Days Like Today Make Up For All The Other Days.....

Today was what I would consider a perfect day for myself.  I am grateful for such days as they have been fewer and farther between since the onset of the pandemic and a summer of illness.

 

This morning I woke up in good time to get the last of the housework completed for this week.  I also got my prayers written for church on Sunday. I was all finished by 9am and had time to relax before a wonderful visit from one of the pastors at my church.  He and my husband hit it off well from the first day they met and there is always much laughter during our conversations together.  It was a spiritual and emotional boost for us.

 

After a light lunch I braved the howing winds and chilly air to walk over to the home of a shut-in friend.  We enjoyed two glorious hours together over cofee and conversation.  What fun!  We don't get to visit each other nearly enough, so today was a very special treat that made up for even stronger, colder winds coming home that at one point nearly blew me off the sidewalk and onto the road.

 

I was barely in the front door after my wild walk when my husband decided he was in a celebratory mood and that we should take advantage of it being pay day and have a blow out Indian feast.  We ordered 8 dishes from DarBar and have so many leftovers I won't have to cook at all for a couple of days.  Aaaahhhhh....what an amazing treat!  We are celebrating my husband's good health that has remained more or less intact after holidays despite the stresses involved the past 2 weeks in preparing the reopening of his parish church, the ongoing lack of snow and ice, good news from all our family members and the return of better health to us both over the past few weeks.  Today just "felt" like a party was in order!  hahaha

 

Tomorrow it is to be quite cold outside, with a forecast high of only +10C.  There is an overnight frost warning in place so we were also celebrating my husband getting all the herbs and flowers looked after several days ago before everything could freeze solid like what will likely happen before tomorrow morning.  I have resisted putting the furnace on to date and tomorrow it will be a huge temptation to fire it up again, but by the next day the daytime temperatures will supposedly be on the rise to the mid teens for at least a week.  So, I put on a coat to sit and watch tv for awhile this evening and will have a hot shower in the morning and spend the day in my Mark's Comfy Robe!  I have nowhere to go tomorrow so will enjoy a quiet day at home.  My husband is heading out to his church tomorrow to set up the video equipment so he can record the Sunday service for his YouTube channel.

 

Today felt like the old "normal", even with masks on our faces when visiting our friends and the distance we had to put between us.   Being able to put on a warm coat and some light gloves so that I could go walking again today was a huge blessing.

So Much Good News!

 This past few days has provided me with a wealth of good news to enjoy and experience vicariously through the answered prayers of other family and friends!

Our son is safely settled in his temporary digs and has scored 100% on his written NYC driving test.  Soon he will take the actual driving test, but since he helped his girlfriend pass her test, I suppose it will only take him a try or two to get his license.  He has the possibility of a more stable part time to full time position working for another artist that he greatly respects and works well with.  He is applying for American health care due to some issues that have cropped up in the past few months...prayer request as I am not sure the one problem is not rather serious, but he will know in a couple of months.

Val had her second hip replaced last week, passed her physiotherapy with flying colours and is home safely, no rehab facility required, is dealing with a bit more pain than last time, but is happy and encouraged and getting her energy back.  It is a great weight off both her and Kat and life in their home is slowly returning to a better balance.  Kat is still recovering from her cancer treatments , but is feeling better slowly but surely.  She reaped the produce of her huge garden and is nearly finished her canoe restoration project.

My husband has stained our occasional tables now and hopes to get back to the shop this week to apply the varnish so I can get them back home very soon.  He is feeling well, a bit more tired now that he has been preparing to reopen his parish church, but encouraged that he can refrain from taking on more parish work than he needs to now that he is into the swing of things with the pandemic restrictions. It has taken awhile to know how to give the parish his best without overdoing the time committment during these odd times.

A relative of my husband's is now dating one of his colleagues....a long wait for each of them to find someone precious, so we have high hopes for their relationship. We have been praying for them both. They met through a non-church related social activity group and we couldn't be happier they are now dating.

My mom continues to recover her equilibrium since Dad died.  Today she is having a root canal.  She is getting her medical needs looked after with one or two appointments per week this month and hopes to be all done before the snow and ice make going to appointments more difficult.  In about six weeks she will be 93 years old!  Wow...she is in amazing health both mentally and physically despite some of the unavoidable aging processes we all experience at that time of life.  She has new table mates at meal time in her facility and she just loves them.  New friends for Mom!  She is now allowed to visit others in the facility in their suites and for now, friends from the outside can come in to visit two at a time, the visitors no longer having to be on a contact list.  Long may this last, but I suspect there will be another lockdown coming, if not from COVID19, from regular influenza season.  

I am enjoying a few more distancing visits with a small number of friends and pastoral staff from my church.  Each time I discover a new "safe" person it is quite a joy!  The numbers of pandemic sufferers is rising in our country again and even here in our city, but so far the numbers here have not warranted another severe lockdown. Long may that last.  

 

So enjoyed my walk yesterday with my walking partner.  We never run out of things to talk about and that is a rare blessing in a friendship with an age difference like we have.  What a wonderful thing.

Enjoy your day.  I am going out this afternoon for tea with a lady who has been in my "bubble" since it became safe to start visiting others again.  A pastoral visit this morning, my friend this afternoon, my house is freshly cleaned, I have had some good walks all ready this week, the weather is not horrible apart from some strong winds occasionally.....lots of good news right now.

Oh, could you prayer warriors please pray especially for Cee this week and next. He has some pretty serious medical tests happening and has to go to a different city to have them, so some long distance driving along with the stress of the tests and waiting once again for results. Thank you for praying.

Friend Spider

 On our most recent trip we unwittingly and unwillingly took along a third party!

