Catch up

New car in the driveway, in the rain and through a window, my reflected red plaid housecoat obscuring the view

So where was I?

Today is a very rainy windy Saturday and I am in my jammies, I may not change into daytime clothing at all. Last night my new-to-me car was delivered and now sits in the driveway. I have never driven it and it is raining too hard to transfer the licence plate from the truck to the car. I am assured that it is a wonderful car to drive, but have had no chance to confirm that.

I will definitely miss the truck. The past week I have been enumerating all of its deficiencies each time I drive it, in hopes of breaking my attachment to it. We did all the paperwork and money transfers last night, so the previous owner of the car now owns the truck. He plans to sell it to a mutual friend who really needs a reliable truck. I am happy about that, but still a little sad to let it go.

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My brother out west is in liver failure, and my 15 year old dog in heart failure. After a crisis a couple of weeks ago my brother was given 3 months to survive, if that. I was trying to figure out a way to see him before the end, but travelling across the continent at this time of year whilst sick is near impossible. Could be done but at great risk to my own health.

Princess in her new bed with her favourite toy

Finding out that my dog is in heart failure pretty much put paid to that. In the meantime my brother's status has somewhat improved, his GP is saying that with proper meds he could survive much longer than the original prognosis. He even sounds better on the phone.

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By mutual agreement my former GP and I parted ways a year ago. I've been transferred to a Primary Care Clinic and if I manage to get through on the phone on a specific morning I can get an appointment with a doctor the following week. Getting through is the tricky part, there is about a one hour window each week in which hundreds of people are trying to get through.

Nevertheless I have gotten more better care there in the past year than in the past 8-9 years with my previous GP. The doctors at the clinic ordered so many tests and scans and made so many referrals to specialists it darn near took my breath away. And unlike my former GP they explained stuff in non-patronizing ways. This is what medical care looks like!

It all came to a head in late September when the referrals came through and the tests and scans were scheduled. Extremely busy October, driving hither and yon for various appointments!

The specialists in turn recommended seeing other specialists not covered by MSI (provincial health insurance), so November has been a very expensive healthcare month. Specifically, a respiratory physiotherapist and an acupuncturist, both of whom are concentrating on getting my lungs working properly again. I was unaware that they were not!

Turns out that for the past four years I have been hyperventilating, causing insufficient oxygen to be absorbed by my lungs and in turn by my blood. You would think that hyperventilation would be obvious to me, but it was not. I think the acupuncture and breathing exercises are helping, but all the work of getting to appointments, minding my sick dog, buying a car and the usual activities of shopping, food prep, and minimal housekeeping is counterproductive. Not to mention the stress of family stuff. I am in a crash now.

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One of the internists I saw prescribed an antidepressant that she thought would give me more energy. First time I tried it I last two days, the lethargy and nausea overwhelmed me. Second time I tried it I only lasted one day, same side effects plus insomnia. On top of the fatigue and orthostatic intolerance I am already experiencing it is just too much. I am told that the side effects will subside, but I need to take the pills for more than two days. And walk the dog, get meals, attend appointments in the city, and just generally carry on with daily life.

I thought I had four days of nothing scheduled so maybe I could try the pills then, but it didn't work out that way.
I was incapacitated by one pill.
Stuff came up I had to deal with.
I crashed.

My Little Princess

I never thought I'd end up with a little yappy dog with entitlement issues, but here we are. She comes from Elderdog (a dog rescue agency that tries to match older owners and dogs), from a rather unpleasant background. A 13 year old Pekinese/Lab Retriever mix with a few minor health issues (for now). Princess is pretty much the antithesis of Hapi.

I always thought that while Hapi made people around her very happy, she wasn't really a happy dog herself. Not unhappy, just more reserved and independent. And Princess confirms that, she is definitely a happy dog despite her background. She makes me laugh, she likes to cuddle, and she sleeps in (on my bed). She will never replace Hapi, but she is the right dog for me now. 

With Hapi I could look up Malamute behaviour and she fit it to a T, but Princess being a mix I can't really do that. Sometimes I can say, "oh that's the Pekinese in her" or "that's the Lab in her", but I've only had her now for three weeks so I'm still getting to know her. She has definitely made herself right at home here; she's landed on her feet and she knows it.

Princess is a bit of an energy draw though, she loves going for walks and she can move much faster and further than I can, even with her limp and tiny legs. The limp gives her a kind of rolling gait which is cute. She would dearly like to play with the bigger dogs at the Reservoir, but her tiny legs can't keep up with them.

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Big snow storm on Friday with about 5 or 6 cm on the ground on Saturday. My guy came to shovel in the afternoon, he was very slow but he got the job done, with some direction from me. Finally I can lay off the snow shovelling!

