Bobby - end of an era

Note: I wrote this on August 7. I was hoping to find a suitable photo for this post but never did, and then forgot about it. Only ran across the draft of this post by accident in October.

Yesterday I heard that a man I kind of grew up with died on Saturday. Kind of. Our parents were good friends at one time, they met when they lived on the same street in Toronto. I was just 4 then, the same age as Bobby. He was very worldly-wise in my four-year-old eyes, he knew how to make phone calls and we talked on the phone. He said we would get married when we grew up, and that actually scared me, I am not sure why. 

Once we ran away from home together, he seemed to know exactly where we were the whole time but I was utterly lost. At one point we ended up on a very busy street with stoplights, I didn't have a clue how stoplights worked and didn't want to test them, but Bobby did. Fortunately I was just too scared to be cajoled into crossing that street. We ended up back home in time for supper.

Shortly after that his family moved to Mississauga and a while after that my family moved to Forest Hill Village, then one of the municipalities that made up Metropolitan Toronto. But our parents remained friends and there was a lot of visiting back and forth over the years, we kids were close enough that Bobby once referred to me as his cousin, in a particular situation where I felt in danger and he was putting himself between me and the mean kids.

Bobby's younger sister and I became quite good friends as kids and teenagers. I ended up introducing her to the man she would marry and have a couple of kids with. More water under the bridge and Bobby moved to the US and I never saw him again, although I did hear stories about what he was up to from his sister and younger brother.

I was chatting with Bobby's sister over Facebook when she heard from Bobby's girlfriend that he had just died at her place. Not sure what happened, might have been a heart attack. I asked her if she had any photos of him, today she posted a few on Facebook.

"End of an era!" She texted me. I guess it is. In her family she is now the elder: both parents and her older brother gone now.

It is not so much that I miss Bobby or am sad about his death (I am), as that it brings back so many memories of us as kids. There were eight of us and we did a lot of things together, like family, or at least close cousins. Bobby was definitely something else; his sister said he became eccentric later in life, but I think he was born eccentric.

In the last few years of his life he reconnected with an old girlfriend. He moved back to Canada to live with her. I am glad he found love at the end. His sister said it changed him, for the better.

Still here

It is very hard for me to get things done. I thought I should start some kind of 'to do' list on my phone, since that is usually close at hand, but the couple of apps I downloaded for that purpose were not what I had in mind. I wanted something like my Mealime app which keeps my grocery list. Finally I decided to just use Mealime, prefacing each 'to do' item with the words "to do". Mealime files them under "Other", works for me.

I vaguely had the idea that I would post to this blog after I got a new computer, since the old one seemed to be failing. Well, I got the new computer but the process for setting it up is proving to be complicated. It is still on the To Do list, but falling further down as other items become more urgent. So I am posting this from the old computer just to say "I'm still here."

Worst winter ever. My illness is worse and as I am 3 years in now, I have no prospect of improving. I know this to be Long Covid but cannot get diagnosed because there is no bio-marker nor is there any agreed-upon criteria for diagnosing it. In fact, most doctors around here do not admit to its existence. Until there is a diagnostic bio-marker most doctors will tell you that it is all in your pretty little head (meaning psychological not neurological) and take an antidepressant for it.

My GP referred me to a psychiatrist who asked me two questions: How do you know Dr. P (at the beginning of the hour) and Have you any questions for me (at the end of the hour).

He told me:
1) post-viral syndromes don't exist and he knows this because he grew up in Ireland and Brucellosis (I thought that was a disease of cattle?).
2) Brain Fog doesn't exist.
3) I should quit chasing specialists for a diagnosis.
4) When I told him that my experience with antidepressant side effects was pretty awful, he said, Well even Tylenol has side effects. 

Since he never asked me any questions about why I was there or my state of mind, I assume he got all of his knowledge of me from my medical record. Great.

Now that many countries are funding research into Long Covid, a lot of potential causes and bio-markers are being suggested. Maybe sometime soon (i.e., within the next couple of years) they will narrow down on one cause and one bio-marker. Here in Nova Scotia it will probably entail investing in new technology to detect that bio-marker, so say another couple of years. That means Long Covid will go from being a syndrome (a collection of symptom criteria) to an actual disease, as MS did when the MRI came into play.

But that's not a cure or even a symptomatic treatment. So another decade or so. I am 75. In 5 years I may get my illness recognized, and in another decade and a half there may be a treatment. Right.

One day on FB (I rejoined in order to access some support groups) FB recommended I join a group dealing with The Afterlife. That made me laugh. With the tinnitus, brain fog and dizziness I don't feel like I am part of the real world, I am observing from inside a bubble constant noise, inability to think properly and unsteadiness, The BesideLife.

There is no outward sign of illness. I ace tests of my memory and executive function, but cannot follow a recipe or even remember the order of steps to make my breakfast. Words escape me. My longterm memory feels like old lace rotting away. I spend most of my time on my daybed, with breaks to take Princess for short walks and the occasional shopping trip.

I got an Accessibility tag for my truck and I bought a wheel chair. It was okay, but I need something with more features so I am sending it back to get a more powerful and more flexible chair. I am looking at my e-bike and kayak wondering if I should sell them. I've started VON Frozen Favourites delivered to my door at a very reasonable price. I now have a twice-monthly house cleaner.