When we stopped for lunch on our first day away, we discovered we had brought along a black spider from home.  It spun a web across the side mirror on the passenger side of the car the night before we  left, most likely, but we didn't notice him until we stopped nearly 4 hours from home.  Surprisingly the intense rain had not dislodged him from his web.  We left him there and he stayed with us all the way to Red Deer.  After we parked at our hotel my husband noticed he was no longer in the web and brushed it off the mirror.  The next morning I had my medical test, then we headed to Calgary, not really paying attention to that mirror, but when we arrived in the city and I started to get out of the car, I realized there was another web spun across that mirror and there, sitting pretty as you please in the center of the web was our same friend spider! hahaha  I didn't have the heart to remove him after all the effort he put into remaining with us!  Hardy Friend Spider1

He was there for the two days we were in the city, not always in the web during the sunniest parts of the days, but still there waiting in the web each chilly morning.  He was there again the day we left to come home and when we arrived back at our home there he still was, clinging to his web as usual.  We don't know how he managed it, but he found enough to eat when the car was stopped and must have been most comfortable riding around on that passenger side mirror for 4 days.  hahahahaha

I think the award for Most Tenacious Spider of 2020 has to go to our own Friend Spider!

Oh How Dad Loved His Porridge!

 When my dad passed away my mom asked me if there was anything of dad's personal effects that I particularly wanted to keep for myself.  There really wasn't anything I wanted, other than dad's porridge bowl.  

It isn't a fancy bowl.  It isn't a beautiful ceramic dish.  it isn't hand painted or antique or part of a set of "good china".  It is a simple while Corelle serving bowl!  it is old and there are a few grey scratches inside, leftover from dad forgetting one day that it shouldn't go in the dishwasher with powdered detergent.  Based on appearances there is no obvious reason why, of all dad's personal belongings, I would choose to keep that bowl.

That bowl reminds me of dad every time i use it!  tonight i used it to mix up some freshly ground turkey with some home grown basil and marjoram and rosemary to make burgers.  when i pulled it out of the cupboard the first thing i thought of was the look of pure bliss on dad's face every morning as he consumed his piping hot oatmeal porridge or red river brand cereal.  I want and need to remember happy things about my father.  This bowl ensures I do just that.

it has been a good day around here.  my walking partner wasn't able to come over this morning, so i rotated my afternoon walk to the post office into the hour before lunch.  then this afternoon i decided to start cleaning our suite once again.  i completed the downstairs rooms and it feels good.  if my walking partner wanders through our place after our rescheduled walk together she won't see all the dust bunnies and spider webs that were there earlier today. hahahaha when i dusted the china cabinet i discovered a small grey spider stringing a web between two of my pottery ornaments. he looked pretty cute hanging there in mid air between them, but i scuttled his little butt back outside!

 

tomorrow my walking partner should be able to go with me for our exercise binge and then in the afternoon i will try to clean the upstairs rooms.  i like dividing the cleaning into two days now.  i don't feel as stressed, i don't get as tired and i do a far more thorough cleaning job.

 

the following day we are having tea with one of my church pastors. that will be fun. pastor richard is a very cool guy, so sincere in his love for jesus and such a practiser of his faith.  he has a lovely family too and we hope they feel welcome in our church as the "Newbies" in town.

 

Social distancing visits are getting set up for next week all ready.  O wow, it feels wonderful to be able to have friends who want to follow the protocols, yet are not afraid to reach out and spend time with us.

A Quotable Quote For Our Time of Pandemic

 "I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

--J.R. Tolkien

From the Reform Jewish Liturgy

An optional meditation before Kaddish Yatom--Mourner's Kaddish

 

Epitaph- by Merrit Malloy

When I die give what's left of me away

to children and old men that wait to die.

And if you need to cry,

cry for your brother walking the street beside you.

And when you need me, put your arms around anyone

and give them what you need to give me.

 

I want to leave you something,

something better than words or sounds.

Look for me in the people I've known or loved,

and if you cannot give me away,

at least let me live in your eyes and not in your mind.

 

You can love me best by letting hands touch hands,

and by letting go of children that need to be free.

Love doesn't die, people do.

So, when all that's left of me is love,

give me away.

 

 

The Joy Of Family

Pandemic Hair in Spring

Pandemic Hair in Autumn

Special Friends Make the Pandemic Bearable

 

Wise Words

 “I should like to bury something precious in every place where I’ve been happy and then, when I was old and ugly and miserable, I could come back and dig it up and remember.”

—Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited

Where Do The Days Disappear To??

 We have been home from our trip for 3 days now, but it still seems like just yesterday that we arrived back to our odd little suite here in Regina.  The weather has been quite good, but this afternoon a period of about 12 hours of rain will begin.  I want to get cleaned up and dressed for a walk downtown and back before that happens.

 

Since arriving home and taking a full day to relax and do nothing the day after we arrived back here, our energy seems to have come up and we have both slept incredibly well the past couple of nights.  My husband has been scurrying around getting a few ideas together for sermons, social distancing and hygiene routines to be set in place for the parish re-opening in a couple of weeks' time, going on a brief sojourn with me to Canadian Tire yesterday morning for stain for the occasional tables and getting the plants on the back deck ready for either wintering over or putting in the compost for replacement next year.  Friends are taking my non-edible "only flowers" pots for the winter and keeping them going indoors so I can put them back out on my deck next year if we still live here.  I have been catching up on banking and grocery shopping and laundry.

We picked up some food from DarBar yesterday at noon after picking up a proper face shield for my husband to wear to his upcoming church services.  He also purchased a very reasonably priced new video camera and headphones to be able to better record his online sermons and services for those who will not be returning to church yet.  He is delighted not only with the equipment but also by the fact that the camera bottom bolt threading is exactly right to attach to a camera tripod he was given years ago and has never been able to use.  YIPPEE! He can now record his sermons from other rooms in the suite, not just from his office.  He was so exhilarated after that purchase and so proud of his research paying off that I had to treat him to some Indian food as a congratulatory gesture.  Actually we both thought of it at the same time, hahaha.  It seems we cannot go anywhere near DarBar without stopping in to pick up a meal or two.

