just beginning. They usually peak around Thanksgiving but this year peak colour seems to be delayed. We get "Frost Advisories" regularly now but until this morning I have not seen any sign of frost. And it's what they call "patchy", I saw frost on the back lawn of a house across the street but none anywhere else. My neighbours got frost but I did not.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing I've settled on a contractor to install a solar panel system and the municipal financing program has sent me a contract to sign. Ten pages of fine print. Most of it was pretty much what I expected but one paragraph in particular seemed a little too vague for my liking so I have requested clarification before I sign.

I contacted a couple of roofers to see if I need to do anything about my roof before I cover it up with solar panels and one of them followed through with a site visit. Running his name by friends later it turns out he comes highly recommended. Anyway, he's going to send me an detailed estimate but gave me a ballpark figure which is a bit daunting. He had a nice dog which he says he takes everywhere with him, a point in his favour. I may be eligible for a housing authority grant to help seniors stay in their own homes, but I don't know if I'll qualify, mainly because I think they prefer that your roof be leaking or otherwise in very bad shape, which mine is not.

I had to laugh though, I had had some work done on my roof a half dozen years ago and I thought I'd give that roofer a call. I couldn't find his contact info so I googled his name and it turns out he's now in jail for murder. Oops.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I now have three bikes in my shed and that's probably two too many. So I put one of them up for sale on Facebook Marketplace, only minutes before Facebook crashed. My bike crashed the system. However the next day I got a response from a woman who said she's been looking for that exact type of bike for years, but she lives in the city and wondered if I could put it on hold for her till the weekend. I was a bit hesitant but she offered to pay for it right away, I agreed, and she sent me an etransfer immediately for the full price. 

It all happened so fast that I was kind of shocked; I then wondered what else I could put up for sale since this seemed so ridiculously easy. She has not yet picked up the bike, she was going to come yesterday but messaged me that her daughter was sick so could she postpone a couple of days. Sure, no problem, I've already been paid and can afford to wait a few more days to get rid of the bike.

Well, must go now, the blue jays have emptied the feeder so I'm being called to replenish.

Swimming and reading

My swimming companions

Since getting home from my kayaking expedition at the beginning of the month I've been swimming at the Reservoir, almost daily. I swim with a woman who seems to be an amazing source of local gossip. Some of it good, some of it not, some about people I know and some about people I don't. I occasionally have gossip tidbits to exchange, but not very much really. The main benefit of all this gossip is to keep me swimming; I can do 4 laps while listening and at best 2 laps while not. So, there's that. 

She has a neighbour who sometimes shows up to do serious swimming (the crawl, with flippers, goggles and ear plugs), it turns out he is also a serious kayaker. So I mentioned to my swimming companion that I am always looking for fellow kayakers and she said she'd pass that along, which she did. So we shall see. I've pretty much decided that I don't want to combine kayaking and camping any more, at least not the way we have been doing. Maybe a single base camp for a 4-day trip, but not changing campsites every day or even every other day. So what I want is people I can do day trips with, sans camping.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today is a wet stormy day and after today the temperature will take a downturn, so I may not be swimming anymore unless we get a mini heat wave in October. Not likely. Today I am doing more or less nothing. This past week, besides swimming I also did some rather strenuous yard work so doing nothing is my idea of a rest. I watched the storm outside the window, I read, and got caught up on bills.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I just finished reading an interesting book which I can recommend: The Premonition, by Michael Lewis. I'd never heard of Lewis before, and on the back cover of the book is a review comment: "I would read an 800-page history of the stapler if he wrote it." I absolutely agree, it was an enthralling read and I learned a few things, albeit rather depressing things. But no matter, he writes in a very upbeat style leaving one with hope and a little faith in the fundamental goodness of human beings. The book is a pandemic story, specifically about Covid19, but it starts in the early 2000s, under the G.W. Bush presidency. I learned that Bush did one good thing during his presidency, he read John Barry's book about the 1918 Flu Pandemic and it scared him into creating a committee to come up with a pandemic plan for the USA. The membership in this committee was brilliant, they did their homework and they came up with an official pandemic plan that—had it ever been implemented—would have changed the course of the American experience of the 2020 Covid Pandemic. Sigh…

Lewis focuses his book on a half dozen individuals, some of whom were original members of that committee, and some of whom were latecomers to the party. All of them brilliant in their own ways, all of them heroes who went above and beyond in their attempts to stem the carnage of the pandemic in the USA. The book reads like a thriller, you get inside the lives and heads of Lewis's subjects, and in the process you learn a thing or two about how bureaucracy works. That latter bit leaves me a little depressed, but it's good to know that heroes exist.