I had to do a stress test last Monday, I was half hoping that I would get at least one test that showed an abnormality, but this wasn't it. Tiring but not significant. But between hauling a load or two of firewood in and walking the dog every day, I am always fatigued and dizzy and brain fogged. Started LDN for the second time, no side effects this time but no positive effects either. However they say it can take up to a year or more to start seeing benefits, if any. I'm just happy the worst side effects last time—nausea and depression—are not there now.

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In November?December? I watched a Netflix fantasy series called The Bastard Son and the Devil Himself. I thought it was really good but Netflix decided not to renew it. Then they changed the title, now it's called Half Bad, which is the book series it is based on. The library has the book series so I am reading that. 

YA fantasy literature is often not that well written but this one is, the author Sally Greene is older and I guess a better writer than many YA authors. She says she likes the Hemingway style of writing and tries to emulate it. I finished Half Bad and am on to the second book, Half Wild. I can see that while the Netflix series was more or less true to the main characters and the overall plot, it definitely made a lot of changes in timing and specific plotlines, also dropping a few to make it less complicated.

Greene revised her novels based on some of the things she learned from the screen version. Nothing serious, but she saw the racist implications in what she originally wrote that the Netflix version changed to something more neutral, so she did too. I got the first book as an online book with her revisions, but the print versions the library has are older and still contain the problematic language.

It is the rare author who writes a novel that can be directly translated into a screenplay. A novel is a different storytelling medium from theatre or big/small screen video; novels don't always work so well in strict translation, or vice versa. Very much depends on the talent of the writers and directors involved. 

Lazy days of autumn

Wet spider web at Tai Chi class

It's been a while but I am still here. I spend a lot of time on my daybed, reading, surfing and watching shows in the evening. I am currently ploughing through Mick Herron's Slough House series. I get each book at the library and since right now this series is very popular (thanks to Slow Horses on Apple TV+), I am not reading them in the proper order. I put holds on the ones I want to read and it's luck of the draw which one comes first. I still haven't read the first book in the series, but I have read the most recent (Bad Actors, 2022). I am currently reading the penultimate, Slough House. In the TV series Gary Oldman plays Jackson Lamb so when I read that's how I picture him. Likewise for some of the other characters.

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Hurricane Fiona did a lot of damage here but one good thing came of it, a few friends faraway texted and emailed to see if I was okay. As a result I have reconnected with a couple of old friends I haven't been in touch with for a few years. One of them has a similar illness to me and we both are rather restricted in what we can do and who we can talk to. So it's nice, we're kind of on the same page. We used to joke around a lot, and that hasn't changed.

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I got a Handicapped tag for my truck this week, I no longer have to worry about finding a parking spot close enough to the grocery store. I still hate that I have to drive everywhere, but at least it is less frustrating. Today I drove to the Reservoir to go for a walk, I did not park in the Handicap spot because it wouldn't have made a difference. No ducks on the pond but a nice walk. There's a look off point where you can see the Minas Basin and Cape Blomidon, I sat on a bench there for a while. Someone walked by with their little dog, the dog stopped to say hello. That was nice. I love the smell of autumn, not to mention the colours. Just a lovely day for a walk. I am still holding out hope for more ducks, they cheer me up.

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Next month will be full of appointments. I will be assessed by the Home Care Coordinator to see if I am eligible for services, and at the Balance and Dizziness Clinic to determine the cause of my dizziness and what treatment, if any, will help. Also see my doctor. She does the only one symptom at a time thing, so last time I went it was about my cough. I tried to bring up the dizziness (yet again!!! so frustrating!!!) and she said not now, next appointment. Earliest appointment available was in six weeks. So I went through the Nurse Practitioner at the Chronic Conditions Clinic and she made the referral immediately. 

At some point I am scheduled for a CT scan to see if I have lung cancer due to being a former smoker. My doctor's idea. But through a combination of prescription drugs and over-the-counter meds, I have the cough more or less under control, and I don't think it is due to lung cancer, or any of the other lung ailments caused by smoking. Also, out of the blue, I got called by an organization that tests your memory to see if you have dementia. I had gone in for a free assessment a year ago, and now they want to offer me a DNA test to see if I have genes for dementia. What the hell, why not. At this point I really don't care one way or the other. 

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Still going to Tai Chi but it is getting more difficult by the week. I am finding out just how short my short term memory is. The instructor says this is normal, but it doesn't feel normal.

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I put my birdfeeder out early this year. It is mobbed by the blue jays who literally guzzle down the seeds. But the chickadees, cardinals and nuthatches manage to get in between mobs. 

One day a nuthatch came and the feeder was not up. It flew around and around where it should have been, perhaps thinking it just hadn't looked hard enough (I know the feeling!). Then it flew away, but a few minutes later it came back and landed on a potted plant nearby. It dug up a sunflower seed and flew away with it. Ahah! Now I know who is burying seeds in my potted plants! 