I am putting together another Care Package for Mom.  There are a couple of items she needs that we had no time to look for when we were with her this week. I knew exactly where to find them here, so Monday I will send them to her.  During our final visit with her, her calculator died a permanent death, so that is one of the things that will be in the care package. There will be some more tiny freezer cartons to complement the ones I took to her on our trip for her approval, a novel I think she will enjoy and now I am looking for one more unexpected treat to fill up the box before I mail it away.  Mom's taste buds are pretty much gone now, so she told me not to bother sending her any more food items as she cannot taste them anyway unless they have a sharp citrus twang to them. I do have some candies that would fit that bill, so perhaps they could be included.

 

 

Before lunch this morning I walked downtown to The Bay looking for a pair of slippers Mom wants, but unfortunately they are summer stock and just a few days ago The Bay returned their remaining summer stock of this particular brand of slipper and replaced them with the winter slippers that are not at all what Mom can wear.  I think her present slippers will be okay until the early spring when the stock changes again, but I was disappointed not to be able to get what she wanted. Mom has some foot issues that require certain styles of footwear and nothing else will work for her.  Oh well...I tried.

The teeming rain made its first appearance a few minutes ago then backed off, but the sky is so filled with black clouds I know we are going to get the predicted late afternoon/overnight rain.  The clouds look like they could be snow clouds and if it wasn't as warm outside as it is right now I would be half expecting to see snow on the ground in the morning.  That is one benefit of the pandemic: being forced to stay inside for the winter will not feel like the hardship it has in the past!  The possible catching of the virus is another good reason not to go outside nuch this winter!!

My husband is at his friend's workshop staining our occasional tables.  Sometime next week he will return to varnish them and soon they will be back in the living room and I can stop using my tiny piano bench as a coffee table!  hahaha I am SO excited about this project!  I wonder what "hands on" project my husband will tackle next!!!??!  Now that the canoe project is finished and he is arranging storage for the boat, now that the tables are nearing completion, I am wondering if it is too much to hope for that tackling the "stuff" sorting and cleaning in the basement will continue uninterrupted.  Here's hoping......it is something we can do together.  We need to get all the recycleable bottles and cans out of there first and surely we will be able to do that this week sometime.  The lineups are pretty bad right now at the recycling depots, but I think if we get there 15 minutes before our nearest one opens one morning we will have a good chance of getting rid of all the cans and bottles we have right now.

Time to start making dinner....rice and hamburgers I think, along with some vegetables.  After our ghee filled Indian food yesterday it is time for something very plain and low fat tonight.

 

 

No Speeding Allowed!

After a day of running about with Mom yesterday, accomplishing more shopping in one day than she  likely ever has in her life before, a light dinner at thehotel and evening visits with all the family at their various places of residence, we managed to get ourselves home today.

 

 Wow...I decided to try that Monoton font and see what it looked like....too hard to read for a blog post! Better for advertising banners and party posters, I am thinking. So, this one is called Itim.  Much easier to read I think.

 

We woke up just after 4am today, putzed around for awhile getting packed and fed and moseyed out of the hotel at 5:30am.  We were so happy to be leaving at a more reasonable time than we usually do when on our way home from Calgary, but it was still early enough to miss the worst of the morning rush hour traffic.  What we had forgotten about was how late the sun comes up now in comparison with our last two visits there in the spring and summer!

 

The darkness would not have mattered, except that only a half hour from the hotel, after a gasoline fillup stop in Langdon, we drove into the thickest fog we have driven in for many a year!  We could barely see three yards in front of us, so it was frightening when headlights of oncoming trucks would suddenly appear right in front of us.  We crawled along, averaging about 50-60km in the 100km zone....sometimes we were going slower than that!  Eventually we reached Gleichen and pulled into the parking lot at the gas station there near the Number 1 highway.  We dozed in the car for 20 minutes or so while we waited for the sun to come up.  All we could see along our route east was more thick fog, so we hoped that some sunlight would give us a better chance of seeing through the pea souper than having to depend only on the lights of our vehicle.  While it certainly helped, it still a very slow and dangerous drive most of the way to Medicine Hat.  Our 2.5 hour trip from Calgary to the Hat took exactly 4 hours including our rest stop!  JUST CRAZY!  What a relief to finally drive out of the fog and find ourselves enjoying warm temperatures, light wind and blue, blue, beautiful skies for the rest of the journey home.

 

We arrived home and immediately unpacked and put everything away.  Neither of us likes to drag that process out when we get back, no matter how tired we both may be.  Once that is done we can both relax for the rest of the day.  Due to our early breakfast, we also had a quick Second Breakfast in the Hat...an A&W Buddy Burger...not a usual snack for either of us, but we were hungry and exhausted from the eye strain after such along drive in thick fog. A&W was open and serving up hot food, so we relaxed in the car to munch our teensy burgers before heading out again.  Our unusual level of hunger, no doubt brought on as our bodies put in bids for stress relief after the difficult drive, gave us a level of enjoyment for those silly, drippy, sauted onion filled burgers that normally we would not have experienced! hahaha  I despise thick pieces of partially cooked onions as a rule, but today they tasted fantastic!!

 

My husband's sister gifted him a bottle of Hansen's Spicy Peach Moonshine Spirits.  The first thing we did after unpacking was open it and have a taste....delicious over ice cubes and my husband is imagining pouring a wee dram over a bowl of iced cream one of these days.  It has quite a high alcohol content and a very high sugar content, so today's tiny taste will likely be the only one for me.

 

We enjoyed seeing her and her husband....nearly 9 months after our last visit in January.  We took photos of each other to email to our son who was very sad not to be able to fly in to join in the family visiting.  I think all of us will have changed significantly in his eyes since his last visit with us all in January.  His grandmother actually looks far healthier and happier than she did then, but the rest of us are looking a bit haggard and burnt out from the pandemic isolation.  Actually my husband's sister and her husband look pretty good considering the amount of health related stresses they have been dealing with over the past year.  I have to rephrase my comments:  MY HUSBAND and I are looking a bit haggard snd burnt out from the pandemic isolation!!  hahahaha

 

Tomorrow morning I will be up at 6am to head off to the 7am seniors' shopping hour at SaveOn. Then I will whip over to London Drugs or WalMart to pick up a couple of things to send to my mom that she couldn't find during our shopping trip yesterday....oh my, was it only yesterday????  It seems like a week ago all ready.  At noon my church is having a virtual Senior's Luncheon and I am looking forward to hearing the speaker, the wife of one of our associate pastors.  She is an interesting and intelligent woman and I think I will learn some things from her.