Lewis says an interesting thing about government in general. He says that the federal government—and I think this applies to any federal government—is a manager of a portfolio of existential risks, whether natural disasters, financial panics, military, energy or food security, and so forth. It is the job of government to be ready for any of these risks and to jump into action when they happen. To that end they maintain a stable of experts, a host of disaster plans, and a cohort of people ready to act according to plan when disaster occurs. But that's expensive, and it means a whole lot of people being held at the ready for such a disaster to materialize, and people who are against the idea of Big Government just want to eliminate all that. It makes the cvil service look wasteful. A couple of things that happened when Covid exploded in the US were that the plan was forgotten or ignored and it turned out the supplies necessary for addressing a pandemic weren't there, they'd long since expired and not been replaced.

We hear a lot about how Trump sabotaged the Covid response but Lewis does not dwell on that. He talks about a whole lot of other failures that contributed, and how his little team of heroes tried to mitigate them. These heroes did not have job titles reflecting their importance, they were what one person referred to as "L6": so far down the hierarchy of authority that they should have been inconsequential, but they weren't. They really took the ball and ran with it, regardless of the consequences to their careers. Few of us get that opportunity, but these people did and their stories are inspiring.

Don't complain camp in the rain...

Long time, no write!

Been busy though…

I did go on the kayak-camping trip last week, Monday through Friday. The first day was solid rain and then we had three days of sun and cloud, with rain on the final day of packing up and leaving. I have to say the rain made things quite difficult. 

Shelter from the rain

We were extremely grateful that our first campsite included a shelter, so we decided not to pitch tents but sleep in the shelter. That was okay although I didn't sleep very well. The next two days we had to move to two more campsites, which involved a lot of packing up, unpacking, setting up tents and taking them down again. That part of the whole trip was utterly exhausting, at least for me. I think the other two fared better: they shared a tent and were probably in better shape than I was for that sort of thing.

On our last day, one person was packed up and ready to leave before the other two, I was ready but stayed behind to help the third person into her sprayskirt. They get caught on the life jacket behind you and it often takes a helping hand to get it unstuck. She left and I tried to leave but got stuck between a rock and the shore. Rocking the kayak did not free it but did end up letting water into the cockpit. Then I got out to guide the kayak away from the rock, only to get two boots full of water. So by the time I left the shore I was soaked and sitting in a puddle of water inside the kayak.

The other two were waiting for me offshore but they had their backs to me and did not see my futile efforts to get launched. One of them asked me what I was doing and I told her. She was sympathetic, but the other woman laughed.

I guess I don't like being laughed at when I am in difficulty. I said, "I know it sounds funny, but it doesn't feel funny."

We paddled back to our starting point and I kept my distance from the others because I was seething. 

There were incredible moments of joy and beauty during the trip. One of our campsites was up a river and the trip there and back was absolutely magical. At that campsite, every time I looked at the river I was completely in awe of it, completely entranced.

But overall it was utterly exhausting, not from the kayaking but from the camping. A friend said she would have an awful time sleeping on the ground but for me that wasn't it. It was the packing, unpacking, packing again and erecting and dismantling of the tent and tarps over and over again. It absolutely killed my back. Also the fact that the other two women helped each other but I was largely left to fend for myself. I guess three is an awkward number, unless you have a spacious three-person tent.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My town has recently embarked on an ambitious plan to cut carbon emissions by assisting homeowners to get climate-friendly upgrades. I contacted the plan organizers and they got me started on a project to install solar panels on my house. In the past I have resisted this because it is costly and the breakeven point on upfront costs is about 15 years from now, when I may very likely be dead. However, the town's plan involves offsetting the costs through home equity. In theory I can install enough solar panels to cover all my electrical needs without spending a dime of personal money.

