Foggy Dew And Diet Cola...Which Is Worse??

We had an hour's drive out of town this morning to attend the installation of a new priest for one of our former congregations.  There is warm air aloft as a new, kinder sort of weather system tries to move in. That meant a bit of a slow drive along the highway in thick fog.  Why so many drivers of  cars around here drive through fog that impairs  visibility without using their tail lights is beyond us.  It was extremely dangerous in the thickest patches of fog when a car would pass us already going too fast, then disappear only 50-60 feet in front of us, becoming completely invisible to us.  All we could do was try to peer through the gloom and pray that no one ahead of us in our lane was either stopped or going so slowly that we had to try to get around them as they wouldn't be able to be seen until the last second.  Eek!  I am so very grateful my husband volunteered to drive while I played look out.  While it was still foggy on the way home early this afternoon, at least the fog was well above ground level and it was quite easy to see all the surrounding traffic.  Remnants of two, two vehicle accidents along the highway proved us right to have been cautious on the drive.

I have been experimenting with various sorts of food and drink over the past six weeks to try to pin down what is giving me a scratchy, phlegm filled throat every time I consume it.  Over this past week I have finally discovered a growing negative reaction to diet cola....the only drink other than water that I can have, for one medical reason and another.....so, I guess now if I eat out somewhere I will be drinking water only, the same as at home. Sigh....yes, I know diet colas have their own issues as far as being less than healthy to drink, but when I can't have tea or coffee or juice or hot chocolate and "flavoured" carbonated waters make me nauseous, I am kind of out of options for variety.  Dang it....oh well....it is really good to know what has been causing this ever since a few weeks before we went to NYC in August.  I only drink diet cola when we eat out, never at home, so at least I don't have a cupboard full of the stuff I would have to get rid of to avoid temptation or have to waste product.

The sky has been dreary now for almost a week.  I will be glad when the sunshine arrives a couple of days from now, along with warmer day time high temperatures. I don't care that as of tomorrow night the over night temperatures will be consistently below zero finally, as long as the predicted day time highs of between +6C and +10C happen.  Here's to a lifting of the fog and dark clouds for at least a few more days before serious winter weather occurs. 

The Bad, Sadly, With The Good

 I tend to think of life as a series of balances and counterbalances, good and evil, clarity and confusion,  joy and sorrow, and any other opposites you can think of that apply to life in general, all working for and against each other, leaving us in a constant state of flux. We certainly experienced that  emotionally today late in the afternoon when some bad news from friends arrived in our Inbox to counterbalance the wonderful good news we had this morning.

We went for a wind blown 3km walk this afternoon so my husband could get his new glasses. It seemed like a lovely way to cap off our earlier good news day.

However when we arrived home we received messages from two different women we are very close to, letting us know their husbands are both heading off to various labs and hospitals for medical testing for situations that on first thought don't seem particularly positive.  One fellow is needing testing for some ongoing symptoms and the other has already been tested, only to be told he has "spots", possible lesions, on his liver after several miserable years of intense treatments and scary drug injections to control his skin cancer.   We are rather upset to say the least.  These couples have been dear friends for several decades and as we all are reaching "that age" where longer term medical "stuff" begins to happen, we are all examining our mortality more closely.  Sheesh...we just returned from seeing a handful of friends in AB who are, like us, also showing signs of advancing age.  Here we go, heading into this final phase of life.  It is quite a feeling!

A Good News (We Think Anyway) Kind Of Day Thus Far!

This morning as I was brushing my teeth I began to wonder how much longer I should wait to hear from the surgeon's office about setting up a pre-op consultation.  I hate pestering the office manager about these things, but then I thought maybe I should just let her know we are back from our trip and she can now reach me on both phone numbers again once the schedule for November is being set up, but then I thought maybe I could wait a couple of more days, or even into next week just in case she called me as we had agreed upon originally....but THEN I was overwhelmed with a feeling that I should put my toothbrush down and make the call IMMEDIATELY!  It was such a strong feeling that I did just that.

Sputtering toothpaste foam all over the phone as I dialed in, I managed to clear my mouth of toothpaste sufficiently to speak coherently when the office manager answered.  I explained who I was and that I was back in Regina so could now be reached on our landline as well as my mobile.  The manager told me she was glad I was back and that she could actually book my pre-op consult right then and there.  A few seconds later I was off the phone and now I am very excited that I have an appointment the second week of November!  YIPPEE!!!!  AND since all his afternoon appointments at the usual space in the cast clinic at the hospital are booked up until the end of the year, she has made an appointment for me to see him for an early morning appointment in his own office instead. Glory be and Hallelujah and Yippee and Wahoo and all other expressions of happy excitement.

