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.

Checking in...

Rock painting of Hapi

Well it certainly has been a while since I last posted here, seems like the longer you go the longer you go. Hard to get back into it. 

Hapi, summer 2020

Heat wave, second one this month. Heat waves are like rainy days, I just want to stay indoors. With my new windows and cellular blinds it stays a bit cooler, but not a lot. Last year I used the air conditioning on the heat pump and ended up with mould growing inside it, so this year I want to keep that to a minimum. Just the really bad days. But so far the new windows and blinds seem to be doing the job I hoped they would. So now heat wave days are like rainy days, I just want to hide indoors till it passes.

Nothing terribly exciting or upsetting these past couple of weeks, other than getting my second Covid shot. Knocked me sideways for a couple of days, but I'd heard that was possible so I planned for it. 

Got all my firewood stacked away, I should be good for a couple of winters now, if the weight of the wood doesn't collapse the woodshed, LOL. They delivered wood that was 2" longer than what I requested, so hopefully that won't be a problem. Although I think that some of the thicker pieces might be. My woodstove is not that big.

Garden is progressing, the squash and cucumber took forever to germinate and the romaine lettuce never did. I'll try again in a couple of months, I think it is too hot now. I got a flat of really ripe strawberries (8 quarts) from a local farm market really cheap ($24) and have processed them all into frozen berries, except for a quart for eating fresh. Strawberry season is still going so I'll probably buy another couple of quarts for eating. I have some frozen berries left over from last year so I think I'll turn them into jam, if and when the weather cools.

I've been swimming a couple of times a week, kayaking the odd time or two, and walking with friends and their dogs. One Friday I noticed that Hapi's ornament at the Reservoir had disappeared and that threw me into a weekend of mourning. I had debated taking her ornament down and bringing it home, but it didn't seem like a great memento so I didn't. Then it disappeared. I found out later that someone had vandalized it and left it lying on the ground in the parking area; some other dog owners saw it and decided to get rid of it because they didn't want me to see it like that.

After that weekend a neighbour stopped by to give me a rock painting she had done of Hapi (see above). She said she had hung on to it for awhile, making improvements, but finally a friend told her, "Enough, just give it to her." Her timing was impeccable, it cheered me up enormously.

Am reading an Elizabeth Kolbert book called Under a White Sky which is kind of interesting. She talks about several human attempts to save various endangered species or control invasive species and in every case there is the problem of unintended consequences. Then she talks about geoengineering solutions to climate change and the concomitant danger of unintended consequences. But she likens it to chemotherapy: no one in their right mind would consent to chemo if there was something better. Geoengineering is like chemo for climate. 

Another fact she points out is that what they have learned from Greenland glacier ice cores is that the last 10,000 years have been unusually stable climate-wise, and that is probably the reason human civilization developed. Humans have certainly had the intelligence and ingenuity to create agriculture and various other civilizing technologies long before that, but the climate was way too unstable for a sedentary way of life to be of lasting value. Better to just hang out as hunter-gatherers and take whatever the planet dishes out. While current climate change and species' extinctions are largely human-created, sooner or later that 10,000-year stable period would have ended anyway. But with all of our technology, great cities and huge population, that climate change is almost certainly going to be devastating. Makes climate-chemo look like a chance worth taking.

And speaking of heat waves, here's a link to a video for constructing a cheap DIY air conditioner...

Windows, Doors and Egg Rolls

I am getting new windows installed this week, they said it would take 3 days and they've just completed 2 days. All the new windows are in place and some of the trim. Tomorrow they will complete the trim.

Before coming in they asked me some Covid-related questions and then said they would be wearing masks and expected me to do so also, which I agreed to. As it turned out, one of the two workmen never wore a mask, but he also never entered my home, working strictly outside. I chatted with him at one point and he said he didn't believe in vaccines, but he realized that he was going to have to get vaccinated in order to keep working. I said nothing but thought, "good!"

While they install the windows I am weeding my garden, a task I don't relish but since I had to stay home but not in my house it does seem like a good time to get that out of the way. I think I am doing a couple of years worth of weeding.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I dreamed about Hapi last night. We were on a trail we have often walked, she had her old energy back and was trotting along briskly with her tail up. Her coat was almost completely grown out except for a white patch on one shoulder. It was nice to see her back to her old self.

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So, a few days ago I was cleaning up the muddy patch on the back door left from Hapi scratching there to notify me that she wanted inside. I couldn't get it all off, I think she managed to scratch through the paint and it was going to need repainting. I was thinking about what colour I wanted, and that reminded me of the Green Door and the Orange Door, two Chinese restaurants in Vancouver. They are no longer there but they used to be on a back alley in that city's Chinatown. There was no signage and no advertising, you heard about them by word of mouth and you basically had to walk down that alley looking for a green door or an orange door. I don't remember which one I ate at (it was in the late 60s), but there were no windows. Once inside you felt like you were in someone's basement, with an open kitchen along one side and big dining tables along the other side.

My boyfriend and I asked for two egg rolls each plus a couple of main dishes. The waiter gave my boyfriend a funny look, but we didn't know what that was about. He went away and shortly came back to say that they had run out of egg rolls and we could only have one each. Okay, that's weird, but okay. He went away again and after a while he returned with the egg rolls. They were huge. Each one was a full meal. We immediately cancelled the rest of our order and the waiter did not seem surprised or perturbed by that, I think he was expecting that reaction. We were greenhorns and had no idea what was meant by an "egg roll". It was almost literally a rolled up egg omelet filled with ground meat and vegetables. I'm guessing three or four eggs in each omelet.

So remembering that experience, as a result of cleaning the door, I then wondered how you would make such an egg roll, and whether it was something I could reproduce myself. I tried it out with what I had and it was pretty good. I just used what I had in the fridge, some celery, an old carrot, a very old frozen soyburger, an onion, some sweet Thai garlic sauce, and of course eggs. My omelet wasn't big enough so there was too much filling and I had to just spread the filling on top of the omelet and eat it with a knife and fork. A work in progress.