 

After that I think I will just veg for the rest of the day.  I have a couple of somewhat interesting novels on the go, so will maybe take some time to read for awhile...maybe... 

 

We sat in the car talking on the last part of our drive home today and after long discussions about our favourite movies and books, we talked about the rainstorm and fog we faced on our drive this trip.  Our conclusion is that we are getting too old to enjoy any sort of stress producing weather on road trips.  How that will play out in the way we take or don't take future opportunities for winter road trips this year and into the future will have to play out as it happens, but we certainly do not enjoy those sorts of challenges any more, that is for sure.  Our age is showing badly right now!

Today’s Meme

 ”What doesn’t kill you leaves you with a set of unhealthy coping mechanisms  and a dark sense of humour!”

A Short Reflection

i am realizing how much my geography affects my mental health. While my husband’s sister is crazy about the scenery in Saskatchewan, I still find it depressing despite having lived there for nearly 14 years. The muted, dusty colour palette  of the prairies does not lend itself to the relaxation of my mind that the more vibrant colour palette of Alberta does. The variety of scenery in Alberta is also more visually evident to me as the prairies meet rolling hills, the foothills then mountains. Why my mind finds that more appealing than the simple prettiness of the prairies, even the lovely Saskatchewan lakes areas, I don’t know. I just know that coming to Alberta gives me a better daily sense of peace than I experience at home. Don’t even get me started on the joy and serenity I feel when I am in b.c.! Lush greenery and early spring flowers....the best mental pick-me-up of all! I can’t imagine how fantastic the scenery must be in the Yukon! I know I have written similar posts in the past, but this trip I am more conscious than ever of how my surroundings affect my thoughts and moods.

So this morning I am not experiencing the computer disruptions my iPad struggled with last evening! I have been able to scroll the screen up and down properly, correct errors and complete the content of this post! Yay!

That’s DAYYYY Two!!!!!

 Aaaaaaaaargh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dat Two, All Through!

 Wow, the internet connection in this hotel is dicey. First it cut out during my post about our first day of travel, then it wouldn’t allow me to edit out the spelling errors and now it won’t permit me to change the size of this font. I thought the problems originated with my iPad, but my husband is having similar issues with his laptop. Perhaps the connection simply cannot handle two different devices using it at the same time in this room.

No matter, I will try to carry on. Day Two dawned to good weather! I arrived on time fir my early morning appointment , followed all the required pandemic safety procedures at the clinic, had my tests and was out the door all in 20 minutes. Hmmmm....more  internet issues....  SO...we did a bit of shopping here in “only one sales tax” Alberta and headed for Calgary. Had an encouraging visit with Mom. She looks fantastic and has been feeling well for the past week. She has all her dental and medical appointments underway so she can get herself looked after before winter hits. We met up with my sister-in-law and her husband back at the hotel and we enjoyed dinner and an evening visit together. Great weather all day! Yay!

I will save my personal reflections about our time in Alberta until we arrive home to a better WiFi connection.

Ok, Not Quite Done After All....sigh....

 The WiFi here cut me off, so, to finish the last post: we ambled back to our hotel for what should have been a good night’s sleep, but I was so involved in the murder mystery novel I was reading that I woke up at 2:30 am and read for two hours, teehee! Wow, the alarm ringing at 6:30am nearly sent me flying right out of bed as I was sleeping so deeply at that point.

No worries. I got dressed and went to the hotel lobby to pick up our bagged breakfasts. I can thank COVID19 for the cold fried egg sandwich....gleep! Yikes! No matter. I downed the thing in three bites and headed to the medical imaging clinic for 7:45am.

Thus began Day Two.

Day One and Done

 Yesterday’s trip to Alberta was most interesting! We were actually packed up and on the road ten minutes earlier than planned! Us! Early? A miracle! I drove us northwest to Rosetown on our way to a lunch break in Kindersley. Usually it is an uneventful and kind of monotonous 3 1/2 hour excursion, but we drove into heavy rain and whipping wind half way between the two towns. The teeming rain was so blinding, the hydroplaning so dangerous that I was tempted a couple of times to pull onto a muddy side road to wait out the storm. However, my husband looked at the sky and determined that the rain storm would not be passing any time soon, so I persevered. We parked our car fairly close to the door of the restaurant when we stopped in Kindersley and made a run for the building. I don’t think we were more than twenty steps from the p,ace, but by the time we got inside to find a table we were drenched. 

The rain had not let up much when we came back to the car after lunch, still damp and clammy. It was my husband’s turn to drive, so he spent an hour driving us onward to Oyen, where we turned north. In less than five minutes we drove out of the rain and into incredibly sunny, warm, dry conditions that remained our good fortune to enjoy for the second half of the drive to Red Deer, where the very decent Baymont hotel provided a clean, tidy room to change into dry clothes and relax fir awhile before dinner.

After so many hours of sitting in the vehicle, a full eight driving hours due to time lost while navigating the storm, we chose a Japanese style restaurant within walking distance of the hotel: four blocks mostly uphill! Good to stretch our legs and backs. The food at Shizo was overpriced but decent quality and delicious. The sesame chicken salad was my favourite: long strips of chicken on a bed of pickled diakon and carrot with a light sesame dressing. My husband’s sushi was good, but had the usual problem of being short on vinegar in the rice. It was a nice light meal after a day of sitting still.

We ambled our way 

Other Pandemic Effects Are Not So Bad

 I have been doing a lot of walking to appointments and visits the past few days.  The weather has been a bit chilly so I have had to put on a jacket for each walk, something I have rarely had to do before the end of September in years past. I have been able so far to continue to wear my sandals, so I have been very appreciative of that.  They are so very comfortable for walking. If I remember to lift my knee properly on my one "bionic" leg as I walk I have no issues with muscle pain and thus have been able to strengthen those muscles that support all the hardware before winter hits and I am confined to walking figure 8's around my tiny living/dining room area for several months.  