I am gradually eliminating things from my life. The garden is probably going to go. I stopped making my bed. I don't socialize. My opinions and views on this disease are a bit too strong for most of the LC support groups I joined so I am slowly eliminating them as well. They say that when you live in isolation your brain gradually rewires to accommodate that, making re-entry into the world of people more difficult. It just feels like too much work, too much bother. I have one friend that I try to visit regularly, and according to my Garmin watch 'Body Battery' time spent with her is as restful as a sound nap; I guess the effort to maintain some kind of social persona is work, and I don't have to do that with her.

Yesterday I was in my driveway and my next door neighbour came over to ask how I was, in a concerned tone indicating that she really wanted to know. It was a bright sunny warm day and I am now quite sensitive to light and I was leaning against my truck in order to talk to her. You know how you feel when you have the flu with a high fever? It was like that, a real struggle to gather my thoughts and figure out what to say and what not to say, all the while clinging to the truck to stay upright and closing my eyes against the sunlight.

The snow is gone and temperatures have warmed up. I see young able people running and cycling and walking briskly, even swimming (the ponds are still way too cold for us older folk but for young people it is great for scampering in and out screaming about how nice it is while clutching their chests in what looks to me like extreme coldness). Princess has discovered her inner lab and goes crazy in the water chasing sticks and wanting to be part of the crowd of young people having fun. She caught their frisbee in mid-air and ran off with it, obviously hoping for someone to chase her and throw the frisbee again.

Given that this is my new life, I would like to re-invent myself within the confines of disability, but I don't really know where to start.

John

I got a phone call yesterday from a stranger telling me that a dear friend John had died a month ago. I almost didn't answer the call because I didn't recognize the number, but he was legitimate. It was shocking and extremely sad, I spent the rest of the day in tears.

John lived on the other side of the country, where I used to live. I met him a couple of decades ago, warmed up to him gradually. He was the kind of person who was a little bit in your face, but not in an aggressive way, he meant well. I got used to that and eventually appreciated it very much. When I moved across the country he was about the only person aside from family that I kept in touch with by phone, and our calls usually lasted over two hours. We talked about everything, we laughed a lot. Ostensibly we were talking about my financial affairs—he was my financial advisor—but rarely did that part of the conversation last for more than 15 minutes. And it went right over my head. I trusted him though and was glad that he knew what he was talking about, because I sure didn't.

The few times I went back out west to visit, he was on my list to check in with. We'd meet in his office and later go for lunch. He was into ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) and he made a new arrangement for his office waiting area every week. Sometimes he'd explain the meaning of it to me, but I'm afraid that went over my head as well. They were beautiful though.

The last time I talked to him was a few weeks before he died. I knew he had cancer, I knew it had metastasized, but he was so upbeat and optimistic that I thought he had more time. During the past summer when he knew his cancer had metastasized, he went with a friend to visit their family in England, something he often did. I gather it was a very good visit. He was also an extreme skier and hiker. He always took his dog on his hikes, sometimes his daughter would accompany him. He loved the west coast.

The man who called me yesterday gave me his daughter's email address, with her permission. I wrote to her today to tell her what a wonderful man I thought he was. She just had a baby the week after he died, how sad that John never met his grandchild! And how sad that she must deal with grief and joy at the same time. Understandably, she has not planned any celebration of life (nobody has funerals these days!).

It is so distressing to get such news and have nobody to talk to about it. I tried phoning a couple of people but no one was home, and none of them would have known who John was and how much he meant to me. I do hope his daughter is coping.

Surviving a broken brain

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Atlantic Balance and Dizziness Clinic in Halifax to have the dizziness I have been experiencing pretty much non-stop for two years now assessed by a physiotherapist. She was very thorough, the appointment was about 1.5 hours long, taking my history and running me through countless tests.

She diagnosed my problem as Persistent Postural Perceptive Dizziness (PPPD, or "3PD"). The standard treatment is a low dose SSRI for anxiety and cognitive behaviour therapy to train my brain to reframe what I experience as "not dizzy". Since I pretty much deny experiencing anxiety and am very wary of SSRIs she suggested pacing instead.

She emailed me a pacing checklist which I am supposed to use to assign points to all my daily activities and limit myself to only 10 or 15 points a day. So far I have scored 25 and 32 points daily, so obviously I have a long way to go to get it under 15 points.

The trouble with this system is that it assigns a lot of points for reading and computer use, and since I am very limited in the amount of physical activity I can do, I score lots of points in those activities. I am at a loss as to what I am supposed to do when I cannot do much else. This blog post alone is going to count for more than 5-10 points, meal preparation and "ADLs" (activities of daily living: getting dressed, brushing one's teeth, washing, grooming, etc) will account for another 5 points, and the rest of the day is toast.

I can see where such a system of pacing by points would be good for recovering from concussion, and limiting one's time on the computer or tablet or phone is probably a good idea, but I am at a loss as to what else I can do other than stare at the ceiling. Even talking to a friend racks up points at an alarming rate.

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I have been chatting on the phone with an old friend out west several times a week. The time difference (four hours) makes scheduling difficult, but so far we manage. She has Parkinson's. It affects her ability to communicate and think straight, resulting in a lot of anxiety and depression about her situation. Unlike me she can still do two hour hikes in the nearby mountains and play ping pong, although her coordination is failing so she has some difficulty with the ping pong.