Crunch time

Hapi's death was pre-scheduled. I was invited on a 4-day kayaking trip and I knew I couldn't take her with me or leave her with anyone else and I badly wanted to go. She was enormously slowed down, sleeping a lot and moving very slowly for short walks. But she did like her soaks in the Reservoir pond on good days. Her long fur and the pond water and her age made for a very stinky dog but I didn't care about that since I knew her days were numbered. So one day I scheduled euthanasia at the vet's, giving myself about 10 days to recover before going kayaking.

Best laid plans, eh?

I took her in on Friday afternoon, and the city went into lockdown. Covid case numbers continued to rise and people were foolish, so by Sunday the new premier was furious and locked down the entire province. Kayak trip cancelled, everything cancelled. On Monday we had the highest case count ever, but numbers are starting to drop now (still well above first wave numbers though). With many elders—especially those in long term care facilities—vaccinated, the pandemic is largely amonst younger folk. I got my first vaccination two weeks ago which gives me partial protection, but far from perfect.

I go back and forth between: I just killed my dog for nothing, and, don't second guess yourself it was going to happen soon anyway. I've been resorting to puppy porn to take my mind off it.

Yesterday I was invited to 'bubble' with good friends, a couple living in my town. Their dog died last fall and this weekend just before the province-wide lockdown they went down to the South Shore and got themselves a very cute collie-cross puppy. Yesterday I went over and sat in their back yard to meet their new pup, as yet unnamed. Extremely cute. Then my friend drove with me to another nearby town to drop off my car for brake work.

This morning I woke up sick. I was very tired yesterday but didn't think anything of it, but now I know it was the preliminary phase of something upper respiratory. I'm guessing just a cold but scheduled a Covid test for this afternoon. Called the garage to say I wouldn't be picking up my car until I knew I was in the clear, and told my friend to keep an eye out for symptoms. Cancelled tomorrow's dental appointment.

So many people are getting tested here now—highest testing rate in the country—that negative results are somewhat delayed, but I assume they get back to you ASAP if you're positive. The military have been called in to assist with testing. Today another friend called asking if I wanted to 'bubble' with them, but I am already in a bubble and my status at the moment is unknown. My friend said, "Oh well, see you in another life."

The lockdown is considered a circuit breaker so it could be over in less than two weeks, it just depends on the numbers. Nova Scotians can be as foolish as anyone else, but in a crunch we pull together. This is a crunch.

Hapi 2006-2021

She's gone.

She was a good dog, she got the job done.

Mashup

A few odds and ends from the past couple of weeks.

I got my first dose of Pfizer. Older already-vaccinated people said it was the one with the fewest side effects so that was good; turns out that for me at any rate the rumour is true. I am also one of the few people I know who managed to get the shot at the local community clinic; everyone else is having to go much further afield to get it. I booked my appointment as soon as I woke up, around 6.30am, and apparently that is what you have to do to get a shot in the local area. Meanwhile vaccine is going begging in the city, if you care to make the hike you can get it easily there.

As it happened there was a sale of composted manure on at a building supply store near the clinic and I thought, Two birds with one stone. But I had heard that a sore arm was the most significant after effect of the vaccination so I asked the nurse who was administering it how bad would it be and could I lift heavy bags afterwards. She said that actually that was a good idea, that the more I used the muscles in that arm the less pain I would experience. So, 300 kg of manure later, only a little bit of tenderness in the area of the shot and that only lasted a day. Tip for the day, and you're welcome. Mind you, the nurse didn't say it had to be 300 kg, you could get the same effect with a little squeeze ball.

I spent less than half an hour at the clinic, 15 minutes of that spent waiting after the shot to see if there were immediate anaphylactic reactions. Several stages to getting the shot, each stage requiring another round of hand sanitizing. By the end of it, at the last hand washing stage, I said, Now I have the cleanest hands ever! Everyone who left the waiting area said Thank you! to the handwashing volunteer, who replied, Thank you too! 15 minutes of Thank Yous and Thank You Toos! I told a friend about it and she reminded me of a 22 Minutes episode called Canada Goes to War. A bunch of Canadian soldiers in a trench, popping their heads up one at a time to fire their guns and then yelling out, Sorry! When they jostled or passed each other in the trench, another round of Sorry! all 'round.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My dishwasher finally bit the dust. It was old when I bought the house and lasted another ten years so I can't complain. I've been debating what to do when it finally quits, and given the pandemic rise in price of practically everything, it would cost almost double what it would have costed to replace it back in the day. I decided to handwash the dishes for awhile and see if that was realistic, and it definitely is. 15 minutes a day, no more. I use the dishwasher to store the dirty dishes (bottom rack) and the newly washed dishes (top rack). Doesn't take up precious counter space, gets the mess of dirty dishes out of sight, and it is not nearly as noisy as the dishwasher was when it worked. So I am happy with the arrangement. I suspect that the dishwasher is repairable but I am less and less inclined to get that done.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I sat in on my youngest son's MA thesis defence via Zoom yesterday afternoon. It went really well. Although I have been in conversation with him every week, he doesn't like video calls so this was the first time I've seen his face since I don't know when. He looked very professional in his glasses, which he didn't have last time I saw him. It was quite a thing to see him in action, reading the synopsis of his thesis and then responding to critical questions. I remember how nervous I was doing my MSc defence, my son did not seem nervous at all. So that's it, major step forward for him. 

My older son in Toronto is having a bad time of it. Between pandemic surge, provincial government mismanagement, kids at home due to school closures, and his own job which has amped up in stress. His description of it sounded like herding cats and whack-a-mole combined. His boss resigned and now he doesn't know who he is supposed to report to. The boss resigned to take a new job elsewhere and I think my son is also a little jealous, the former boss is now working at a job my son wishes he was doing.