Thank you friends and prayer partners who have been praying with me about this since this past summer. It is is delightful news. I am so grateful.

In other HOPEFULLY, POSSIBLY, EXPECTING IT TO BE good news:  our son had his final huge interview for his card this morning. The woman who interviewed him was very kind and told him she wants to approve his card for certain, BUT the one glitch...of course there is always one of those in bureaucratic dealings isn't there.....is that he has a special government issued permission to have overstayed the end of his last visa and required a special letter from his immigration lawyer confirming the validity of his current status in their country.  That he has, but now of course the supervisor of the interviewer has to see this documentation and give final approval. Sigh....there is always SOMETHING ELSE isn't there? So my stressed out son and his wife are once again sweating it out, with my son trying to trust God for the outcome but struggling because he is human like the rest of us and can't help wondering what God is really going to do.  

He is most grateful for our little band of prayer warriors in THIS country and Mama Bear here is equally grateful for all the support our family has received over the years from all of you. Bless you "real good"! 

 

 

SLOOOOOOOWWWWLY Goes the Refrigerator Replacement, Hohoho!!

 In honour of the Cherry Cream Soda font I MUST use pink for this post!!

The saga of getting another fridge continues.  By 1pm today we realized we likely were not going to hear from the refrigeration technician, so my husband hiked across the parking lot to the office to ask what was going on.  As we suspected, the employee from the management company struggled with his English comprehension and didn't understand why we still had food in the refrigerator portion of the unit if it wasn't working, didn't realize that my husband was NOT telling him that unit was still working and didn't understand why there was over twenty dollars worth of ice slabs in plastic bins in there keeping the food sufficiently cold as to keep it all from being wasted.  He apparently told the tech that our fridge was still working so there was no rush on the order.  Sigh....why are we not surprised. Even the staff for whom English IS their first language don't seem to comprehend what we are telling them a good deal of the time. hahaha

So the office staff worker called the warehouse to see if there are any fridges in stock that are in working order. She finally got a response around 4:30pm and the response is there is a fridge and the tech will try to get it to us sometime tomorrow.  In the meantime we had to purchase another ten dollars worth of ice ($31 and counting...) after dinner tonight to get our food through safely until tomorrow until hopefully at least noon. The office staff worker begins her shift at 10:30am and will call to let us know, if she can find out that is, when the tech and the fridge will be arriving.

Unfortunately my husband has an eye appointment at 11am and will be leaving at 10:30am to be there on time. So, he will have to leave me to deal with this call, or with the tech should he arrive before or without said call. Tomorrow will mark my third day in a row of having to stay home all day waiting for assistance with the fridge.  Sigh.....I was really looking forward to going to his appointment with my husband so I could look longingly at all the expensive eye glass frames while he is in with the doctor and start thinking about what kind of frame I want to purchase after my own annual eye examination later this fall.  After accidentally sitting on my present very delicate frames that I've had only one year, they were so bent and took so much work for the frame techs to straighten out, it is unlikely I will be able to put new lenses into them safely ever again.  At present one of the original lenses is remaining in place "just kinda barely", so....guess it will be an expensive experience since I only get coverage for frames once every two years and then only if my prescription changes, which I suspect it may this time. Whatever....eyes are so important, so they are worth spending money on.

Tonight we had a wonderful time.  We met a now retired former colleague of my husband's and she treated us to a meal at DarBar.  Yum, yum! I decided to have a simpler meal tonight so ordered off the appetizer list: a chana curry with fried bread....basically a fluffy puffed up pillow of thin bread dough that was able to be dipped into their home made tamarind sauce...to die for....and then one of the best green salads I have ever had there, plus a helping of raita.  Gosh, it was a full meal even without eating both rounds of fried bread.  It was unexpectedly delicious...not a great fan of chana as a rule...and I was not expecting that amount of food from the Appetizer list. WOW!  I will order that again.

The conversation was wonderful and contrary to the last time we saw our friend, her face is smoothed of all the "worry wrinkles" from her last position in her career, she has lost weight; she looked so happy after her first year of retirement. She was cheerful and talkative.  Gosh, it was a wonderful time together.  We all look forward to getting together once again.  ( have been trying to think about what else it was that was different about her this time and it just struck me that this is the first time I have seen her without her clergy collar. She was completely clad in "civilian dress" and I can't believe how different she looks.  Incredible.)