Last night we were talking about cognitive and memory testing. A year ago I had my memory tested at a local clinic and she is undergoing cognitive testing at her local Parkinson's clinic. She agreed to the testing for the good of research but has been finding it frustrating. We both have memory and cognitive problems. But the tests that they do seem quite irrelevant, as if the people who are doing the testing don't really know what memory and cognitive loss really is like. The tests feel useless and beside the point.

In my own case, the memory tests started simply enough but gradually became more difficult. They required remembering words shown to you on cards in a particular order. On the final couple of tests my mind just went blank, I could not think of anything. The tester prompted me with hints and I was able to recall the words she was hinting at, but doing it without the hints was impossible. 

She gave me my final "score" and I asked what it meant. Was I normal? Average? Deficient? She hemmed and hawed and went into this whole thing about what is normal, what is average, so I knew she wasn't going to tell me.

The thing is, my memory deficits have nothing to do with words on cards, or counting backwards from 100 by sevens. They are not testing the real memory losses, just what they think memory loss should look like. Likewise for my friend, she feels very frustrated because the testing she is undergoing has hardly anything to do with what she is experiencing.

Our conversations are halting and involve long silences as we search for the words we know are there but can't speak, and we lose track of what we were talking about it in the first place. But I feel like we are on the same page so the communication difficulties are irrelevant. We laugh a lot at our shared experience of cognitive loss.

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Had a visit from the local Homecare Coordinator to see if I qualified. It's a tricky business. What I want is a little light housekeeping. What's on offer is personal care: help getting in and out of the bathtub or help getting dressed. If I need personal care they will throw in light housekeeping as well, but my income is too high to just get the light housekeeping. Also, the amount they would charge me for this is equivalent to what it would cost me to hire a housecleaner for a few hours a month, which is all I need. 

The problem is I don't know who does that sort of thing other than agencies which charge a lot more. The Homecare Coordinator said that they largely use VON for nursing and personal care, and Caregivers NS for the housekeeping. She told me the name of the local contact for Caregivers NS and it turns out I know that person, she lives down the street from me. I will call her to see if she can provide leads for housecleaners.

The visit was very helpful, and if I ever do need help getting in and out of the tub, I know who to call. She liked my woodfire and sat next to the stove because she said it was impossible to be too warm. Later she asked how I got my firewood into the house and I showed her my somewhat complicated system involving a firewood bag, wheelbarrow and an old bath towel. She marvelled at it.

"You have a system for everything!" she said.

Yup. That's what you do when you're old and live alone and want to stay that way.

Attempts to expand one's horizons

Lovely autumn weather has me attempting short walks. I have been driving to the Reservoir and walking around one pond there, this past weekend I tried walking around two blocks in my neighbourhood. They have been"repairing/constructing" a major road and I have not seen it since the beginning of the summer. My neighbours said it is considerably narrower now, since they put in the dedicated bike trail. I finally went over to see.

I only could see the top half and it is a mess. At this late date I doubt they will finish it before winter, so it is not going to be pretty. And it is indeed much narrower. One of the rental housing areas off that road has numbered parking spaces for tenants only, visitors must park on the street. Only now the street is too narrow to accommodate parked cars. Could get interesting there.

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Also on the weekend, a friend called me to ask if I wanted to go to a concert of the provincial symphony orchestra, in 20 minutes time. If I did she would pick me up and drive me home afterward. One of the benefits of not having anything to do, one can take up such invitations at a moment's notice. It was a lovely concert and I really enjoyed it. At the intermission I got to talk to several people I hadn't seen in many months.

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One of our town councillors resigned in September, would love to know the story behind that, but I can guess. Anyway, now there is a by-election for a replacement councillor only they got no candidates by the deadline so they have extended the deadline. A friend who has been a bit of an activist in my neighbourhood was considering it. She writes a weekly email newsletter for anyone who wants to sign up, most of the neighbourhood and some folks from other areas are on the list. Several councillors were too, only the mayor told them they were not allowed. Don't ask. Anyway, most of them, including the mayor, have access to the newsletter via friends and family. My friend is pretty critical of the town council and has more than once been told off for her comments. A recent blasting from the mayor for being so outspoken really upset her.

When the by-election was announced several of us urged her to run, but that was right after the blasting she got so she was kind of reluctant. She did not want to mount a campaign with signs and all, and she did not want to give up her newsletter which she thought would be required if she was on council. However, the deadline got extended, and several town employees urged her to run, and indirectly she heard that some councillors would welcome her to council. Also most of our neighbourhood would like it very much.

She is still sitting on the fence. I said, why should you have to give up your newsletter? Shouldn't councillors be talking to their constituents? Maybe all the councillors should be required to send out newsletters! This secrecy business makes people not trust democratic institutions. I hope she runs, I am pretty sure she would be acclaimed.

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At the same time as the by-election was announced, it was also announced that positions on various town committees were also taking applications. I looked at the list of committees and thought that maybe I could apply for the Accessibility Committee, since I now have life experience in accessibility barriers. The application document was a bit daunting, wanting to know what work experience or education qualifications I had for this committee. This is all very youthful and ableist, zero consideration for life experience. What, I have to have a degree in Accessibility? Well I applied anyway. I am not expecting a lot of competition, but if there is maybe I'll apply for another committee. Dip my baby toe in the local political arena.