The middle son is at home for another week or so, then he takes on a summer job as a "bird dog", flying in northern Alberta assessing forest fires. He seems to be doing okay and is looking forward to flying again.

A friend and I, both with three grown offspring, have a little joke about our kids: One out of three ain't bad. It seems like our grown kids are always having ups and downs and sometimes it is hard to maintain perspective about their problems. So if even one of them is doing okay, one out of three ain't bad. I've been watching the latest Crown series, and in one episode the Queen has lunch with each of her grown children to determine which is her favourite, a challenge posed by Prince Philip. Turns out they all have problems or are behaving badly in one way or another. At the end her husband tells her not to take their problems to heart. But she couldn't even say one out of four ain't bad. That's not good.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hapi declines. Last week I gave her a bone which she buried several times and then dug up to chew on. That night she had a bad bout of diarrhea on the kitchen floor and I had to get up to clean it up in the wee hours. She scurried outdoors and spent the rest of the night, all of the following day and following night sleeping in her dog house. She didn't eat at all during that time. She recovered and had a day or two approaching normality, but she kept digging up that bone and chewing on it and had a second round of diarrhea a few days later, fortunately outdoors. Now she sleeps pretty much all the time, with a couple of hours up and about in the late afternoon/early evening. When she walks she thuds stiff leggedly.

It's time. A dog walker at the Reservoir said, We're sure going to miss her. That was kind.

Easter, happy or otherwise

Interesting weekend, although nothing happened and I didn't go anywhere except the grocery store on Saturday. I commented to the greeter at the store, a young man, about the length of the line up to get in and he responded that his mother always planned well ahead for Easter so that she didn't have to shop between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. I said, yeah, good plan, although sometimes there's a last minute item you absolutely have to have right away (for me it was a sweet potato; I know, not really a must-have but in my mind it was), he agreed and we laughed. So that was pretty much all the excitement for the long weekend.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hapi keeps changing her schedule, each change involves more sleep time, she just rearranges her day to accommodate the increased amount of sleep time. So these days she sleeps from supper time to noon or later, has a midday or early afternoon meal and then a walk and then her late afternoon supper. She does some 'sundowning' after her supper, I try to grin and bear it although sometimes I lose my temper when it goes on and on and on. Her bedding is stinky which means my bedroom is stinky.

I used to have scent-free laundry detergent but the last purchase was excessively scented. Since I hang my laundry to dry indoors, well, between overly-scented laundry detergent and stinky dog, it's quite overwhelming. Let's just say that I can't wait till the weather improves enough to hang laundry outdoors. I may have to cave and toss the heavily scented stuff for some expensive unscented detergent.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I've been doing some online reading about the little bit of research done on long Covid. Emphasis on 'little bit'. This morning I completed a detailed questionnaire about my own experience for a research survey on long Covid, being run by some 'citizen scientists' (i.e., not degreed medical researchers but interested citizens with research skills) out of the UK. It took more than an hour to complete, fortunately they warned in advance that it was long. The weather is crappy and the dog is asleep so I didn't have anything more productive to do.

What I think is interesting is that 'patients' have lost patience with doctors and are taking things into their own hands. When AIDS first reared its ugly head no bona fide medical scientists gave it credence; it took activism on the part of the patients to push them into doing the research. Now there is a diagnosis and a treatment but no cure. When Chronic Fatigue Syndrome appeared, same thing. Even today there is resistance to that diagnosis and no agreed upon treatment. There's not even an agreed upon definition of CFS (several 'official' ones but no solid agreement). So now, long Covid is going through the same process, trying to get medical people to recognize it and research possible treatments.

But this time it's different. This time the patients are doing the research. Thanks to social media and more open access to scientific research papers, the people who have the disease are doing the work. Some scientists came up with the name 'post Covid viral syndrome' but that didn't stick, 'long Covid'—a name first used by a person with the disease on Twitter (#longCovid)—did. They call themselves 'long haulers' and the scientific research community has kind of been forced to use the same terminology. There's still a long way to go, but I think it is a step in the right direction. One of the scientific papers I read last night commented that scientists need to consult with the real experts on the disease, namely the people who have it. You'd never have seen a scientist saying a thing like that even a year ago.

I think there is a sea change in people's attitudes toward complex disease syndromes. It used to be you had to wait for some degreed medical researchers to recognize it, devise a means for diagnosis and then research possible treatments. Now, people who have these unrecognized complex disease syndromes don't want to wait for degreed scientists to pay attention, nor do they want to wait for funding from official government sources. Covid has made it abundantly clear how a bunch of sick people can gum up an economy, paying attention to young sick people is starting to be a thing. [agism still works against old sick people, it'll be a while before that changes, in my opinion]

The UK seems to be making headway with this and I expect the US is too. They are further along in Covid infection rates and vaccination rates than we are here in Canada so they have more to work with. More manifestation of the disease, more recognition of its existence, more research work on it.

Keep on checkin' in

Hapi on a good day, emerging from the canal

Hapi has good days and bad. I think her good days coincide with cold clear weather, her not-so-good days with warm or wet days. Today is a warm wet day and I felt like maybe I should move up the euthanasia date, I don't know if she is suffering but sometimes it appears that way. She had a long nap and then went outside to 'patrol the perimeter', the important stuff.

I bought some bones for her but she is not interested in chewing them, just burying and reburying them. The back yard is full of muddy holes—all the former burial spots—who knows where the bones are now. Then she comes indoors with mud piled on her nose, which she uses to shove the dirt back in the burial hole. I now keep a paper towel at the door to clean off her nose before I allow her indoors.