Of course, like all such programs, it involves a lot of paperwork, talking to contractors, getting quotes, and who knows what else. The upside is meeting and talking to interesting people who tell you interesting things, the dowside is consuming a heck of a lot of time and mental energy. The plan spokesperson thinks I can be all done by Christmas, but at least one of the contractors I spoke to is saying probably next summer for completion. That sounds more realistic. There are a lot of unresolved issues and questions, but I guess it's kind of exciting.

Yesterday and today I am digging up potatoes, so something complicated but somewhat exciting to think about is welcome. As I told one friend, digging potatoes is as backbreaking as my previous week of camping, and given how cheap potatoes are to purchase, I wonder why I bother to grow them.

Lots to think about…

Fragile Miracles

Yesterday was the last day of morning kayaking. The director of the program came out to the lake early to unlock the gate and give us Regulars an extra hour of paddling, she brought her son and a couple of his friends with her to play on the paddleboards while she oversaw the kayak registrations and sendoffs for the day, because the students who usually do that job ended their summer jobs the day before.

It was a gorgeous day for it. The latest heat wave ended yesterday so it was warm but not scorching. A few of us did not come because the early hour was just a bridge too far, but those of us who did come set out in search of the mythical Fish Ladder.

Word has it that there is a fish ladder on the lake, we kind of assumed it would be near the power dam. D and myself had already explored the environs of the dam but had not sighted the ladder, so the group set out for a wider search of the lake. However, after a two-hour paddle the mythical Fish Ladder remained mythical, a project for next summer. It was an exhilerating paddle, especially since we kind of lost track of the time and left ourselves only a half hour to get back to home base. We went straight down the middle of the lake, a flotilla of little kayaks paddled in unison.

Next week is a week of morning appointments, things I postponed until kayaking was done. The week following is the kayak-camping trip on Kejimkujik Lake. Last spring we had organized a four-day kayaking trip at a lodge (Milford House), but that was cancelled due to Third Wave lockdown. Here in Nova Scotia it was actually the second wave, but for the rest of the country it was the Third Wave. Anyway, we had so many people wanting to come on that trip that I was half-thankful that it was cancelled; it was going to be crowded. But now we are hard-pressed to get four people willing to go, perhaps because we are all of an age when sleeping on the ground and camping in the rain are less than pleasant prospects.

But for me, four days on the water sounds like heaven, rain or no rain. And I am ridiculously fit, I feel more up for this than I have in decades. One night this week, insomnia had me up in the wee hours and while failing to get back to sleep I was marvelling at how hard my stomach muscles are now. My thumbs were very sore for a while but they have recovered, paddling hard for an hour now hardly affects them. In spite of lack of sleep I am still up and ready for an active day first thing. It feels like some kind of miracle and I don't want to waste it, at this age one is keenly aware of how fragile such miracles are.

Last night I was watching TV with the back door still open, the last of the heat wave was dissipating and leaving windows and doors open was nice. At a certain point I had a very strong sense that Hapi had just come in through the back screen door to check on me, it was quite overwhelming. I had to turn off the TV and walk around the house for a bit to try to shake it off. In spite of having a very good day I went to bed sad. One of my appointments this week is an interview at a seniors housing co-op, and one of their rules is no pets. For the first time since Hapi died I wonder if that will work for me. In addition to missing Hapi, I miss my backyard cardinal and the chipmunk that lived for a while in my window well. One grows attached.

Birds and ballots

I noticed about a week ago that the little cardinal that flitted around my back yard and sang constantly all day long was absent. It took me a few days to notice his absence and I guess I just thought he was somewhere else for a few days. Then I nticed that there was a cat visiting my back yard; he would scamper away whenever he noticed me watching him. And finally, while mowing the lawn a few days ago, I found scattered blue jay feathers. I put it all together and cursed that damn cat.

I tolerate cats but am not a huge fan, mostly because I am allergic to them and they always like to rub up against me. But now I dislike them all and that orange-and-white cat in particular. I feel like a good friend was murdered. I don't know if the chipmunk has survived the carnage, haven't seen it around either, and the back yard is deathly silent these days.