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After my weekend walk around two blocks I thought I'd try walking downtown and back. The bottom half of the road under construction is not finished either but at least it has one layer of asphalt so it looks kind of finished. They might get a second layer before winter, I don't know. However walking down and up that hill was a very bad idea. That was on Monday morning and I am still in recovery from that little jaunt. So I guess I can walk around a block or two but not all the way into town, definitely still have to drive. Only a few months ago this was still doable, now it's not.

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.

Five ships a sailing

One day this month I was wondering if I could remember how to fold a paper boat. I can't do much else these days so I looked it up on the internet, and successfully folded myself a little boat from the card that is inserted in New Yorker magazines to sign up for new subscriptions. I had a bunch of magazines lying around so I shook out the cards from all of them and have started to fold my fleet of New Yorker boats. A relatively simple craft I can wrap my deteriorating brain around.

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It has been so hot and humid, with half the rain we usually get this past month. Longest heat wave ever (I looked up Environment Canada records for our local area). Some parts of my garden are doing well, others not so much. I am now overwhelmed in food processing: garlic, green beans, green peppers, tomatoes and soon potatoes. The onion crop does not look good, I may end up with a bunch of onion sets that I can try to plant next year. However I chopped a bunch of the onion greens off and found a recipe on the internet for onion top pesto. Don't think I will ever make basil pesto again, the onion greens pesto is so-o-o good! I already harvested the garlic that I planted last fall, and the garlic that I planted in the spring is dying off. That was just an experiment so I am not surprised it is not faring well. But I planted enough in the fall to have leftover garlic cloves to replant this fall.

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I've been re-varnishing my kayak, it's almost done. I just have to give the hatch covers a final sanding and then replace the deck fittings. Right now the kayak is sitting upside down in the crow family flyway, they've made a total mess of the hull so I will have to wash that off as well. Looks like I won't be kayaking this year, maybe next year. It's quite depressing: no paddling, no swimming, no cycling, no nothing.

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I may have a concussion. I hit my head hard on the corner of a table in May or June—I didn't write the date down, why would I—and aside from a very painful bruise I didn't think much of it. But in mid-July I was feeling like things were worse and in particular I had a headache that seemed to be increasing in intensity. The dizziness and fatigue were worse too but I just assumed that was my underlying illness. Also it was getting harder to read or watch TV. I don't know how I clued into the concussion possibility but when I looked it up I realized that given my existing symptoms it could easily have passed under the radar. 

I spoke to the NP at the chronic conditions clinic and she started talking about going to an ABI clinic (Acquired Brain Injury), but that's in the city and I have been avoiding driving or riding my bike for that matter even short distances, never mind to the city and back, so I don't think that is in the cards for me. Nevertheless the NP recommended that I get assessed by my doctor and at least get it logged into my medical chart.

In a way a concussion diagnosis would be a good thing because it would mean that my worsening symptoms were due to something else altogether. That would mean that a recovery might be a possibility. Assuming of course the concussion is just mild. When I told a friend about it she then recounted the story of her father's concussion and how because of his age the doctors assumed he was demented and chose not to do anything. But one of his daughters was a doctor herself and she insisted that there was no way he was demented and they should operate. He had a large hematoma pressing on his brain, they successfully drained it and he returned almost to normal. So you just never know.

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I asked my painter guy to take the rest of the summer off, I just couldn't hack having to wrap my schedule around his anymore. When he only works a couple of hours a day it takes forever. The power company inspected the work done so far on installing the solar panels, the next step is installing the actual panels and then one final inspection after that. That inspection is already scheduled for August 11 so they have to have the panels installed by then. 

The solar installers told me an interesting story about my panels. So, they were manufactured and shipped from China. They were supposed to come by ship to the port of Vancouver, but Vancouver is so clogged up that the ship captain decided to dock in Halifax instead. Long way to go for an alternative port but the solar installers thought that was great; they could just pick up the panels from the port themselves. But no, that's not the way things are done. The shipment had to be processed in Edmonton so they offloaded everything into trucks to drive back to Edmonton for processing. Then they loaded my panels—and whatever else was intended for the east coast—onto more trucks and drove them back to Halifax.  

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I recently bought a Fitbit, on sale with a one-year Premium membership thrown in for free. So now I am obsessing over it, checking my heart rate and sleep records and so forth. It has a feature where I am supposed to drink 64 oz of water every day and somehow it is very motivating, I am trying ever so hard to meet that goal, getting a certain hit of satisfaction every time I add another glass of water to my score. A couple of days ago I mowed my lawn, which just about killed me in the heat, and the Fitbit promptly congratulated me on my aerobic exercise achievement. It thought I was out there cycling up a storm when really I was just slogging back and forth over my lawn. I think I even got a "badge" for it. Never have I ever been rewarded for mowing the lawn!

The sleep thing was the real reason I got the Fitbit and that part is quite fascinating. It tells me how much time (and when) I spend in REM, deep sleep and light sleep. It also tells me how much time (and when) I was awake during the night, most of which I have no memory of. The manual explains how it determines this stuff and quite frankly I am a little sceptical. The awake time is based on my heart rate and the amount of movement my body makes (apparently it has a motion detector?). I think a lot of that is just me kicking around in my sleep. When I was a kid there were occasions when I had to share a bed with my mother and that was her chief complaint about sleeping with me. There are a couple of other things it will measure, but it needs at least a month's worth of data to do that.