I joined a Covid-long-hauler group on Facebook. I don't know for sure if that is what I have (or hopefully, had), but I wanted to ask the question: can you get Covid, get better, and then get 'long haul' symptoms several months later? Well, I asked my question and turns out quite a few long-haulers say that is what happened to them, and the long haul was worse than the original bout. So maybe that's what I have/had. Somebody posted that the good news is, when you finally get your first vaccination, it will be like a booster shot, you'll be good to go. Mind you the vaccine reaction symptoms will be worse. But that is temporary.

These days, I get more and better information from others in the same boat than from the so-called experts. Everybody chips in their little bit of info and you begin to get a bigger picture. Doctors only see what other doctors see, they don't really pay attention to anyone else because, after all, they are not medically trained experts. So round and round they go, where they stop nobody knows.

So today it was announced that my age group could get the first vaccination. But, the only two local places where you can get vaccinated are not taking appointments, haven't been for almost a week now. I'm allowed to get vaccinated, I just can't book a vaccination. On the other hand, if I lived in the city, easy-peasy. They have so many open appointment times that they are begging people to book them. I tried phoning the vaccination number, had to wait almost an hour on hold, but when I finally got a live person she acknowledged that they had been getting a lot of calls from my health region asking 'what gives?' and they don't know. And apparently, she said, all the higher-ups who might know, are 'in a meeting'...

Just keep checking she said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Postscript, April 2nd: I took a neighbour's advice and logged in really early this morning, around 6.15am, and managed to snag a vaccination appointment for two weeks from now. I went back two hours later and there were no appointments left available. This is the only time there have been any appointments available in almost a week and they were gone by 8.15am.

Change in the weather, change in me

The last few days have been rather busy. We had two really warm nice days, enough to make one think Spring is really coming. A friend called me saying the warm weather was making her think about kayaking and would I be interested in a 4-day kayaking expedition in May.

I fell for it, hook line and sinker. I haven't been kayaking at all in almost 2 years, and definitely not on an expedition in that time. Two years ago May four of us booked a "cabin" (more like a house) at a lodge on a lake system in the interior of the province and spent our time kayaking the lake system and cooking and eating great meals. Not to mention wine and conversation and a fire in the big old stone fireplace and soaking up the sun on the deck overlooking the lake…

Anyway, same cabin, same time, same women. But I can't leave Hapi alone for much more than 3 hours and I can't leave her with someone else or put her in a kennel, her health and well-being are just not up to it. The friend who called me is a very pragmatic sort of person with no pets, she tried to be polite about it but her scepticism about me still having a sick old dog shone through. The last expedition she organized I bowed out of for that reason. I told her I was interested and thanked her for her call because it got me thinking about what I was doing and why, something I needed to do. So long story short, I am looking at euthanasia for Hapi, sometime before May.

The following day I met with two friends for wine and cheese and crackers and nachos, etc., leaving Hapi at home. We had a really good time and I was home 3 hours later, to a kitchen floor covered in doggie diarrhea. I cleaned up, did some laundry, and gave Hapi a small amout of food just to get her pain meds into her. Next morning, more diarrhea in the kitchen, more cleanup, and more thinking.

I was thinking about calling the vet on Monday to talk about Hapi's future, or lack thereof, but the vet's office called me on Friday afternoon. I had the conversation with the vet tech, she talked a lot about "quality of life", and I said Hapi's quality was just fine but mine not so much. However, this caregiver is burnt out. The possibility of a new spring, a new opportunity only available if I am dogless, just was overwhelming.

On Saturday I went to a movie. It was a fundraiser and the seating was carefully arranged for social distancing; I sat with two of the women who would be going on the kayaking expedition. The movie, a documentary, was interesting but overly long, I think it needed some serious editing. The problem with a lot of documentaries—to my mind—is that the filmmaker has a message to deliver that he/she considers really important, and just hammers it home repeatedly. I think the dramatic repetition is a bit much. By the end of the film I was already at my 3 hour limit and then there was a discussion. I didn't like getting up and leaving in the midst of a discussion but felt I had no choice, I was at the end of my Hapi-tether.

Real dog, fake eagle

I know that tether is only going to get shorter. I know she is not going to improve. She still has good times, she eats well and likes our walks, she can still manage a short flight of stairs. Her daytime schedule has become very unpredictable, I can no longer count on her to eat at a certain time and have a nap for a certain length of time. She gets restless unpredictably. I love having a long bath but it's hard to schedule anymore because if Hapi is outdoors she will scratch incessantly at the door and she has already damaged the weatherstripping considerably. If she is indoors and needs to go out she is liable to have an accident if I don't hop to it.

My friend's phone call the other day was a wake up call, it made me realize how stressed out I was about Hapi, and for how long this has been going on. The unpredictability of how much longer this situation is going to continue, the lack of a foreseeable endpoint, has made making plans or even thinking about the future impossible. On the other hand, having a specific endpoint makes a lot of things so much easier to bear. I can do this, knowing that it is only for so long. It is sad but doable.

Reading and trade offs

Hapi seems to be having some difficulty with pain, I discussed it with her vet and the vet prescribed gabapentin. She warned that the gabapentin would make Hapi "loopy". Coincidentally my own doctor prescribed something for me to combat nerve pain, and I have to say it's making me feel "loopy" too. I am thinking that almost any medication for nerve pain is going to have that side effect. Personally, I'd rather deal with pain than loopiness. My level of pain is relatively low, perhaps if it was much higher I'd be more willing to accept loopiness. I don't know how Hapi feels about that trade off.

We were late arriving at the Reservoir yesterday (due to loopiness); several dogs and owners were just leaving as we arrived. Hapi insisted on following the crowd back to the parking lot. One owner commented that Hapi just wanted to hang out with the other dogs, I said that it was more likely that she knew some of those dogs were going to be fed treats when they got back to the cars and she wanted to be in on that. I let her follow her nose and she managed to scarf up a few treats before everyone left and we went for our walk in the park. The trails are getting icy but the pond is no longer skatable.