Today I watched a young male cardinal checking out my back yard from a nearby tree and I hoped he was thinking of moving in. But he came with a companion, a much larger bird of another species (I am not sure what it is). I suspect the young cardinal is hanging out with the bigger bird for protection and I rather got the impression that the big bird was calling the shots. It will be up to him (or her) whether they move in or not. This new cardinal isn't a singer, or at least not today, but it would be nice if he moved in.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Our provincial election was on Tuesday and I put in over 15 hours as "information officer". In fact, all I did was run around sanitizing after each voter. In my not-so-humble opinion our supervisor did a poor job of organizing our poll and as a result there were lengthy line-ups. There were no breaks, the voters showed up constantly and we had to keep our masks on whenever there was a voter on the premises. That meant no eating or drinking either. By the end of the day I was exhausted and in pain all over.

What makes it worse is that as "information officer" (the supervisor took over my job as information officer and relegated me to sanitizing) I was low man on the totem pole and my opinion did not count. The supervisor was not doing the job of information officer effectively and as a result too many people were waiting in line for half an hour only to be told that they either didn't have the right ID or they were at the wrong poll. He was supposed to catch those folks at the door and redirect them. So it wasted their time as well as the time of all the people lined up behind them. The tasks of registering and screening each voter fell to two people who processed things very slowly while two other people just handed out ballots and sat there doing nothing otherwise. They couldn't step in to help, the supervisor was too busy chatting with voters and doing my job, and I couldn't do anything about it except scurry around with the sanitizer.

After the poll closed we counted ballots and registration cards and the tabs ripped off the ballots. The numbers were all supposed to match up and of course they didn't. So we recounted and recounted and recounted until we finally got it all to match up. At least there was a clear winner. I spoke to one of the other candidates the next day and the scuttlebut is that the winner didn't even want to run but was cajoled into it. So now we have a reluctant MLA who wishes he had said no. The provincial election signs have all been switched to federal election signs and we have another month to go of election campaigning. Only the names of the candidates have changed. It seems the election issues are more or less the same, with similar promises being made.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I went on a little road trip with a friend the day after the election and we discussed the election results. The Progressive Conservatives won by a landslide, apparently Nova Scotian voters are not happy with the Liberal party that was in power. They did a good job of handling the pandemic, but not much else. Anyway, the PCs focussed on a single issue, health care. My friend said she belonged to a Facebook group about saving provincial health care and after the election the group moderator said she was disbanding the group because the PCs were in power now and they were going to fix everything. We both guffawed. I bet that woman believes in Santa Claus too.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Between my extreme annoyance at the poll work and losing my lovely singing cardinal to a crappy cat, I was more than ready for a hard paddle on the lake two days later. I visited the young eagle, who was crying plaintively that morning. She stopped when I paddled up to her tree but started in again when I left. Her head and shoulders appear a little greyer than before, I looked that up on the internet and it probably indicates her age as around two years. This is odd since juvenile bald eagles don't usually hang around the nest that long, they are usually off on their own by 6 months of age. Either premature aging or a very immature juvenile.

Election, election, election...

So, as I type, PM Trudeau is chatting with Gov-Gen Mary Simon about calling an election in the fall. Here in Nova Scotia we are set to vote on Tuesday, a provincial government election. Back-to-back elections just annoys me no end.

I was listening to a woman on the radio talking about the current promise of affordable childcare, which apparently is still in negotiation with the various provincial governments. This woman is tired of waiting (she has two daycare-age kids) and in any case finds daycare totally unaffordable. The waitlists for daycare spots were bad enough before the pandemic but now are so bad that it really doesn't matter how much it costs, she can't get it anyway. Which all reminded me of the promises made by politicians when my kids were preschoolers, and now they are in their 40s and 50s. I am so bloody tired of listening to it.

Childcare is important, so is climate change, affordable housing, social supports for the poor, the homeless, the disabled, the sick, the old, and of course how we manage the pandemic (fourth wave?!?). Then there's LGBTQ issues, policing problems, discrimination, indigenous issues, blah blah blah. Not to mention wars and earthquakes and all the rest of that 'End Times' stuff.