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It rained today and the temperature stayed relatively low, but it will be back to sun and heat tomorrow. My friend (daughter of the man with the concussion) suggested we do a day trip somewhere and I leaped at it. She will do the driving and it will be a chance to get out of town for a few hours. How my horizons are reduced! But then deciding when and where took us awhile. She wanted to go to a beach and Nova Scotia has a ton of beautiful beaches, but do you think we could find a list or map on the internet? 

We know they are out there but O.M.G. the Tourism folks are too busy extolling the virtues of trails and package holidays and tours. We found a webpage entitled "Beaches of Nova Scotia" and it was a list of parks and trails, no beaches. Another website touted as a map of Nova Scotia beaches had no map and only one or two beaches listed amongst all the package tours you could sign up for. There are a few famous beaches that are jampacked with people and a whole lot of others that you only hear about by word of mouth: miles of white sand beach and hardly any people! I guess we'll have to do a bunch of asking around.

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.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

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.

Son #3 comes home

Peony time!

My son just left this morning to return home. It was a very good visit, we seemed to be on exactly the same page as far as activity level and need for alone-time. I was pleasantly surprised at how good-looking he is becoming as he ages, I almost didn't recognize him when I went to pick him up at the airport. 

Mind you, that wasn't completely due to handsomeness. With his knitted cap, sunglasses and mask he looked like an alien. Towards the end of the week he talked about how much he was enjoying this and how sorry he was he hadn't booked a longer visit. After so many years he was afraid that a week was about as long as he could stand.

I bought tickets for us to go to a concert together at a local community hall. I thought it was a great concert, he was more critical. He thought the band's sound system and/or how the sound was being managed was lousy. Lousy enough that he didn't want to venture an opinion about how good the band actually was. 

Before we went into the hall we met some friends of mine and there was a lot of joking about how many friends/neighbours had Covid, how many last minute cancellations there were due to Covid. My son forgot his mask but I had two. We went in and shared a table with some more friends of mine, and they too joked about how many people they knew with Covid. Initially my son took has mask off to imbibe the drink he ordered, but quickly put it on afterwards. I asked him later about the fact he wore his mask for the entire concert when hardly anyone else (including me!) did.

He said, Are you kidding me? This place is a cesspool!

I had to admit he was right. The longer since the mask mandate was removed, the laxer we all got. The rate of infection and number of deaths have come down since April, but they are still much higher than previous waves. They say it is so bad here because we never got any herd immunity. We were so strict about the rules that we all stayed safe, but once the mandates were removed we all went a little crazy and ended up with one of the worst rates of infection in the whole country.

While here my son reconnected with an old friend. They hadn't seen each other in over a decade and a lot has happened in both their lives in the interim, so I think they were a little reluctant to meet since they didn't know if they still had a relationship. Turns out they very much did. They had several very long conversations while hanging out together and one of the things that came up was that neither could remember a time when they didn't know each other. They became friends before their memories kicked in. 

It's true, they were very young when they first met, and they only met because their parents were friends since before either of them were born. In spite of long periods living in different parts of the country, they had some remarkably similar life experiences. On his last night here the friend took him on a quick tour of the area, they hit several beaches and some other places, after dark. I thought that was pretty cool of the friend to do that.

My son was a little apologetic to me about how much time he was spending with his friend. I said, Don't worry, I'm not jealous. Spending an intense amout of time with anyone—even a beloved offspring—still takes its toll on me and I am happy for a bit of a break. I would have been very happy if he had booked a longer visit, but at the same time I don't know whether I would have had the stamina for it.

One morning he was up before me and he wanted to make coffee for me. But he took one look at my fancy espresso machine and decided otherwise. He referred to it as my Junior Chemistry Set that I call a Coffeemaker.

We had to be at the airport two hours before departure time, and it takes over an hour to drive to the airport. We had to be up at 6.00am and leave without breakfast. I was giving him directions (he drove), but normally he relies on Google for directions. I got distracted and we overshot the highway exit for the airport and had to drive an extra 25km to get back. I said something about there being highway signs but then realized that he probably never looks at the signs because he relies on Google to tell him. I am old school, I even keep a paper map of the province in the car.

So today I am so exhausted that I am just killing time till I can go to bed. Not so good at napping.

Crowsnest view

Many years ago, back in the '80s, I planted a dozen pine trees along the north edge of my property, but only two remain. When I moved back in 2010 there were three, but one of them showed signs of disease and I had it cut down before it infected the other two. 

At the tippy top of the one you see in the photo above, there is a crows nest. First time ever. I can't really see the nest, it just looks like a dark spot at the top of the tree, but there is always one crow up there and it calls pretty much incessantly. Yesterday I caught sight of "the changing of the guard," as one crow left and the other arrived. Whichever crow is not in the nest is very busy foraging.

Unfortunately I am having the roof redone this month, and that will be directly below the nest, probably just as the eggs are hatching. I don't know how that will go and I can't reschedule. I hope the crows don't get their knickers in a knot but manage to maintain the nest and nestlings in spite of the commotion. I will warn the roofers.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I quit the Pacing program after the second session. The second session was run by a student OT as the first OT had left for unspecified reasons, and the third session was going to be run by another OT. Each session so far has consisted of an hour and a half or more of Powerpoint slides, and the third session OT sent an email with the slides for the session attached. 47 slides! I emailed back that that was way too stressful, and she responded that if this did not serve my needs I should phone to cancel my participation. I did that.