Today is probably the coldest day of the year. The thermometer is in deep subzero territory and the wind is at blizzard levels. Not a lot of snow though. Yesterday was (relatively) warm and wet so between the rain and the melting snow we now have lots of ice. I took Hapi out for a walk early this morning because the forecast was for falling temperatures and rising wind speeds. Sure enough, lots of icy trails. I tried to stay in the woods to avoid the worst of the wind. I am grateful for Lee Valley Icers, the old lady's (and old man's) friend.

Hope for Wildlife emailed me that my blue jay does not have a broken wing or foot but appears to be suffering from head trauma. Now I am thinking that I did not run over it with my car after all, but that it crashed into one of my house windows near the bird feeder (and driveway). No blue jays have shown up at my bird feeder since then, I think they now consider it too dangerous. I met a friend on the street who lives a few blocks away, she says that recently there are twice as many blue jays at her feeder and they are eating her out of house and home. 

I just finished reading Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of Mind (2020), by Peter Godfrey-Smith. The evolution of consciousness, or mind, is a theme Godfrey-Smith also wrote about in in his previous book, Other Minds: the Octopus, the Sea and the Origin of Consciousness (2016). In the earlier book Godfrey-Smith focuses on octopus consciousness and how that might have evolved; in the more recent book he looks at the evolution of consciousness in general. He discusses what consciousness is and whether non-human animals have the same kind of consciousness that we have, and if not, how does it differ. 

I like his writing style, his apparent scientific knowledge particularly of the theory of evolution, his philosophical slant on that knowledge and the huge resource of his scuba diving experience on the Australian Great Barrier Reef. Of course he includes photos taken on some of those dives. His focus is on the early development of life in the sea, he gives short shrift to more recent development of modern land-based animals. I like that because so much of writing about biological evolution is focussed on land-based animals which is really a relatively recent development. Most of our modern biological processes were first developed in an ocean environment and only much later modified and adapted for land-based life.

Ice and illness

Ice storm yesterday, a mix of snow, ice pellets, freezing rain, rain and wind. Overnight the temperature rose and then fell so it was below zero in the evening and the morning but apparently quite warm in between. Now there is a thick layer of ice on the ground everywhere. I get around okay with my Icers but Hapi has some difficulty with it. I spread sand on the driveway but I still need to sand the steps she uses to get into the back yard. Also the front steps. I don't use them much in the winter time but I try to keep them clear just in case.

I was late to the Reservoir this morning, I met some of the dog walkers as they were just leaving. I recently gave a whole bunch of back issues of The New Yorker magazine to A, a dog walker in her 90s, now every time I see her she thanks me for them, she is really enjoying them. The nice thing about that magazine is that it doesn't have to be current to be enjoyable reading. I used to take my magazines to the library when I was finished with them but the library stopped accepting them when the pandemic started. A told me she used to go to the library to read The New Yorker and then with the pandemic they stopped having them. She was reading my magazines. Meanwhile I was stockpiling them in hopes of finding someone who would enjoy them since I hated to just throw them in the recycling. So we are both happy.

I had a doctor appointment yesterday morning but there was no way I was driving in freezing rain, so I was able to get the appointment changed from an in-person to a phone appointment. Yay Covid; never could have done that before. Last week I had an MRI brain scan and yesterday the doctor told me that my brain was old but normal, no signs of any abnormalities. I wasn't really surprised, I've been moving away from that idea anyway. She also offered referrals to a neurologist and to a clinic that specializes in complex chronic diseases and I accepted both. She cautioned me that the neurology referral will take two years to come about; yay Nova Scotia. I hope the other referral will be quicker but I am not holding my breath. She thinks I should try a tricyclic antidepressant for neuropathic pain. I am very wary of antidepressants in general, I will try it but I am pretty fed up with drugs that cause unpleasant side effects. My illness is just one giant unpleasant side effect, I don't need any more thank you very much.

Sometimes I think that Hapi's health and mine are somehow linked, that we have the same problems at the same time. I wonder if it's something in the water we both drink? Or if it's some kind of woo-woo psychic link? Or I am just projecting? I am fed up with not being well, not being able to skate or ski. I can still walk but I pay a price for that in fatigue. In the midst of the storm yesterday there was a brief period when no precipitation was falling from the sky and the road was not too icy. I had run out of milk so I walked down town to buy some. I wanted it to be a quick trip so I did not wake Hapi. It was quick, but the walk back up the hill was completely debilitating. I am so tired of this.

Winter Coatless

Hapi's fur is slowly growing in, it's about 2-3 cm (1-1.5") long now. Some of her outer coat is black so she is starting to darken along her flanks. The new fur is quite coarse compared to the old fur on her face, I suppose because the hair ends are blunt due to having been cut.

There's another old dog at the Reservoir who got shaved at the beginning of the winter, he's a Golden Retriever. With his shaved coat he looks like an oversized puppy. I saw him the other day along with three smaller dogs. Hapi and all the small dogs were wearing their store-bought winter coats, the Golden was coatless.

I said something to the owner about him being the only dog without a coat, the owner said, "We don't need no stinkin' coat!"

It was true, the Golden's fur was short but thick and he seemed pretty happy.

So I'm hoping that soon Hapi can go without too. It was warm enough this afternoon to go out coatless.

I made snowshoe trails in my backyard for Hapi to get around in the deep snow, but she doesn't use them much because they are not as hard-packed as the ones in the woods. 

We had a big dump of snow and it has stayed cold since then so the snow has stayed too. But tomorrow we are getting rain and freezing rain, and temperatures will warm up. Having the deep snow has been really nice but I think we are now headed into ice and slush. Such is a Maritime winter.