A short while ago I happened to run into an anti-vaxx anti-mask fanatic. We had a very polite friendly conversation about our positions on the Covid vaccine but I came away thinking O, M, G. And elections just accentuate all that, all the diverse opinions from compassionate and rational to the fanatical and insane are aired out and shouted out and I am so tired of it. I feel like it's useless to vote, it's useless to listen to all the promises being made because all it does is make me sad: a world we could have had but probably now never will.

On the radio Trudeau has emerged from his chat and is saying stuff about how we need to discuss all these issues and make up our minds. I didn't hear a date yet but I'm guessing middle to end of September.

O, M, G.

Today I was daydreaming about a good old fashioned tyrant, you know, kind of like what they have in China. Somebody who said, Enough talk, here's what's going to happen. I suppose I should keep quiet about that, be careful what you wish for you might just get it, and all that. But still...

Sigh.

Family Visit

Annapolis Basin from Fort Ste Anne

My eldest son was visiting this past week, he just returned to his home in Toronto this morning. We had to be up at 4.30am to get him to the airport on time, and it was a 2.5 hour round trip (he did half of the driving). So I am not much good for anything today. Fortunately there are leftovers to eat and nothing I need to go out for.

We had a great visit, lots of good conversation, visiting with friends (his, mine and shared friends), various outings and TV watching. I had Indian Summers (2015) so we watched one or two episodes each night. It was originally planned as a 5-season show, but only the first 2 seasons were made; just not popular enough. I got quite into the stories of some of the characters and wished they had finished it so I would know what happened to them.

We ate out a couple of times, went to Halifax to visit a friend of my son's who recently moved from Toronto to Nova Scotia, did a little road trip to Annapolis Royal, and went kayaking a couple of times. We also went swimming at the Reservoir of course. A PEI friend of my son's dropped by my place, he was on a business road trip selling cider from his cidery business on the island. He left us with ample samples of his wares which we drank every night and I think there is still a little bit left. 

The friend in Halifax is absolutely ecstatic about her move to the Maritimes, she loves the city. Her partner's mother lives nearby ("720 steps away!") and helped them find a lovely house rental in a great neighbourhood (the North End). I mentioned that I was considering an e-bike but was uncertain about price and quality. She recommended a bike that both her teenage daughter and her MIL love, so I actually ordered it the next day. It won't arrive till the end of the month or early September but I am looking forward to that.

We planned our road trip to Annapolis Royal to arrive in the middle of their Saturday Farmer's Market and while browsing through we ran into some old friends of mine who hadn't seen my son since he was a toddler. They made laughing comments about things he used to say (at age three) and he smiled through it gamely. 

After we parted company he asked me if he was supposed to know those people, because he had no recollection of them at all. I said he was only three then so no, I didn't expect him to remember them. At least they didn't say how much like his Dad he looked, which my son hates. Yes, he looks like his Dad but he doesn't consider that a compliment. It was Pride Day in Annapolis, we missed the parade but caught some of the musical entertainment. We walked along the waterfront boardwalk to Fort Ste Anne and took a couple of photos before going back to the truck.

On the ramparts of Fort Ste Anne

We took a slightly different route home just to make it a little more interesting. About halfway home I realized I was sinking into a kind of hypnotic trance so we stopped and traded places. My little truck is my baby and I am reluctant to hand over the wheel to someone else, but it was clearly necessary.

My son took a lot of photos and he said he'd send some to me, but I already have the photos he took while we were kayaking.  Another friend of mine came along on that trip too.

I'm in the red life jacket, my friend in the yellow one

He took a couple of photos of the juvenile eagle we visit regularly. It moves around but we can usually find it. 

We have to paddle hard to get across the lake, but once across we can meander around the little islands and coves.

Crossing the lake

Also this week I got a roof rack put on the new truck cap. I still need a couple of tie-downs on the bumpers before I can put my kayak on the rack but that is coming soon. 

This week I am doing some training to be an election information officer at a local poll, the election is the following week. We have four candidates in my riding, one of them is a friend and she asked if I would take one of her Party's signs on my lawn. I decided not to, since she's running for a Party I don't intend to vote for. Not that she wouldn't make a good MLA and she might very well win, but I'm done with strategic voting and I now only vote for what I believe in, even if it's a Party that has a snowball's chance in The Very Hot Place.