Who does that kind of thing?!? Even for healthy people at an in-person workshop an hour of Powerpoint is more than enough, and for unhealthy people using Zoom, an hour and a half is absolutely over the top. I used to teach the effective use of Powerpoint and other methods of information delivery, a twenty minute presentation is more than enough. I realize OTs are not trained in online teaching but, ... O.M.G.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

J came by yesterday and we took the cover off my truck and started her up. It was lovely to see it again, instead of a yellow blob in the driveway. The battery needed a bit of a kickstart but other than that the truck is fine. J is replacing the tires and rims on his truck next week, then he will give me his old rims and he will mount my new tires on them and the truck will be ready to go. He has lined up a buyer for my Mazda as well.

The Mazda is a kind of soccer-Mom minivan in nondescript grey, but it has run well through the winter and it transported Hapi everywhere after I sold my old truck, so I will kind of miss it. But having two vehicles in the driveway is inconvenient. The "new" truck (it's actually older than the Mazda) is a bit small which is a good thing and a bad thing. No extended cab so no big dogs can sit in it. But the roof of the cap on the box is low enough that I think I can manage to get my kayak on it by myself. I already figured out the method on the old truck and this one will actually be easier. Better be, the muscle wasting that has occured since I became ill is quite shocking.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I ordered a daybed for my livingroom. My sofa is great for sitting on but not so much for lying on, and I do way more lying down than sitting up these days. I wanted a bed I saw on the IKEA website but they wouldn't deliver and going into the city to pick it up seemed daunting. I checked Walmart and Wayfair, their beds weren't as nice or as economical but they did deliver. 

In reading a lot of customer reviews I realized that all of these beds have to be assembled by the customer and assembling wooden beds appeared to be a very frustrating experience, no one mentioned frustration with the metal bed frames. So I looked at the metal beds and found one on Wayfair that I thought I could live with, at a reasonable price. They say it takes 30 minutes to assemble but all the customer reviews said it was more like 2 hours. No one wrote that it was frustrating, just that it was important to read the instructions carefully. I look forward to its arrival.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I visited some friends earlier this week and it turned out they had Covid. So I was exposed, having walked in maskless without checking. I immediately left, went home and washed up as best I could (even a nasal rinse and salt water gargle! not that that would make a difference, but you never know) and then went grocery shopping to stock up in case I got it. Today is Day 3 after exposure, so far so good but I read that symptoms are not likely to appear before Day 3. According to the CDC in the US, I should test on Day 5, and if symptom-free test again on Day 7. So the next few days will be the critical ones.

I later talked to one of those friends on the phone; he said it was like a very bad cold. His wife got it first and she is already out and about, she had a mild case of it. He's still "under the weather." He advised me to stock up on ready-made food, that it's important to keep eating even though your appetite is gone. Since I am already ill, I don't want to guess how getting another bout of this will play out.

B got Covid in her nursing home, now the home is in lockdown. B is okay, I've talked to her a couple of times since she got sick. A bit spacey but okay.

Nova Scotia used to be one of the best for low case counts and adherence to mask mandates; now that the mandates are all removed we are the worst. The Omicron is rampant and I know way too many people who have or have had it.

Sign seen on campus

No marbles or spoons in the bowl

You have to be honest, so that people believe you. You don’t need to try. You need to be yourself. And maybe, after you show who you are, maybe people will love you more than before, because they see that you are not so strong or are lazy at times. No, each time don’t lie and show people who you are exactly. And it’s important not to show that you are better than who you are. 

~Volodymyr Zelenskyy, March 2022.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It's been awhile, not a great time. I completed the CBT-I course. On paper, according to my sleep diary, my sleep "efficiency" improved a lot and the amount of time I spent sleeping improved marginally. In reality all my illness symptoms got worse and I continue to wake up exhausted, "unrefreshed" as it were. I guess the facilitator gets bragging rights about my improvement but from my perspective it was a complete disaster that I am trying to recover from. Good luck with that.

A week after the CBT-I course ended I started an Energy Management (Pacing) program and so far, it feels like yet more disaster in the works. The facilitator, an occupational therapist, said that it would be "hard work", and that some of us will only see survival as the outcome. I question whether survival as an outcome is worth yet more hard work. I drafted an email to that effect and sent it to the OT, but got back an immediate response that she was out of office and would not be back until the next Pacing session happens. So do I show up for it or not?

If I am going to work hard, I'd rather do it in my garden, there at least there will be a positive outcome to hard work. My Wednesday coffee buddy's husband has a business doing cabinetry and finished carpentry, he is going to make garden frames for his wife and he said he'd make some for me too. Mine are disintegrating and it sounds like the ones he will make will be way better. He has started attending our coffee dates but he only stays for a short while, just to take a break from his work.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I have started some seeds but so far only a few have sprouted. I am trying to start onions from seed as I have had poor luck with onion sets. Unfortunately I think I added way to much water to the tray of seeds so I may have drowned them. Hope not but we shall see. 

On Tuesday I drove a friend half way down the Valley to her new home. She wanted to take a load of stuff and I wanted to see her new place. Her place is marvelous, a small one bedroom apartment on the ground level in a kind of motel-like building. She has a front door, a back door, a private patio (with a view of a small forest) out back and two parking spaces in front. I met her new landlady who is very nice. In these days of rising housing costs she is actually going to reduce her rent by almost half, thanks to a seniors' subsidy. 