Midweek I was able to walk over to a friend's house for coffee and oatmeal cookies....ooh, she may be less than ambulatory at this stage in her life, but she can still hobble about her kitchen preparing delicious baked goods....sigh....to die for.  It was a most pleasant day for a walk despite a cool breeze.  The joy of Covid19 right now for me is that there is still far less traffic on the streets, even during the rush hours. I have several major avenues to cross on the way to this particular friend's home and even with the controlled intersections, it is sometimes terrifying to be a pedestrian as so many drivers here do not obey the law regarding right of way.  I wish it could always be as safe to walk to her home as it was this week.

Yesterday I had a hair appointment.  I mask, they mask, we all mask together.  There are stringent cleaning policies in place at my particular salon.  If you don't sanitize your hands on the way in you are sent back to the dispenser to do so.  I watched my particular stylist scrubbing down the salon chair, sink and countertop most vigorously before I was allowed to actually leave the foyer and enter the salon proper.  My stylist was wearing a mask and a face shield. I had to keep my mask on as well. With all the PPE we were wearing it was difficult to hear the "stream of consciousness" chatting that my stylist indulges in every time she cuts my hair.  Aaaaah..... I have to be in the mood to have someone talking AT me for 40 minutes straight and I wasn't in that sort of mood yesterday.  I smiled and nodded as if I was listening, but I actually spent the majority of my time there praying for Cee as his deceased sister's interment service was happening at the same time as my haircut.  No offense to my sweet and well meaning stylist, but it just seemed more important to be thinking about Cee and Nan and their family than about my stylist's never ending litany of complaints about her life.  Next time I will pay better attention to her, I promise.  

After my appointment I had a half hour to fill before my appointment at the eye clinic.  My new glasses arrived there yesterday morning and I was excited to be able to pick them up.

I spent the time wandering into a few ladies' wear stores: oh my goodness.  They all have minimal selection. With the severe reduction in the number of shoppers since the pandemic hit, they have all reduced their stock by what appears to be about 1/2 to 2/3 depending on the store.  I was looking for a particular type of sweater, which I eventually found and a particular type of jacket, which I most certainly didn't.  Wow....but the good thing about it is that I didn't have to hem and haw over what to buy. There wasn't enough choice for that to happen.  Either I had to pick one of maybe two style choices per item, or else not bother making a purchase.  As someone who sometimes struggles to know which of a choice of items to pick, yesterday's shopping trip was easy....and short!!

I like the fact that during the pandemic it has been necessary to make an appointment in advance at the eye clinic, no matter what you need there.  They are death on controlling the number of patients in the clinic at any one time.  It is marvellous in my opinion.  Since there are no walk ins any more for picking up new glasses or having old glasses adjusted, there is far more time for the staff to spend with each client.  When I ordered my glasses the tech spent over a half hour fitting the frames, making sure my progressive lenses would be properly centered, making extensive notes for the company that would grind the lenses and fit them to the frames, etc.   I couldn't believe it!  It certainly paid off.  When I picked up the glasses yesterday, the tech was able to have them on my face, minimal adjustments made to the lugs and get me out the door in less than 10 minutes.  They had been so well fitted and the positioning of the lenses figured out so well during the first appointment there was little of the old usual "fitting and fiddling" required when I received them. FANTASTIC!!!  The techs told me that the doctors and administrators there are seriously considering continuing with that sort of appointment schedule even after the pandemic ends because it has made the customers, doctors and techs so much happier.  Again, sanitation was extreme and excellent.  The inside front doors are actually locked, so the patient gets no farther than opening the outside doors before one of the techs comes to open the inner doors, ask if you have an appointment, ensure you are wearing a mask, squirt sanitizer onto your hands and keep you standing by the door until there is proof that a freshly cleaned tech station awaits your use..........I LOVE THIS!!!

There are a number of changes since the pandemic that I kind of like. I feel sorry for restaurant owners having to reduce so drastically the number of customers they are allowed to seat for now, but as one of the customers I LOVE IT!  The amount of privacy now for personal conversation with my husband while we eat our meal is so appreciated.  We are not bothering anyone with either our topic or voice level of conversation and no one is close enough to be bothering us.  For the most part, individual wait staff at the restaurants we have felt safe enough to go to have stepped up their level of service significantly.  There have been staff cuts, so the ratio of servers to customers has decreased significantly even in places where more wait staff could be rehired.  It has forced the remaining wait staff to work very hard to cover more tables at once than many of them have before and most of them are stepping up and doing extremely well. The level of efficiency has been way up! I pray they are getting appropriate tips for, (at least for some of them), their newfound work ethic.

Today is laundry day. Tomorrow is ironing and packing up day for our very short trip.  I am more nervous about going to AB than I have been since this whole pandemic started.  The last couple of trips have seen the number of cases there on the way down, but now they are surging forward. The surge began even before the children returned to school and is getting worse by the day. If it wasn't absolutely necessary for me to have these medical procedures right away I would be canceling our trip.  

Speaking of laundry, it is time to change the loads over again and fold the towels.  

 

At some point soon I will post the before and after photos with my old, then new glasses frames.  I love the new ones. They make me look academic...like a wise old owl. My husband hates them. hahahaha Too bad for him! teehee

Incompetence In the Time of Covid!

 Since the pandemic outbreak forced businesses of all kinds into closures, reduced hours, closed branches and employees working from home, it seems it takes twice as long to accomplish most sorts of office types of transactions, or at least it takes more than one attempt.

In the past two weeks it has taken FOUR attempts to send two small wire transfers out of the country.   I took eight weeks instead of four weeks to receive an order from a furniture store since the product had to come from stateside.  It took me two attempts instead of one to submit an insurance claim online.  Today another Do Over with an a medical insurance company occurred.  

Back in July my husband and I had dental cleanings on the same morning.  The insurance company is direct billed from this office, so that all cleared, we thought, as I was standing in the dental office that same morning, preparing to pay our portion.  Easy peasy, mission accomplished.