The mourning dove is back too, hoping for messy eaters to drop seeds on the table below the feeder. The blue jays have cleaned up their act, they don't drop so many seeds any more. I take pity on the very patient dove and scatter a few seeds on the table for it. 

My friend that I reconnected with was telling me about the bears that visit her area. And the coyotes. She enjoys their visits. I think I would too, but not a lot of bears or coyotes here. Rare visits by pheasants is as exotic as it gets.

I've been told

Crow family on the roof

Quite depressed now. This month I am way sicker than I was same month last year (July 2021), which was worse than the same month the previous year (July 2020). Not a good trend. Between pandemic isolation and now isolation due to ongoing illness, I feel like my once very satisfying social life is now dead in the water and I lack the ability or energy to try to revive it. 

I went out for coffee yesterday and after about an hour I was reduced to gibberish. I was trying to respond to a topic we were discussing and was at a loss for words, which very quickly degenerated to not even knowing what I wanted to say or even what the topic was in the first place. All I could say at the time was, I'm done, I need to go home. Fortunately my friend understood my illness and agreed that it was time to go home. She's all that is left, I get so tired of explaining to people that even though I look fine I am not fine at all, but she gets it and we don't have to waste our time time talking about it.

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Had an interesting experience on Canada Day. I went for a 30 minute walk with an 88 year old friend and her golden retriever M at the Reservoir. M knows me well and is always happy to see me. About 20 minutes in M suddenly went kind of crazy leaping up into my face. She'd just been in the pond so she was one big wet dog and I quickly became one small wet woman. M's owner tried to call her off, I tried to ward her off using my hands and saying sternly "Off!". Finally M's owner leashed M because she just wouldn't stop and we walked back to her car that way. On the drive to my house M continued her strenuous efforts to get into my face, I would say she was quite frantic. However, as soon as I got out of the car she settled right down as if nothing had happened. Afterward, M's owner and I discussed what had happened, since this was very unusual behaviour for M.

We have sometimes joked that M must have been a nurse in a previous life, she reacts quickly when she thinks someone is ill. Shortly after this incident, maybe a couple of hours or so, I crashed big time, I could hardly move or even think. I was already quite sick, starting maybe a couple of weeks before this incident (I say "starting" loosely, more like "intensifying"); that 30 minute walk put me over the edge. I've been instructed in pacing, but since symptoms of "post exertional malaise" (PEM) don't kick in until hours or even days after, it's hard to know when enough is enough. But I think M just told me: 20 minutes.

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We are having such nice weather and about all I am capable of is sitting in my recliner gazing out the window. I leave the back door open so I can hear the birds in my back yard: a couple of song sparrows, several cardinal couples, a bunch of starlings (big batch of new ones this year), and of course the crow family (see photo above). One whiney teenager and two very patient parents. The whiney teenager is the sole survivor of three, I had to pick up and dispose of the bodies of its siblings. One got trapped in my woodshed and couldn't get out, the other got sick, returned to the nest and died.

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Step one: rails and inverters for solar panels

Finally they are starting to install the solar panels on my roof. It is a long drawn out process involving multiple inspections by the electric power company before proceeding to the next step. I will be lucky if it is all completed by mid-August, so not a lot of solar energy will be generated this year. 

At this point the mounting rails and inverters have been installed, the next step is for an electrician to hook up the inverters to my electric panel. Then an inspection, then on to the next step, hopefully the installation of the panels themselves.

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My painter has completed most of the exterior wall painting, he is now working on staining the front porch and the back deck. Then it will be the exposed concrete basement and the trellis work in the front of the house. I have purchased a welded wire fence and T-rail posts for along the north side of my property, the painter has said he can help install that. Bye bye money. I don't particularly enjoy having workers around even if they are as unobtrusive as they can be. I look forward to very rainy days when none of them can come.

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!

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.

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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. 

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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.

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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. 

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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.

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.

Snowstorm

Big snowstorm overnight Sunday into Monday, about 47 cm (16") on the ground by the end. High winds blew it into thick drifts. One of the students next door helped me shovel out my car and then my snow plough guy came and cleared out the rest of the driveway. In the process he took out half a dozen bricks I was using as a border between the garden and the driveway, and dumped them somewhere. I found one in a big pile of snow on my front lawn and two more across the street, but couldn't find the rest. The ones across the street would have been in the path of the sidewalk plough which came by later, so who knows where the rest of them are.

I think almost everybody was busy clearing snow on Monday. The student who helped me borrowed my shovels (I have 4! They all do different things!) to do her driveway, and then later a student across the street borrowed one. I told a friend about it and mentioned that the student across the street liked to throw loud parties; the next time he does that I am going to remind him ("Remember me? The Shovel Lady?"). My friend said I should take the shovel with me to his next party. Just as a reminder.