The only down side is that she doesn't know anyone in her new town, all her friends are here. But she is a very sociable cheerful kind of person, I am sure she will do well. She made me leave my deck chair at her new place so that I would be obliged to come visit. The problem is, that after I got home I collapsed; an hour and a half of driving, lunch out, and a tour of the local shopping mall utterly did me in. My chest hurt and I was winded, dizzy and spaced out all the next day. There is a bus, but it takes almost two hours one way.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today I did a bit of yard work. I had to cart in some firewood and while doing that observed all the things that need to be done this month. It was very hard to resist tackling it right away even though according to the Pacing program I should not. They use a lot of metaphors in this program that sound descriptive but when you break them down they're not so helpful. 

We were supposed to imagine that we had a bowl of marbles when we woke up and each time we engaged in an activity we spent a marble or two. Some people know it as Spoon Theory. The OT asked us to describe how we spent our marbles. I drew a complete blank on that and then asked, "What if there are no marbles in the bowl when you wake up?" I just couldn't picture it, the metaphor made no sense to me. 

Another one was about activities that "recharge our batteries". What activities this week have recharged my battery? Again, not able to picture it. The reality for me is that I am not a very meditative person, I like to be active, gardening, paddling, swimming, etc. These activities are what give me pleasure but now they are draining. So do they "recharge my battery"? Or do they run it down to the nub? 

I don't think I'm going to be a very good program participant. After the CBT-I experience I am hypercritical of programs that supposedly are going to improve my health. I am in a space now where I feel that since I am no better now than I was two years ago when I first got sick, it is highly unlikely that I will ever improve. My age and the lack of decent medical care are working against me. I see that they are working on changes to MAID, one of them is Advanced Directive. That's where you can be approved for MAID even though your illness is not fatal, just no hope of recovery. At this point that is hopeful news to me.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But to end on a positive note, I am extremely grateful that the CBT-I program is over. I was happy to see that a few of my seeds have sprouted. I'm thinking about getting a puppy.

Lives lived, and the fallout

My longtime friend S died a couple of weeks ago but I only heard about it last Thursday night. I had called her house the week before and left a message but there was no response, so I called again last week and her husband M answered the phone with "Oh dear." S had given him a list of people to call after her death and I was near the top of the list, but obviously he hadn't called. Not that I blame him, there are priorities and there are priorities. But we talked for about an hour, reminiscing, him describing her last days and how it affected him, where he was at now, so on and so forth. We both said we'd keep in touch, who knows if we actually do.

I met S in first year university, 55 years ago. We became close friends but at the end of the year I went to France and she returned home to Eastern Ontario. Our relationship continued but in an off/on sort of way. After losing track of each other for several years she and her new husband showed up at my doorstep late at night, when my husband and I were living in an off-grid log cabin back of beyond in the mountains of BC. Quite a piece of detective work to track us down! They only stayed the one day, we spent the time playing catch-up. Then they were off and I didn't see or hear from her for several more years. We had a chance meeting on the street in small town Nova Scotia. She and M were visiting someone who had recently moved here from Montreal. Again, they were only around for a few days and then off again. I didn't reconnect with her until two decades later, in Vancouver. S and M had moved there after our first meetup in the mountains of BC, and I moved back there in the early '90s. By then we both had 2/3 boy children, some of whom still lived at home.

I am not sure what drew us together, I certainly was fascinated with how different she was from anyone I had met before and god only knows what drew her to me. Perhaps it was just my persistence. That first year at university we both lived in residence and it was a tumultuous year for both of us. As I recall we did a lot of drinking to excess; first year away from home and all that.

There was a period of time in the late '90s when she stopped returning my calls, she told me much later that she disapproved of my lifestyle then. She was raised as a devout Baptist with a strict moral code that she herself was trying to break through, but there were just certain things she couldn't wrap her head around. Myself there were times when I had had enough of her stuff as well, so when she stopped returning calls I just moved on. It only lasted a few years, then we were visiting back and forth again since we only lived a few kilometers apart.

At the beginning of the pandemic when everything was in lockdown I started calling distant friends—including S—that I hadn't seen or talked to in years. She was ill. Her illness was ultimately fatal, she'd had it for a long time but was unable to get it diagnosed let alone treated, until it was too late. So I started having regular calls with her, maybe every other month or so. I'm not good at long distance phone relationships. But our calls often lasted for a couple of hours. Mostly I listened; she said she enjoyed talking to me because I didn't judge. It's true, no matter how much we might disagree I felt that at this point it was better to let it go. And the person on the deathbed gets first dibs on airtime.

The last time I talked to her was just before Christmas, she asked me to call her on Christmas Day because she was concerned about me being alone then. But I wasn't alone and I didn't call. She had as many family members present as she could possibly pack in because she knew this was her last Christmas. I should have called in January, but for a variety of reasons I put it off. When I finally called it was too late. I am glad I got to have a good conversation with M though. The odd thing is, since that call I have been having conversations with S in my head. She seems as present as when we both lived in Vancouver. Last night I watched a couple of documentaries about a guy who nurses sick eagles back to health and then releases them. This morning I've been telling S all about it, since I know she loves eagles. And wolves.