Not so much, as it turns out.

Today in the mail I received a bill from the dental office for the full portion of my cleaning cost, said to be in arrears as it has been well over the thirty day pay period.  I went through the paperwork I received at the time, I checked for my bank and credit card statements that proved I had paid our percentage of that cost all ready that same day.  I telephoned the dental clinic, talked to the office personnel and then drove over there to see if we could figure out what I was being billed for.  Turns out the my husband's medical insurance company had not yet paid the claim made by the dental office even though the claim had been immediately approved on the day of the dental work.  I owed less than $15 that had not been put through on the original claim. I paid that today, then the office personnel telephoned the insurance company.  After punching phone buttons over and over, sitting through one long recorded message about protecting ourselves from Covid19, and then a second recorded message with the same theme, (am I seeing a pattern here with the X2  ?), an actual employee from the insurance company came on the line.  We explained why we were calling.  The insurance company employee was working from home, so of course was using her less than adequate cell phone to take our call. The line crackled, bleeped out several times and finally we said we were unable to hear her and could she please speak up.  She didn't speak up. She hung up on us instead.  Ooooh, the woman in our office was so angry she turned red in the face.  "That woman hung up on me!!!!", she hollered.  She tried calling the insurance company again and this time received no answer, not even a recording telling her which buttons to push to get an answer.  While this was going on another person was talking to a different  woman  in the dental office and said he had not yet received a refund cheque from his insurance company for his own dental procedure last month.  Guess which insurance company?  Yup, same one as mine!!  Apparently, since the pandemic  hit, our medical insurance company is the most hated one in all of Canada.  They didn't just sent their employees home to work, they are the only company that completely closed down for several weeks in the spring, so not only are they struggling with home employees and their poor quality cell phones, they are that many weeks behind in dealing with claims.  Aiiii yiiiii.......

I am grateful that at least I did not actually owe the exorbitant amount of money it appeared I owed when the arrears notice arrived today.  The dental clinic office manager said she is going to get in touch with our insurance company, do things her own way and when it is sorted out she will call me and let me know.  It could be next week sometime, since the head office of the insurance company is located far to the east of us and, it being Friday afternoon, likely wouldn't return any of her calls today.  She assured me there will be many calls, in fact, since she is not that busy today, there will be call after call from her to them.  She said she has hit the wall with this insurance company.  My problems today and the problems of the gentleman who had not received his refund cheque are apprarently just more of the icing on a very large cake for the transactions of the past few months between our insurance company and the dental office.  

Mom too has had a horrible time at banks and other businesses.  Communication between departments is poor with so many people working from home, almost every transaction she has tried to have done in the past couple of months has required repeated appointments/phone calls just to complete one formerly very simply transaction.

I have to admit, trying to work with banks and insurance companies and delivery services has me far more spooked at this point than the stupid virus!!

Did I Mention.....

 ....the possible three months of severe winter storms predicted for our area between December and next February? 

Well, now I have.

End of paranoid rantings about the upcoming winter season.

I promise.

The Dreaded Winter Approacheth!

 Today I went for another 5-6 km walk.  Gotta go while i can!  Reading the long term weather forecast from the Old Farmer's Almanac was depressing to say the very least; mostly because we have found the yearly prediction for our region to be appallingly accurate most years. Sigh....So we are looking at likely the coldest, snowiest, iciest winter in the past 20 years here.  Poop!   The heavy snow and bone chilling cold is supposed to begin sometime between mid november and the first of december and last until the end of February with the snow continuing to fall in march.  Blaaaaaaaah!!  

 

well, the positive side of this report is that I feel far better about our son not being able to return home for Christmas than I did prior to reading the almanac!  hahahaha 

 

I had a gift to take to a shut in friend today.  I got to walk on the tree lined streets of an old neighbourhood, through the trees in the park near my place and in the absence of wind, it truly was a spectacular day to be out walking even with the smoky skies above.  It was lovely.

 

We have reached the point already during this very early arrival of autumn when a long sleeved cotton sweater isn't necessarily quite warm enough for walking out of doors, but the addtion of an unlined cotton wind breaker is just a bit too warm...sandals can still be worn on feet but it won't be long now until shoes will be necessary to keep one's tootsies from turning blue.

 

The walk and the visit of a few seconds with my very ill friend, her joy at receiving an unexpected gift, the trees on the walk, the lack of wind, discovering that sliced cold chicken with a thin slice of cheddar cheese and a leaf of lettuce is a more delicious lunch than i imagined, plus myself receiving a huge bouquet of blood red gladioli from our fellow picnic'er friends, all made for a very happy day!  I know I will sleep well tonight because of the day of joy....just like last night after yesterday's good day.  When I am able to be active, see people and talk about happy things I don't wake up at 4am fighting depression and worries.  

 

Tomorrow will also be a good day: a morning of running errands with my husband, whose sense of humour that has been missing for years seems to have been restored in the process of restoring his canoe as well, then an afternoon of distance visiting with a friend from church.  The weather forecast, should it be true, will allow me the pleasure of another good walk to her house.  The next day I have a haircut scheduled and I always feel wonderful after a hair appointment.  Then it will be time to get the laundry done again and our suitcases packed for our brief trip west.  It is wonderful to look ahead on the calendar and see plans made in advance.  YIPPEE!!! 

 

Now that the canoe restoration project is completed, my husband has his next project set to go: taking the 2 accessory tables in our living room to a friend's workshop so that my husband can sand  and restain them.  he made them for his mother years ago and they are beautiful, but in desperate need of refinishing.  We have had them back for a couple of years now and he finally feels well enough to tackle the project. I am SO excited about it.   So many small joys in the midst of the trials of living through a world wide pandemic. we are blessed indeed.

Sort of a, Kind of a Picnic?

 Our picnic'ing friends and ourselves made yet another plan to go picnic'ing today over in Candy Cane Lane.  The forecast was for sunny and +26C.  Yeah....not so much......