Today we went to the Reservoir for a walk, the snow was deep but the snowshoers had cleared some trails. It was blindingly beautiful: sun, blue sky, white snow, black trees. We met up with some other dogs and owners and all walked together, single file in the narrow snowshoe trails. One dog, a young tan-and-white Springer Spaniel named Jerry (Jerry Springer) was enjoying dashing through the snow, while Hapi and her buddy Owen (a Bernese Mountain Dog) plodded along behind the humans, because the trail is so much better after a few humans have stamped it down.

Unfortunately it was hard work for Hapi and her left rear leg is not great, she kept slipping off the trail into the deeper snow. At one point she gave up and just lay down in the trail. After a minute or so of rest she was able to get back up, but at that point we decided to head straight back to the car, enough was enough. I kept her in front of me so I could catch her if she fell again. Jerry the spaniel bumped her a few times racing to get by her so she switched to a parallel trail. Then we met up with a young husky who romped with Jerry. Huskies are hard to control and usually kept on leash but this one had a radio-controlled collar so the owner could let it run. Turns out the husky's name was Winter.

Newfoundland is having a Covid outbreak. First New Brunswick and now Newfoundland, it feels like the walls are closing in. Scary.

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.

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.

Ducks on ice

The snow started Wednesday afternoon and by Thursday morning we were blanketed in it. Overnight it warmed up so the snow was not light and fluffy but heavy and wet. I spent some time shovelling the stuff, then drove to a nearby farmer's market to pick up sweet cider that was on sale for one day only. I bought two jugs, one for me and one for the girl next door who helped me shovel the snow.

One of the two Reservoir ponds froze over completely a few days ago when it was bitterly cold, the other smaller pond only half froze. Now all the ducks are crowded into the half frozen pond, and for some reason they prefer to stand on the ice than float on the water. Who can guess what goes on in the mind of a duck?

When the small pond is frozen completely the ducks will leave. A few will come back in the spring, but the majority will not return until next fall.

I photographed the Reservoir Dog Tree before the snowfall. Hapi's ornament is in the upper right, I printed her name on it but not very well.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I am trying an experiment, a technology Sabbath. Technically, the Sabbath runs from Friday night to Saturday night, but I have chosen Sunday as my technology Sabbath. Basically, no screens. Last Sunday I turned off the wifi, the computer and the tablet. I turned off my cell phone data and also text messaging; the only thing I could use the cell phone for was voice calls. I decided to leave that function on. I could have used the phone camera but decided that was too screen-y. Most of my books now are e-books, so no reading online. My evening entertainment is watching Netflix and Prime shows on my computer, none of that either.

The hardest part was not having TV shows in the evening. Reading while eating one's supper is not easy, I listened to the radio instead. Mostly CBC's Cross Country Checkup. I went through my library of paper books and picked out a couple of novels that I didn't mind rereading, so I would have something for reading in bed. One small glitch: I was going to do some baking in the afternoon but most of my recipes are now on the tablet. I was able to do something that I had committed to memory, but one recipe (Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread) I had to postpone to another day since I did not have recipe memorized.

It was a successful experiment which I will repeat again tomorrow. I learned a few things about myself, one of which is that I am addicted to weather reports: I constantly check the weather online throughout the day. It felt weird not to know what the forecast was, or whether there was any precipitation showing up on the weather radar.

Dental Expedition

The Eagle Tree, with one eagle (there are two who use this tree)

Today was a heck of a day.

Had to go to the dentist, for emergency dental work. Last night a tooth broke, a chunk of it ended up in my supper. In the morning I called my dentist but the earliest she could see me was a month from now so her receptionist suggested I call the emergency clinic. I did and they said, Be here in an hour. So I went.

They were really nice. Expensive but nice. Took an x-ray, showed it to me on the computer and suggested 3 options: do nothing, get a filling, or get a cap. I opted for the filling, although I probably should have gone for the cap. Anyway I was led away to another room where the youngish dentist and an assistant did the job. But first they had to fill me up with local anesthetic, it took multiple shots before I was numb enough for them to proceed. They were absolutely all about killing the pain.

It all went fast and then I got the bill which was hefty. But I was dizzy so I sat there for awhile before driving home. I still have to get the cap, or a root canal or something, so that's why I think I should have gone for the cap in the first place. Oh well. I have an appointment with my regular dentist to see what's next.

I went home and took Hapi for her walk. It was very cold and windy last night so I made her sleep indoors and she couldn't wait to get out in the morning. She had a long nap in her doghouse while I went to the dentist. It was still very cold but the wind had died and it was a sunny blue-sky day. I can't remember the last time we had a sunny blue-sky day.

So, a month or so ago somebody put a little artificial tree in a planter by the Reservoir parking lot. One of the dog walkers got the idea of putting an ornament with her dog's name on the tree. A few more followed. I bought an ornament and put Hapi's name on it but kept forgetting to take it with me. Today I did remember, but I forgot to photograph it on the tree. Anyway, now she's immortalized on the Reservoir Dog Tree. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it. [Since I forgot to take a picture, the photo above is of the Reservoir Eagle Tree, from a previous day.]