This'n'that

Thursday nights I watch a Prime Video show with two of my sons via the Watch Party feature and afterward we chat about it and other things. They're in a different time zone and not available until early evening their time (late evening my time) so it's a bit exhausting the next day but kind of worth it. I enjoy having those regular conversations, and I don't really care about the quality of the show we are watching, I now realize, because it is just one more thing to talk about. So the fact that the show was kind of disappointing was okay, we all agreed on its shortfalls and tried to pick out a few good points in it.

For our online chat we have been using an app that one of my sons uses all the time for online video games, and we will be able to use it to watch shows streaming from other sites if we want to. My son demonstrated that by showing us a video game he has been playing.

One happy thing I learned is that my youngest son has been accepted at two different colleges for a teaching degree. He's waiting on the third which is the one he really wants to attend. Apparently the pandemic has burnt out so many teachers that governments are desperate to hire/train more. A year ago he was turned down pretty summarily when he applied for entry, now they are chasing him. In the mean time he has been tutoring, first in person and then online, so I think he can handle it. Teaching is something he really wants to do.

A day of snow followed by rain followed by double digit warm temperatures has put an end to skating for now. If we were to get a prolonged cold snap we might see more skating but I kind of doubt it. The pond rink looks like toast. On the really warm day I took Hapi out without her coat and she was fine. I passed a couple of people who muttered, "What breed of dog is that?" Nobody would guess she was a malamute. 

Yesterday we visited Muddy's, a convenience store on Main Street whose owner loves Hapi, he was dumbfounded by her new look. He couldn't keep from laughing, and he grabbed every customer in his store to show them Hapi. Good thing he gave her lots of treats. These days she's a sucker for dog treats.

A friend's dog died two days ago. Buddy was a Rottweiler, a year younger than Hapi. He was always a sick dog, Addison's I think, but she nursed him along for a very long time. Now she's a wreck. Buddy wanted to be friends with Hapi but Hapi wanted nothing to do with him. I didn't want to take a chance on it, if they got into a fight Buddy would have destroyed her. He was a sweet dog with people, but a bit iffy with other dogs, kind of like Hapi in her youth. It was hard to predict how they'd be if they ever were allowed together.

Winter Sunday

There is something about a winter Sunday that's peaceful and timeless. Everything is white and black, traffic is in a lull, lots of people are staying indoors because of the cold, so the outdoors looks bare and empty. It seems like it will never end.

In the morning while waiting for Hapi to wake up I decided to go for a walk by myself. Soon enough this will be my daily experience. I walked in a part of the Acadia woods that would take Hapi a very long time to get to because she walks so slowly. While out in the woods I ran into E with her dog Lulu, a Great Pyrenees. Lulu has gotten into trouble at the Reservoir enough times that E doesn't go there anymore. A nice dog but big and excitable. It was nice to walk with E and Lulu, a little bit of dog-fix plus catching up with E whom I haven't seen in a while.

Shortly after I got home Hapi was ready to go out so we drove to the Reservoir. We were late, a few people I often walk with were just leaving, but that's okay, we go on the ravine trails when there's no one else around. Hapi perks right up on the ravine trails, she goes faster than me. Then I went skating.

By the time we emerged from the ravine there were lots of people already on the ice, kids, parents and dogs. Somebody brought a portable barbecue and the smell of burning charcoal was starting to waft over the ice. Hapi hung around hoping for a snack. There were tiny toddlers racing down the ice on teeny tiny skates and older kids carefully picking there way on new-to-them skates. Big kids with hockey sticks and pucks, one hockey net and a pair of boots set up as goal posts, and some "rink rats" clearing powdered snow off the track.

On Saturday I was out on the ice the afternoon while Hapi slept at home, I met a friend who brought her kick sled. It's a Swedish thing, two ski-length long blades with a high-backed chair joining the blades at the front. There are a couple of pads on the blades behind the chair that you can stand on, you hold the back of the chair and you kick the sled along with one foot, like a scooter. The blades are long and flexible so you can steer by bending them. I tried it out and then my friend pushed me around while I sat in the chair. She said that in Sweden they don't clear the ice off the sidewalks, everyone has a kick sled to get around on.

There's a constant stream of people coming and going, you can only skate for so long before your feet turn into blocks of ice so very few people stay for the entire day. I usually only skate for half an hour but lots of people skate longer. They enlarged the parking lot this past summer but it is still way too small, there are lots of cars parked on the street. It is so great to see all ages of people out there, skating, playing and learning to skate.

Mal on the loose

Exhausted dog in her bed

I got to go skating two days in a row and it was great. I was going to go skating on Friday but out of the blue a big snowstorm arrived. Caught everyone by surprise, even the weatherman. It was a nice storm, hardly any wind and big light fluffy snowflakes, but a serious dump of snow that closed schools early and took most cars off the road. A few people who went out early got to skate on the pond in an inch of fluffy snow. That was my dogwalk time so I didn't bring skates and within an hour there was too much snow on the ice anyway.

Later in the afternoon I wanted to go downtown to check my mail. In this town there's no mail delivery, you pick up your mail at the post office. But you can only go during regular office hours so Friday afternoon is the last chance of the week. I'm waiting for a seed catalog and was hoping it was here, but it wasn't. I planned to walk down without Hapi because I wasn't sure she had the stamina for a round trip down and up the hill. However she hauled herself out of bed as I was getting ready to leave, so I took her.

Boy was she excited! A walk in the snowstorm, her favourite thing! She pranced all the way down the hill. With the snow and the snow plough it was a bit greasy under foot and she was pulling on the leash but I managed to stay upright. On the way back up the hill she went into high gear. Refused to walk on the sidewalk, had to walk in the middle of the road. Several times I had to yank her to the kerb to get out of the way of the few cars that were sliding around on the steep hill. As soon as we reached a quieter street I gave up trying to slow her down, and let her off leash. It was getting scary, I nearly slipped and fell a couple of times trying to keep pace.