We woke up to greyish brown skies and a sun so covered in orange mist that it was difficult to tell if it was daylight even at 9am.  The browning grass looked very green, so with that on top of the orange sun, we knew there was smoke aloft from the Oregon fires.  That layer of smoke from the south west kept the temperature down to +17C, with a very chilly wind blowing out of the south east.

My friend called me around 9:30am to say she and her husband were heading to the gym, but that we could take another check on the weather when they were done at 11am, so I continued my picnic food preparation, just in case we could still go.

I had a blast making potato salad, frying chicken, slicing cucumber and peeling celery, making up some mayonnaise with a bit of medium heat paprika to give it a bit of a kick, slicing up the rosemary bread, plus filling small containers of olives and pickles and my husband's homemade sauerkraut.  As far as the picnic went, it was all for naught.  By the time my friend called back the weather made it clear it was a poor day to be sitting outside trying to eat.  Sigh....

My friends and I were so very disappointed.  We got talking about what kind of contacts with other people we all had recently and decided that if I opened up all our windows, we distanced ourselves and only I touched the food, it would be fairly safe to get together, so they came over for a more or less indoor picnic....I say more or less because when all the windows are open in here to provide enough ventilation, we may have been no worse off eating at a picnic table outside! hahaha  We were still rather chilly, but we had a wonderful time.  I was happy not to have to use the picnic plates and cutlery and plastic picnic pack wine glasses!  I set the table with a decent tablecloth, put out my best pottery plates made by amazing Canadian potter Jeff Martins, took the food out of the picnic containers and put it into proper serving bowls and, best of all, set out proper wine glasses! hahaha  We had a great visit and when we were done our meal our friends confessed themselves to be in need of some pastoral counselling, so we were even more happy we had not canceled our get together after all.  The good visiting and pastoral care were not scotched by the unexpectedly poor weather!

After lunch I had some mail to post, so I wandered over to the nearest postbox, close to my neighbourhood grocery store.  My shopping list for this week consisted of only 6 items and it turned out that store had all six of them in stock.  I paid a bit more, but have now saved myself an early morning wakeup call tomorrow for the Seniors Shopping Hour.  Yay!  I feel rather decadent allowing myself to sleep in and miss my "every two weeks" shopping expedition!

 

It was lovely to be able to prepare dinner tonight by opening the refrigerator and loading our plates with leftover picnic food!  The potato salad and veggie slices are gone, but there is still chicken enough for lunch and dinner again tomorrow.  We don't eat much meat at any one sitting, so a couple of chicken breasts turn into at least 2-3 meals worth of meat each.  Once we are finished eating these we will likely eat lentils or eggs for a couple of days to get protein. Taking a break from meat all together on a regular basis makes it that much more of a treat when we do eat it and we have found we don't crave meat now that we are so used to not eating it every day.

 

After dinner we had a wonderful time watching yesterday's opening Basho bouts from Tokyo.  It will be very nice to be able to only be 24 hours behind the live broadcast times for this sumo tournament.  Usuall we end up watching the whole 15 days worth of tournament a couple of weeks or more after it is all over.   About the time we finished watching it this evening, our son texted us about finally having a Zoom session together. It has been nearly two months since we have seen him onscreen and have had only a couple of brief phone calls during that time.  It was a treat to see him and his girlfriend.  They are going to email me a photo of themselves that I can blow up larger and print for my mom so she can see her grandson's wonderful new haircut and beard arrangement.  He looks pretty awesome now that he has started shaving most of his hair off.  His natural widow's peak is very pronounced and the "fuzzy cheeks and chin" actually suit him more than I ever thought they would.  His girlfriend is gorgeous as usual.  They have been feeling like an old retired couple all summer, so they are both grateful to have at least some partime work once again.

It has been a truly lovely day today.  Tomorrow I have lots of work to do around here and that will keep me busy.  Socially we have had several wonderful experiences in the past few days and I am ever so grateful for that.  I always sleep better after such times, not as much waking up in the night with my mind racing for hours before I can go back to sleep.  I am grateful for days like today!

 

  

First Indoor Dinner Guests

We had indoor dinner guests last evening for the first time since February.   Until last night only one other friend has been inside our suite and she has only been there a couple of times very briefly. It felt SO GOOD to have the company and prepare a meal for them....although my husband decided he wanted to do most all of the cooking, so all I had to do was put the dessert items in bowls and on boards.  We had a lot of fun using some of our Japanese dishes and having an evening that was so normalizing.  It may be months before we get such a safe opporunity again as we had last evening.

 

Japanese dishes and accoutrements...

...Canadian roasted veggies with olive oil and homegrown marjoram...

...plus wild West Coast salmon for a delicious fusion!

1st dessert

hummus plus hazlenut dip and irish cheddar

2nd dessert

 

 

 

 

A Day At Home

 I suppose I should have been very disappointed to miss out on being outside on this lovely, warm, sunny day, but it felt SO good to get the rest of this suite cleaned without having to rush around, that I truly didn't mind.  It will be almost as nice again tomorrow, and I may have the opportunity for a walk with my friend in the morning.

I paid good attention to my diet today. For dinner tonight I settled on a good sized piece of fish and some corn niblets.  Yum!  The fresh dill on the basa fish, (thank you Kat for the great bag of dill you gave us), made any other herb unnecessary to bring out the great taste.  Yum, yum, yum!!!

Had a good phone chat with Mom today.  I was able to tell her I faced my worst fear in regard to her facility: having to pre-book our upcoming visits by talking to the one front desk staff that scares me to death due to her running things according to her own, unique set of rules!  Today is the first time I have ever had a conversation with her that went smoothly!!  Whew!  Fear faced succuessfully. Thank you Lord! 

My husband spent part of the day working on his sermon for this weekend, part of the day shopping for good "roasting" veggies for dinner with friends tomorrow evening and part of the day working on the canoes with his buddies.  He is feeling so well these days and I am choosing NOT to wonder how long it will last this time before he crashes again.