In a way, I have always been envious of her, she had the life that I wanted. She got to do a lot of things I wished I could do. But one night shortly before I moved away from Vancouver, she had driven me home and we were sitting in the car talking. She just poured out all her regrets in life up to that point. She felt that she had made some bad choices and as a result missed out on the life she really had wanted. It's kind of a weird moment when the person who is living the life you thought you wanted is expressing that kind of regret to you. Is this a thing? Do we all regret the life unlived?

I've seen inspirational talks by people who say they are living exactly the life they wanted ("and you can too!"). Last night I watched a trailer for a Brene Brown talk saying more or less that. Her prescription? Courage to be vulnerable. I think it is easy to say that sort of thing in retrospect, but it seems to me that in the moment there are constant choices you have to make that open one door and close another, and you just can't see into the future the unexpected consequences that will shape your life. In my own life I can't really say that the pivotal choices I made had anything to do with courage or the lack thereof. More like, you play the hand you're dealt as best you can.

Weekend Nor'easter #3

Third nor'easter this month on its way, should be here tomorrow morning. Shovelling out after a nor'easter puts me in bed for three/four days after, I am so-o-o-o looking forward to this one (not). Plus, after a big dump of snow it's forecast to also deliver a hefty load of freezing rain, which should make shovelling even more fun (not). I would hire someone to do it but I don't know anyone, or even how one would go about finding a snow shoveller. Snow ploughs are easy, shovellers not so much. Last year the girls next door were quick to volunteer help; this year it's guys with a snow blower who like to blow their snow onto my property.

On a bright but kind of weird note, I saw four robins in the bushes behind my back yard today. In January. I guess some of them have started overwintering here.

Another bright note, I have at least two pairs and possibly three of cardinals coming to my birdfeeder. I recognize two of the males, one is skinny and light red ('Pinky') and the other is fat and dark red ('Big Red'). Cardinals are skittish and not particularly sociable, the males and females tolerate each other but only just. But two males? Big Red beats up on Pinky something fierce. Pinky is always looking over his shoulder when he comes to the feeder.

Four mourning doves have taken up residence under my house. There's an overhang at the front of the house surrounded by wooden lattice with a couple of holes in it just big enough for the doves to slip through. The birdfeeder is nearby so when the weather is bad they can just pop out to check for seeds on the ground; when the weather is good they hang out on the power lines. I like the doves, don't mind them hanging out under the house. At first I was worried that they were trapped there but having seen the two holes they use I don't worry about them anymore.

I did get out skating once or twice but there's been too many big dumps of snow for volunteer shovellers to manage so the ice is pretty much buried now, except for one small rectangle for the hockey players. Just as well, a nice sheet of smooth ice is too much of a temptation for me and I pay for it afterwards.

My social life is down to zip. I am too tired and dizzy to get out for more than necessary grocery shopping. Omicron has pretty much put paid to anything more than that. Most days I can't even get up the energy to phone someone. 

On a really nice day I'll walk to the Reservoir, and once this month I actually met someone there that I knew. We only know each other through dogwalking at the Reservoir and she lives in another town, we have no friends or acquaintances in common. She's quite a bit younger than me but somehow we connect on a very personal level. So we exchange complaints about life in general, and get a few laughs. Hapi isn't around anymore so her dog has no one to entertain him while we are jabbering on. His patience eventually wears thin and he finally starts whining about it. 

I like that we have this odd relationship where we have little in common on the face of it but can talk endlessly about it. Since neither of us is regular about our Reservoir walk timing, it only happens sporadically.

And on and on it goes

Happy New Year.

I guess.

Well, maybe it will be, who knows. The signs aren't good though.

I walked to the Reservoir this afternoon, looked at the melting ice. A week ago I got to skate on it when it was a glassy smooth sheet of ice, now it's a mess of melted ice, pooled meltwater and piles of melting snow.

Eventually it'll freeze up again, but whether it will be glassy smooth or not is anybody's guess. Usually the first few days after it first freezes are the best, but then it's not very thick so you're taking your chances. Best not to go alone.

On my way home a friend who was driving by stopped and asked if I wanted a ride or not. I jumped in her car and said, "Your timing is perfect!"

These days I am out of bed no more than 6 hours a day at best, most of that time taken up with chores and errands. But if the stars line up, the weather is good, and there's no chores or errands, then I can go for a walk. I can no longer walk to the Reservoir and back without exhausting myself, so I was glad she showed up when she did.

She's not in much better shape than I am, doesn't know if it's physical illness or depression. I said, "Does it matter?" Not a lot one can do about it either way.

We've both gone in search of laughter, I found it in old "Seinfeld" shows and she in "Friends". By the time she dropped me off I think we both felt better, nothing like a good laugh to cure what ails you. Temporarily anyway.

My son's family in Toronto all have the Omicron. Today they said Ontario has more than 18,000 new cases, and since they're not doing extensive testing that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's the same here, we have no idea how many cases there really are. Today I read that the booster shot wears off pretty quickly; 65-70% protection at best and down to 45% after 10 weeks. Israel is already starting a 4th round of shots.

We're doomed I tell ya, we're doomed!

Since I am not really up and about that much, I have less to report that's anywhere approaching fun or even pleasant; so I probably won't be posting that much. There's only so much gloom I can write about before I bore myself.

Mini-vacation at the seaside

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

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

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

Hopeful bunny

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

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

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

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

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

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

Away for a bit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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