She took off like a bat out of hell, straight up the hill all the way home. Well not quite, she stopped at one house to check out their backyard. But it was amazing to see, she hasn't run like that in over a year. When I got home she was running around the yard in the deep snow, still excited and just burning off energy.

Of course she slept the rest of the day, she had used up all her spoons and then some. Crazy dog.

First skate

I went skating on the pond yesterday. I was the only person skating, the ice was smooth, clear and trackless. It was a joy to be out there, I imagine the feeling is similar to what downhill skiers experience. In the photo above, all the marks on the ice are mine.

Hapi watched from the shore.

Later, more skaters arrived. A young man brought an axe and a metal pole to measure the ice thickness, his mother was there with a long rope in case he went through the ice. It was 5" thick. I had seen a father and son skating the day before, I thought since there was no hole indicating that they had fallen through that it was probably safe to skate on. The last couple of nights have been really cold and the daytime temperature has not exceeded 0C.

The moon over the ice

Yes it was a risky thing to do, but soooo worth it. There were a couple of Parks Maintenance guys working near the pond, I thought if I did go through the ice, they could probably help me out.

Later I walked Hapi on the trail around the pond and met someone who asked if it was me who was out there skating. I said Yes and she said, You don't have to skate alone, call me and I'll go skating with you. I didn't know what to say so I just said Sure. It was such a thrill to have the pond to myself, skating alone was not a downer.

When I first went out on the ice my skates were a bit loose. The first time skating each year I always get them either too loose or too tight so I have to stop to adjust. I decided to skate to 'The Heron House' and adjust them there. This is my own private name for the spot where I saw the heron on the shore the first weekend of December. It turns out that it is a small clearing on the shore and there is a path leading out to it that you can only see when the trees and bushes have all dropped their leaves. I have walked out there several times since December and I feel like I am experiencing the world through that heron's eyes when I am there. So I call it The Heron House.

Here comes the sun

This is not the most complimentary photo of Hapi but it is what she looks like now. It will all grow back but she does look fragile in this photo, compared to how she looked in her youth, in the header photo above. 

Yesterday afternoon at the Reservoir Hapi and I were walking with Owen and his owners. Owen is a bit larger and a bit slower than Hapi. We met up with a young man and his St Bernard dog. The dog was hilarious. Full of energy he ran around and around us, in and out of the woods and checked out Owen until Owen growled at him. He generally carried on like a crazy dog, we were all laughing at him. Compared to the St Bernard, Hapi looked like a skinny minny and fortunately the bigger dog left her alone, he seemed to at least know better about that. 

But he was crazy. His owner, not a small man himself, told us non-stop stories about this dog and its former mate, Wiser and Ram. Mostly about how out-of-control they were. They broke windows and scaled ten-foot high walls. On more than one occasion the police were called. Unfortunately on one of their escapades they ran out into the highway and Ram was hit and killed, he was the bigger of the two.

When we got back to the parking lot the young man and his dog squeezed themselves into a small car, in which all of the fabric ceiling had been torn and was hanging in tatters around their heads. The dog stuck his huge head out one window and the man waved to us from another window as they drove off. They were just so funny, we stood in the parking lot laughing and laughing.

I forgot my technology Sabbath over the holidays but picked it up again yesterday. It was a slow quiet day, except for the Ram and Wiser stories. I was going to make a zucchini banana bread but the recipe was on my computer so I will do it today. It is a gorgeous sunny day, we have not seen the sun since sometime last year. Owen's owner was saying she was talking to someone who was asked if there was one thing she would like to change in the new year, and that person said that they would like to see the sun. It seemed like a very surprising answer, given all the stuff that is going on now, but when you think about it, sunshine changes everything.

So tired

I am so tired. I feel like I could sleep for a couple of days and maybe that would fix things, but I can't sleep so I can't fix things. Lying awake at night is like torture, my eyes are too tired and sore to read so I just have to lie there, awake but unable to do anything.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

Two of my sons and I are using the Watch Party feature on Prime Video to watch a TV series we all enjoy. We usually watch it on Wednesday evenings, then talk about it and whatever else afterward on Zoom. This past Wednesday we all had to tear ourselves away from the news (The Washington Capitol riot) to watch. I was talking to a dog walking friend about how just when I was starting to wean myself off near constant watching of internet news, this happens. Apparently 2020 is not over yet, I think maybe it is going to last at least another 6 months if not more. A happier 2021 is a fading dream.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

The picture above is the corner of my living room that I spend a lot of time in. There's the comfy chair that opens into a lounging chair. On the footstool in front of the chair is a cushion I use when the chair turns into a lounge to put my legs on, since the chair itself is not well cushioned. The footstool also doubles as the place I sit when I am tending to the fire. On the left of the chair is my little greenhouse. I am growing arugula, romaine and cilantro there. The greenhouse LED lights also serve to provide bright light in the morning to ward off depression due to winter darkness: it seems to work. On the right side is a small table that is normally piled high with books and a computer, but at the time I took the photo I was using it to hold another planter near the window. That planter had the tail end of my arugula and romaine crop from the summer garden in it, but that's been harvested and eaten now.

In spite of being right in the front window, this chair provides a fair degree of privacy. The only drawback is that it puts me with my back to the birdfeeder outside the window. All day long there are blue jays, chickadees, finches and other bird visitors there. I should say there are two drawbacks to this chair: my inability to see the birdfeeder and my inability to get out of it. Well, I am physically capable of getting out of it, but when I am so tired and it is so comfortable, getting out of it is really hard.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I haven't taken any photos of this but Hapi had a second grooming session. The groomer took all of her remaining fur this time, except for a little bit on her face and between her ears. She went from looking like a little white lion to looking like a goat with a husky face. I am so used to how she looks now that I have a hard time remembering her old look. Some people think this must be humiliating for her, one person actually said that to me, but I am pretty sure it is not. Her old matted fur was like shackles on her back legs, she has a lot more freedom of movement now. Plus, due to old age the muscles around her tail are weaker and the weight of the fur on her tail prevented her from being able to wag it. But now, fur-free, she raises and wags her tail much more than she used to.