My pastor called this evening, doing his congregational "pandemic check up call".  It was nice to have time to chat for a fairly long period of time.  Very kind of him to call someone who is not even a member.  I appreciated his interest and concern for my husband and myself.

A quiet day at home is just what I needed today.  Tomorrow it is go, go, go again and I am looking forward to it very much. One day at home putzing around with housework is enough in the course of a week! hahahaha

Warmth, Work, Walking...A Great Autumn Day!

 The best of all worlds best describes my day today!  Just glorious!!  I thought yesterday was fun, running about all day with my husband completing various errands, but today was even better for me!

 

My husband was up early this morning to drive our car to a glass venue to have the badly cracked windshield replaced on our vehicle. He was able to obtain a ride home with one of their employees so that he could Zoom into his monthly politcal meeting. While he was busy Zoom'ing, I began a thorough housecleaning! The strong and seemingly never ending winds of the past week left a thick coat of dust all over the furniture. Yesterday they began to calm down, so today seemed like a good day to start removing all the dirt they left behind in our suite.

 

I accomplished a lot, my husband really enjoyed his meeting and just after  lunch we got a call that our car repair was finished.  We decided not to take advantage of the offered ride to the glass venue.  Instead we had a lovely walk there, not quite 5.5 km.  It was a far easier walk than the 11 km I put on last week when we were walking to the Honda dealership.  

 

The sun was shining, there was only a mild breeze, the sun was full of awesome warmth...what a great day for a fairly long walk. We are so relieved we can still walk that far without needing to sit down part way. hahahaha  We are both so out of shape after various illnesses combined to keep us less mobile this summer, that we are struggling to get in some longer walks like these ones before the winter snow and ice prevent us from taking any walks at all! 

 

After three sessions over two days of tussling with my bank, the wire transfer I tried to send last Friday finally went through today!!!  It arrived just in time for the beneficiary...talk about cutting things close.  I understand now what the bank didn't understand and I think they have FINALLY accepted that I DO know what I am talking about when I explain to them how this particularly odd receiving bank uses its information on the wire transfer forms. Aaaargh!!  It isn't actually difficult...if it was I would be the one who wouldn't understand what to do!!  Anyway, after a lot of stress the transaction has been accomplished. What a load off my shoulders!

 

My husband wanted to treat me extra sweetly yesterday in the midst of all the confusion and stress so he took me for Indian food at lunch time. As usual there were enough leftovers to eat for dinner last night as well, teehee.

 

The picnic, and the lunch we were supposed to be providing for it tomorrow had to be canceled.  One of our friends fell in her stairwell a couple of days ago and badly bruised a few ribs. Sitting on an uncomfortable picnic table bench when merely breathing or moving causes stabbing pains didn't sound like fun to our friend and we concurred!!  Perhaps next week or the one after if the weather remains this pleasant, we will still have an opporunity to picnic.  So, I have all day tomorrow to take my time doing a thorough job on the remaining housework.

 

The following day my good friend is coming for a decent visiting time and perhaps a walk!  O how I am looking forward to that. Then I will spend the afternoon cooking alongside my husband for out of town company coming for dinner that night: roasted Atlantic wild salmon, oven roasted veggies, home made borscht, salads, and a charcuterie board filled with cheeses and pickles and various types of crackers to end the feast.  Of course all this will be accompanied by excellent wine.  We haven't seen these friends for some time and o how we are looking forward to the visit!

 

Other than the stress over the wire transfer, this has been an excellent week.  I have had a couple of opportunities to connect in person with the neighbours right next door. That has been a long time coming and I hope it can happen more regularly.  The historical dysfunctions between our two cultures has been a huge stumbling block, so our neighbours are good at protecting themselves from possible prejudice from my husband and Iby ignoring us completely.  I pray we can continue to break down the walls and make for a more easy peace between us. Sharing our "crop" of herbs and vegetables from the pots on our deck certainly opened the doors for some conversation at last.

Every Grammar Mistake...I Make Them All! Guilty...Insufficient Energy To Be Bothered Any More......

 I recognize that I am no longer writing using proper grammar.  I feel old and lazy. I admit it.  I have ceased to care about how correct my grammar may or may not be. I admit it....

At least all the mistakes can be pointed out using some humour:

An Oxford comma walks into a bar, where it spends the evening watching the television, getting drunk, and smoking cigars.

• A dangling participle walks into a bar. Enjoying a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, the evening passes pleasantly.

• A bar was walked into by the passive voice.

• An oxymoron walked into a bar, and the silence was deafening.

• Two quotation marks walk into a “bar.”

• A malapropism walks into a bar, looking for all intensive purposes like a wolf in cheap clothing, muttering epitaphs and casting dispersions on his magnificent other, who takes him for granite.

• Hyperbole totally rips into this insane bar and absolutely destroys everything.

• A question mark walks into a bar?

• A non sequitur walks into a bar. In a strong wind, even turkeys can fly.

• Papyrus and Comic Sans walk into a bar. The bartender says, "Get out -- we don't serve your type."

• A mixed metaphor walks into a bar, seeing the handwriting on the wall but hoping to nip it in the bud.

• A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.

• Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They converse. They depart.

• A synonym strolls into a tavern.

• At the end of the day, a cliché walks into a bar -- fresh as a daisy, cute as a button, and sharp as a tack.

• A run-on sentence walks into a bar it starts flirting. With a cute little sentence fragment.

• Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapses to the bar floor.

• A figure of speech literally walks into a bar and ends up getting figuratively hammered.

• An allusion walks into a bar, despite the fact that alcohol is its Achilles heel.

• The subjunctive would have walked into a bar, had it only known.

• A misplaced modifier walks into a bar owned by a man with a glass eye named Ralph.

• The past, present, and future walked into a bar. It was tense.

• A dyslexic walks into a bra.

• A verb walks into a bar, sees a beautiful noun, and suggests they conjugate. The noun declines.

• A simile walks into a bar, as parched as a desert.

• A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to forget.

• A hyphenated word and a non-hyphenated word walk into a bar and the bartender nearly chokes on the irony

- Jill Thomas Doyle