Tomorrow is supposed to be our first major snow storm of the season, there were a couple of things I had to get done before then so after the walk and some lunch I got out the ladder and climbed up to take down a roof gutter. It is not a sturdy gutter and snow sliding off the roof dislodges it, so it's better to take it down before that happens. Not a pleasant job, especially in the cold when one is dizzy. One of the girls next door saw me on the ladder and offered to hold the ladder for me, I accepted. I couldn't dismantle the gutter so she ended up switching places and doing it for me while I held the ladder. She enquired about what arrangements I had made for snow shovelling and said if I needed help just call.

I asked her whether she was going home for Christmas and she said, No, the five of them had decided to spend Christmas together so that they didn't have to do quarantine after the holidays. I am secretly relieved that they are doing that.

I listened to the premier and his chief medical officer on the radio this afternoon. Since we've had a rise in cases they've been doing talks daily. I have to say, yet again, how great they've been. I kind of look forward to those talks and will miss them when they're done. The first doses of vaccine were administered in the city today, to healthcare workers working in the city. There's only the one freezer for the vaccine and it's in the city, so they are only doing a few healthcare workers this year.

I think it's going to be a while before it's my turn, I'm fairly far down on the priority list (healthcare workers, long term care residents, over 80s, over 75s, over 70s, …) There's a few active cases in my healthcare region, notably a local poultry processing plant got shut down and a couple of schools. But no one has been hospitalized and no cases in any long term care homes. The emergency dental clinic is the furthest I have been from home in the past 6 weeks, I only shop for groceries and what little social life I have is at the Reservoir. I feel relatively insulated.

All that freezing for the dental work has finally worn off and I feel crappy. But I'm glad I don't have a big hole in my tooth anymore.

Last swim, first hurricane

Hapi and Ava in better days, doing what dogs do

Last swim of the year yesterday, first hurricane of the season on its way Tuesday. The last few hurricanes haven't made it this far north, but Teddy is due to hit us square on. Today we are getting sideswiped by Hurricane Sally, just a bit of rain and a breeze.

The swim was cold and I only did one lap because I had a lot to do yesterday and could not afford to get so cold that it took too much time to warm up again. The other women were trying to get me to stay in the water longer, they did four laps. I think they have more body fat than me to insulate against the cold. But it was nice to be in the water, I didn't mind the cold really, I just knew it would take a long time to warm up again if I stayed in longer.

Last night I had company for take-out pizza and beer on my back deck. We had "The Meat Lovers Special" pizza and Hapi wouldn't leave us alone. Her guts have not been healthy lately so I asked my guests not to feed her but she was very persistent and I am quite certain the guests were sneaking tidbits to her when I wasn't looking. She seems okay today though. One of the women brought a "growler" (jug) of local craft beer called Hellene which is her and my favourite beer. Lovely evening!

This morning Hapi and I visited her dog buddy Ava who seems better than the last couple of times, she may outlive the vet's prediction (a month at most). The exploratory surgery that revealed her fatal condition was very hard on her but she seems largely recovered from that now, her appetite is back and she goes for short walks in the nearby ravine. The two dogs lay on the floor at our feet while we humans chatted.

Ava's owner's father is back in the nursing home from the hospital, his health is up and down on a daily basis, keeping everyone guessing. But I think this is the beginning of the end. At 105 he's had a damn good run. All his kids and most of his grandkids are nearby now and visiting regularly, so that's good.

My doctor wants me to wear a heart monitor for a day to check my blood pressure. As it happens the appointment to pick it up at the hospital is the day before Teddy is due and I just didn't want to take a chance on having to return the monitor during the storm so I cancelled the appointment. The hospital clerk seemed skeptical of my excuse but she probably hasn't seen the weather warning yet, which just got posted a couple of hours ago. 

And she may be right, I will take any excuse not to do it. I am resisting being diagnosed with hypertension because I really don't want to go on drugs for it. Bad enough dealing with insomnia, never mind all the other ills of old age. Slippery slope and all that.

Of bites and bikes

Not a biter

The other day a friend's little dog bit me, ripping my jeans and drawing blood. I was on my bike at the time, I saw my friend walking her dog and stopped to say Hi. The dog has been friendly to me in the past, insisting on jumping into my lap whenever I sit down on a visit with the friend, so neither of us expected the sudden attack on the street.

"It's your helmet, it scares her," my friend offered.

I was on my way home so I said something about how she should be more careful and then went straight home to wash the wound and apply antibiotic cream. In a text message shortly after the friend expressed her apologies and said she was considering drastic options.

I don't think the dog is rabid, just obnoxious. But if it can turn on someone it knows and has been previously friendly with, well, that is dangerous. On the other hand, it provides affectionate companionship to its single older owner, I hate to deprive my friend of that. So for now I have reiterated my strong opinion that she needs to be more careful when out and about with the animal. If she decides on the drastic option anyway I certainly won't argue.