I like that she is an indoor dog now, I like petting her and having her emerging from her new den—aka my bedroom—frequently just to check on me. She likes being petted, I like feeling the warmth of her body which was formerly well insulated under thick fur. Her coat is growing back, she is starting to show some "five o'clock shadow" where the darker hairs of her outer coat are growing in. So now she looks more like a dirty old goat than a snowy white goat.

There's a golden retriever at the Reservoir about the same age as Hapi who also has been shaved. That dog looks almost like a puppy now. The owner thinks his dog is much happier with her short haircut and he was congratulating me on doing the same for Hapi. Hapi's black and fuschia overcoat makes her much more visible in the woods now and we get a lot of compliments on our matching outfits. One guy said we were stylin'.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My son out west has taken up stained glass as a hobby. This picture is of a Christmas gift he sent me, which only arrived a couple of days ago. He and his 10 year old daughter designed and put it together. For me it is a reminder that one day things will be better, and I will go kayaking again.

An Empty Box and other stories

I went to a funeral at a local church yesterday. There were a hundred people in attendance, all masked and distanced, but I will be monitoring for symptoms over the next week or so. The church has a capacity of 400 and under normal circumstances would have been overflowing. We have no active cases in our health region (the seven counties of the southwestern end of this province) but there would have been a few people there from The City, where Covid is active.

The funeral was for Neil Price, who was 104 when he died. He was a well-known figure locally and I have known him personally for 45 years, as the father of a close friend. The funeral was an uplifting event, he was a wonderful man who lived a very long and full life. Music was provided by Sarah Pound, Neil's daughter Heather, and Marcel d'Entremont. When I used to sing with the Baptist Church choir, I sat next to Marcel and his amazing tenor voice was quite intimidating so I sang very quietly. Neil's three daughters and one granddaughter gave eulogies. One of the anecdotes told was of Neil telling bedtime stories to his various children and grandchildren. One infamous story was The Empty Box:

Once upon a time there was an empty box.

.

.

.

There was nothing in it.

He wrote two memoirs, I helped edit the first one and he gave me a copy when it was published, Flashbacks and Slapshots (he was an avid hockey player in his day). Among other things I learned that he was once friends with Grey Owl. The second memoir was completed when he was 102, I've read bits of it but not all. It's called Just Wondering and is much more philosophical than the first one. For a longtime Baptist minister he was very open-minded and curious about many things.

Here's a story about a New Year's Eve visit with Neil eight years ago: Lang may yer lum reek.

He died peacefully, lucid and cheerful until the very end. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Hapi has adapted to her new almost-hairless regime. She has become an indoor dog, which is nice for me. I enjoy petting her without her old fur coat, I feel the warmth of her body which was formerly hidden. She has taken over my bedroom as her new den. She is happy to go for walks in her new colourful coat, and I wear a matching black parka and fuschia beret. We are locally famous for our amazing fashion sense.

Christmas haircut

Yes, that is Hapi. I took that photo right after she was "groomed" in the industrial park of the next town over (all the major towns of the Valley are strung like beads along the main highway). After I picked her up I thought I'd take her for her afternoon walk a little early and then go home, but I couldn't bear to take her somewhere that people knew us. I was still in shock at her appearance and did not want to deal with other people's shock as well. 

I took her out on a walking trail I knew of behind the loading dock of a major nearby store. Somebody on the trail commented that she looked like a small white lion, and was she "safe"? 

The groomer had suggested that I get her a sweater and while out on the trail I realized that the store I was parked behind had an extensive horse and dog shop so I might look at dog coats there. Turned out they had a good selection of dog coats and they measured Hapi for an appropriate one. Trying it on her was a bit of an escapade, she did not want the thing pulled over her head and she ran around the store dragging her extendible leash and knocking things over before we cornered her and got the coat over her head. It was technically too small for her but seemed to fit, and since it was the largest dog coat they had I took it.

I feel really bad about doing this to her, especially at the end of her life. I do not know if she will live long enough for her fur to grow out again. Even if she does, it will not be the same, shaving a double-coated dog is apparently the last thing you want to do. But the groomer said Hapi would not let her brush her out, the matts were really bad, and the only option left was to shave it all off. On the bright side, she said she thought Hapi's muscle tone was really good for a dog her age and that the matts around her hind legs and rear end were so bad they were like shackles on her, that she might be able to move a lot easier now. 

This was the first time she's been groomed in well over a year. Grooming places were shut down for the first part of the pandemic, I tried to keep up with her fur over the summer by brushing and trimming myself, but it was just too hard on my back. When groomers reopened I didn't want to take her to her old groomer who she disliked; I couldn't have anyway since that groomer required me to be present and that is against the rules now. In early December Hapi's vet recommended a groomer, and she was the only one who would take her because she had her sister there to help her and no one wanted to deal with Hapi alone.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Christmas was quiet but nice. I spent most of Christmas Day on the phone with family and had a vegan Christmas dinner with a small group of people in the neighbourhood. On Boxing Day I had a couple of friends over for wine and cheese. My friends spoiled Hapi with bits of cheese and she consequently would not leave us alone. 

We had the warmest Christmas ever, around 15C (60F), and news headlines were saying 'Eat Your Heart Out Snowbirds', since all of the Maritimes were warmer than Florida (near 0C). Last year this time we were skating on the Reservoir pond, this year the ducks are still swimming there.