I thought this week would be the last of the weather warm enough to swim, but with the influx of smoke from out west the sun's strength has been dimmed and it is substantially cooler. I did go swimming on Monday, Tuesday was way too cool, and with the dog bite and the high wind I decided not to go yesterday. I probably won't go today either and tomorrow will be substantially cooler. So Monday was it, the end of swimming. I plan to take up cycling instead.

The day the dog bit me was the first time I had ridden my bike in well over a year. It's not true that you never forget how to ride a bike is all I can say. My first wobbly ride down the driveway nearly ended in disaster. But I am getting better.

I have been admiring the various e-bikes making their appearance now. I once had one when I lived out west, it cost me $800 and was so big and heavy that if it fell on top of me—which it occasionally did just walking it to a place where I could mount it—it was quite a struggle to right myself and the bike. Now they cost thousands, easily more than the cost of my current well-used car. But the idea of a bike that I could ride uphill with a load of groceries does appeal. One e-bike owner told me that she had two bikes, one a normal and one an e-bike, because the e-bike is so heavy she cannot get it onto her car bike-rack by herself. Something to keep in mind, I can just barely get my normal bike onto the car bike-rack.

More swimming

Yesterday I went swimming a bit earlier than usual. I've been trying different meds the doctor prescribes for insomnia; the current one leaves me quite lethargic during the day. However I am addicted to the swimming so I keep it up in spite of the lethargy, and yesterday I went early because I was afraid if I waited until later I would lose motivation due to the lethargy.

I did four laps, up from my usual two. Somehow the minute I hit the water the lethargy disappears and I am capable of amazing feats :-). Just kidding.

The local eagles have been very active lately, gliding in the updrafts. Before I left home for the Reservoir I watched three of them circling the University, two of them were circling so close to each other they almost touched wingtips. Then they'd whistle at each other, "stay back! stay back!". Later while swimming I watched another five overhead. One of them swooped down and skimmed the treetops by the pond. It was so close we held our breaths afraid that it might hit a tree and fall down. The fish were jumping like crazy too. Lots of tiny flies right above the surface of the water that they were going for. A man was out swimming with his dog, they didn't swim as far as us but pretty far for a man and a dog. The dog was right at the man's side without actually hitting him.

When we got out of the water we stood or sat around drying out and warming up in the late afternoon sun. We chatted about this that and the other thing. One of the women, C, asked me for my cell number, I gave it to her and she recorded it on her phone. A few days before I was so tired—someone set off fireworks at 3am and I got up to check on Hapi and never got back to sleep again—and I had a backlog of tomatoes to can, so I decided to stay home and do tomatoes instead of swimming. C had waited around for me to show up thinking that I was just late so now she wanted my number so she could check on me if I didn't appear. I gave her the number and asked her to text me so I would have her number too. 

The tomato patch, still chugging along

When I got home after swimming there was a voice mail waiting for me on my cell (I don't take the cell with me when I go swimming), from an unknown number. I played the message. At first I thought it must be a pocket call because there was no recognizable message, just a bunch of background noise, but I didn't know who it was from because I didn't recognize the number. I listened to the noise for awhile to see if I might recognize who it might be.

I heard myself, it was us swimmers chatting in the sun after our swim. The message continued on for over 5 minutes, I think it only cut out when there was no further room for it in my voicemail. Then the test text came in from C. I texted back that I had just been listening to a voice message from her phone with all of us in it. She said she never sent that message. I think when she was recording my number on her phone, her phone decided that she wanted to call that number and so placed the call. It felt strange to be listening to a recording of myself and a few others just chatting.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I don't know how much longer Hapi will last. She's not eating as much, probably because she sleeps all the time. She's given up on the basement, she spends the night outside. Her fur is a mess, her bald patches are becoming noticeable. I now have to use the towel sling to help her into the car to go to the Reservoir in the morning. The couple who own Owen say they always look for Hapi, and are amazed that she is still coming for a walk. Mind you,"walk" is a relative term. She walks slowly to the pond, immerses herself and then just stays put. One day I walked all the way around the two ponds by myself because she didn't want to get out of the water. Then she walked back to the car by herself, because I was still on the far side of the pond. Another dog walker followed her to make sure that she didn't wander off, but she knew where my car was and just waited there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The long weekend was kind of crazy here, the returning students were "packing" as the Premier put it, going around in huge groups unmasked and tightly packed. At least one kid was fined for it. I hope they settle down soon. Of course it's only a minority who are misbehaving, the majority are staying safe. But I am sure that the fireworks at 3am over the weekend were a student "prank".

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I talked to my son who has been waterbombing fires out west all summer. Actually he spent very little time actually flying, the summer started out cold and wet so there were very few fires this year. But he did go down to Washington state to fight fires there. Because he is considered an essential worker he doesn't have to quarantine when he crosses the border. Nevertheless he was in an area hard hit by the pandemic so the firefighters were staying away from town in their base camp as much as possible. 

He told me that in the nearest town people were taking the pandemic very seriously, social distancing and wearing masks. He said the rate of infection there was something like one in a hundred (this province's rate is around one in a thousand, and that's the highest rate in the Atlantic Bubble). Now he is laid off for the winter and debating whether to look for a winter job or just do "Daddy Daycare". He said they were further ahead financially if he just did the childcare, so he's looking for a hobby to occupy himself. He bought two guitars for his daughter's birthday, he intends to sign his daughter and himself up for lessons. What a good daddy!

Swimming in tomatoes

Yesterday afternoon I walked with Hapi around the town harbour. It is quite tiny, once advertised as the smallest ocean port in the world. But since it has not been dredged in decades, it is far from being an ocean port now. 

The tide was high and the water dead calm. A small flock of sandpipers was playing there. They would fly in amazing patterns close to the surface of the water so that their reflections made it look like there were twice as many. After a few minutes of flying they would all land on rocks or mud at the edge of the water for a few more minutes to rest before rising into the air again. They flew together, sometimes breaking into smaller groups, circling and crisscrossing the harbour. There were two larger birds flying with them but I couldn't make out what kind of bird they were. Not ducks or gulls. It was fascinating to watch.

I've been swimming every day. It's exhausting and gives me a backache and dizziness, but I do it anyway, it feels good at the time. There are about half a dozen of us who swim at more or less the same time. At first I took Hapi with me but now I leave her behind so I don't have to deal with smelly wet dog at night. She's getting weaker and tireder anyway. The last few mornings I've had to coax her a lot to get her to go for a walk with me.

Owen the Bernese Mountain Dog is back at the Reservoir, I hadn't seen him all summer and feared he had passed on, but not so. His owners took him to PEI for a bit and they've been staying away from the Reservoir in the heat of the day. But it's cooler now so they're back. He is one of my favourite Reservoir dogs. Ava is still with us but getting sicker and not eating well. She wagged her tail when Hapi and I came by for a visit but Hapi wasn't so interested. I think she knows what is going on and doesn't want anything to do with it.

I haven't been writing much because I've been busy and tired. Harvesting the garden, processing tomatoes, swimming. Everybody has way too many tomatoes. A friend was giving away buttercup squashes and I said I wanted one; when she came by to drop off the squash she tried to get me to take a pint of tomatoes too. I turned her down. When I go swimming we trade tomato recipes. Today I picked a basket full to overflowing of tomatoes, I ate several while I was picking. I had tabbouleh for supper and tomorrow I'm going to try a recipe another swimmer described, a Caprese pasta dish.

There's maybe one more week of swimming weather, it's getting cooler and I am not such a stalwart swimmer as to go swimming in cold water. Cool yes, cold no.

First rainy day all month

Hapi and beach friends

It has been a week of dealing with garden harvesting and heat. The tomatoes have really enjoyed this weather, I have a bumper crop as do many others in this area. Green beans keep coming, and no matter what you do to avoid this there is always way too much zucchini. My freezer is almost full and I am looking at ways to cram yet more food in. I should have canned the tomatoes but freezing them is so much easier and I just did not anticipate the quantity. I've been eating a lot of tabbouleh and tomato salads…

Hapi and I visited her best friend Ava the other day, Ava was not feeling well. Her owner said the vet had discovered "a mass" in her belly that could be very serious. At the moment she is on antibiotics, steroids and water pills, so hard to say whether she is not feeling well because of the mass or the medication. I thought Ava would long outlive Hapi, but maybe not.

A local guy died last week of a massive heart attack, he was a bit of an icon around here. A little bit older than me, he ran a shop on Main Street that was infamous in its heyday, he dealt in psychedelic paraphenalia. The place was a little warren of stuff: smoking gear, incense, posters, record albums, etc etc. The little bit of light that came through the big front window hardly made it more than a few feet into the interior. He also dealt in used furniture and his main customers were students looking to buy for the school year and sell at the end of it. Most of us parents had kids who hung around that shop. He also kept doberman pinscher dogs, he loved that breed. He sat out front of his shop in an old wooden swivel office chair with one of his dogs lying at his feet whenever the weather was good; he was a street fixture. In later years he had health issues that made him grumpy, he sold the business to a young guy who radically revamped it and we hardly saw him on the street anymore. After his last doberman died suddenly he did not get another one. But news of his death travelled fast, in spite of his disappearance from street life he was definitely not forgotten. 

I visited B on the weekend. The nursing home schedules the visits now, you just have to show up. B was in an ornery mood, she'd been chastised by a worker at the home and she was annoyed about it. Group living is hard. But otherwise she's okay. She says she'd rather be living in her old apartment where she has a little more freedom, but she can't really take care of herself and she'd be trapped there as much as she feels trapped in the nursing home. In the home they don't allow people to play cards because of the pandemic, but at her old apartment she'd have nobody to play with anyway.

Beach decorations

The heat wave seems to have broken, maybe temporarily or permanently, hard to tell. At any rate yesterday was quite lovely and today it is raining. It's not really a lot of rain but it is definitely welcome. Hapi perked up quite a bit with the cooler weather, instead of going straight to the pond to soak yesterday we went instead for an explore on the bike trails in the woods. She hasn't wanted to do that in many weeks. Watching her prance down the street later in the evening I felt like she was back to her old self.

In honour of the cooler wet weather I am doing a bit of cooking today, bread and bone broth. And of course tabbouleh with lots of tomatoes. Last night I sat outdoors chatting with neighbours, one of them had bought corn earlier in the day. We debated who grew the best corn, two of us plumped for one farm, one for another. We'll have to do a taste test.

And finally, my car's exhaust system is broken yet again. Each time it is a different part, and each time the part is so expensive that my mechanic has tried to replace it with something less expensive. I hope he succeeds one more time.

A pheasant went for a stroll

Morning of the fourth day post-anti-depressant pill: a bit of a headache and I'm tired, but not much else. Yay! If I ever want to go on a three-day drug trip I guess I know what to do, and it is prefectly legal!

Now I am reading "Like Shaking Hands with God", a conversation with Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer about writing. A bit dated but pleasant. Kurt talks about faxes as if they are the latest technology, which I suppose they were at the time. Although I remember going to a talk about the future of technology around about the time this book was written and the fellow was saying that CDs and faxes were a thing of the past. I guess he was ahead of his time, they are still around. Maybe they should be a thing of the past and people still cling to them. But it is hard to find a laptop computer these days with a CD player or fax card.

As it turns out Kurt and Lee are good at aphorisms, there were a couple I wanted to underline.

Kurt: I go home. I have had a one heck of a good time. Listen: we are here on Earth to fart around. Don't let anybody tell you any different!

Lee: It's a struggle to be human. I mean, if you really look at it, we wake up every day to an alien environment. Certainly not the environment man was created in…So to me it is very much a struggle to be human, not so much a struggle to do something else, but a struggle just to feel human.

I think that is one way (two ways?) to sum things up. I agree with Kurt, we are here to fart around, and I agree with Lee that sometimes it is a real struggle just to be human in an alien world. Saving the world is just too massive a job to get hung up on, and getting more massive all the time. One local activist I know who spent a lifetime trying to make the world a better place, got herself into a helluva depression when she thought about the fact that she hadn't changed a thing. Although lots of people do make a difference, it's being the right person in the right place at the right time, with plenty of backup. And it is not something you can control without doing some damage to yourself. I don't envy the ones who manage it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So our local controversial experiment ended abruptly. They turned Main Street into a one-way street and a couple of weeks later they shut it down and it went back to two ways. I've heard a couple of reasons why it ended early (it was supposed to go on to the end of September), so take your pick. One is that the town council finally heard the merchants screaming about loss of business, the other is that there was an accident on the local freeway and traffic was diverted through our town. The big trucks couldn't make the turns necessary in the new one-way route. 

I can just imagine what that would have been like, there were four turns they would have had to make on roads never designed for that kind of traffic. Anyway I was down town a day after the reversion and it no longer seemed like a ghost town, the constant traffic made it feel busy. I liked it. I admit that it was kind of nice to walk across Main Street without having to watch for traffic, but it was also kind of weird. And one business man on the side street that traffic was being diverted to referred to it as Highway One. Crossing that road was a little more tricky.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Friday was Mask-up Day. Everyone has to wear a mask in public indoor spaces from now on. It's on the honour system, you're not supposed to harass people who are not masked. We had two new cases of Covid-19 on Thursday, but they had just returned from travelling and were already self-isolating when they tested positive. So it goes. There were rumours that we were going to open up to non-Maritime provinces, but the premier said that was not happening soon. He did say that we would have to in the near future, that we needed to recover our economic health as well as our medical health.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After a one day respite we're back to heat wave again. Yesterday was nice, I didn't have to shut myself indoors with all the curtains closed. I did a spot of gardening, planting a second crop of peas, carrots and greens and throwing some "fertilizer" (coffee grounds and eggshells) on it. I visited a friend and had a coffee with her and then held the ladder while she climbed up to hack off some branches in a caterpillar-infested tree. 

She has a dog that is Hapi's best dog buddy here. Ava is a very small dog, but tough. She lived on the streets of Taiwan before coming to Canada. She met Hapi and Hiro one day at the Reservoir and assessed them instantly. She walked up to Hapi and bit her on the nose. We can be friends but don't mess with me, she said. Hapi never has and they are.