Although it is well before 11pm I am more tired than usual tonight so am going to get to bed right away.  I think the stress over the mix up with the fridge has gotten to me, plus being stuck inside for 3 days in a row has precluded going for any long walks, so I am craving exercise.  Maybe tomorrow after the ruddy fridge arrives?  Stay tuned to the never ending saga of refrigeration!  

My Dear, Dear GP

Yesterday I received a call from my medical clinic that my GP wanted to see me about my x-ray results from x-rays of my hip that I had over two weeks ago.  Since the x-rays had already been sent to and received by my orthopaedic surgeon the day after they were taken, I wondered if my GP wanted to talk to me about the ever worsening arthritis in my sacroiliac joints. Did she see something worse in those x-rays than what I understood from reading the tech's interpretation of the x-ray in my online health account??  I wasn't worried particularly, but I was certainly curious.  hahahaha....Oooooh, my dear muddled GP.  Not surprisingly, at least to me, she wanted to see me to tell me that the worsening arthritis has reached the point where surgery on my other hip is likely necessary and she would forward the x-rays to my surgeon.  I giggled to myself...par for the course, this.  Before I could tell her that the surgeon already had them and I was awaiting a call for a pre-surgical consult, she suddenly said, "Oh....he already has them. They were forwarded automatically to him for some reason. Oh....the reason is that I had arranged for that to happen on your requisition form. Oh......".  She shook her head, looked very confused, asked me if there was anything else she could do for me, so I asked her what initial steps I should take to help slow down the arthritis at the base of my spine.....I knew already, but didn't want her to feel she had wasted her own appointment time on a very busy day in the clinic.  She told me the expected answers, I thanked her for calling me to come in, which made her look all the more confused, I said farewell and chuckled all the way home....6 blocks sans cane, I'll have you know.  hahahahaha SO CUTE IS THIS WOMAN!!!  She always figures things out eventually, but sometimes it takes time. hahaha.  Gotta love her.

In other health related news, it looks as though my husband's new statin is starting to give him headaches each morning, very similar to the ones he had with the last family of statins that he was finally taken off of a couple of months ago. Sigh....if that turns out to be the case after a bit more experimenting over the next two weeks, well, here we will go again!  Yikes!

This morning there was frost on the windshield of the car that required scraping, the temperature was +2C with a windchill of -7C. BRRRRRR...my first coat wearing expedition of the fall season...coat as in light parka! I got to the bank and picked up groceries before picking up my coffee buddy at 9:15am, we opted to go for coffee instead of sitting in the cold out in the park and we paid over seven dollars each for approximately 2/3 of a full cup of coffee in our "stay inside" mugs so next time I will ask for a take out cup, fielded several phone calls and enjoyed a quick drop in visit from a great friend immediately prior to lunch, did the doctor thang, got some chores done at home and took my husband out to DarBar for supper....HIS suggestion so I was certainly not going to refuse, then ended the day with two hours in a row of tv programmes.  It has been a good day.

Success!!

 I am most grateful to have finally been able to walk around the lake again this morning with my walking partner after a two year hip issue hiatus! It is only about 2.2 to 2.6 miles depending on which path we choose. Easy peasy now after my month of longer distance walks, so it is great news for me. As the operated leg continues to strengthen I will be in better condition to recover from the next surgery on the other hip, so I am thrilled. 

I’ll Have A Plate Of Salt With A Side Of Burger 🍔 and Fries 🍟 Please!

 Around dinner time our son texted that he had completed his day of working from home due to his cold and was crawling directly into bed in order to conserve his flagging energy for moving his studio tomorrow since he has no choice but to have everything out of his old studio by noon. Thank the dear Lord my husband will be there to help him! Now I am praying 🙏🏻that my husband 👴🏻 will not catch our son’s cold! 🤧

We both felt kind of mogey this afternoon, (interpret mogey [hard G] in light of whatever word you use when you are feeling a tad tired, 🥱 somewhat unmotivated, and bordering on crabby 😠 because you are tired of sitting around reading but don’t have any idea what else you want to do), but eventually we decided to take a wander a few blocks east of our place to walk for a bit on the path beside the East River and try to locate the ferry terminal in case we want to take a short cruise up and down one of these fine days. It was lovely looking out across the river into Brooklyn and watching the NYC ferry delivering its rush hour passengers to various stopping places. If we want to sometime we could take the 8 minute ferry ride to Stuyvesant Cove terminal a few blocks east of our son’s apartment complex. We will try to accomplish that apart from the rush hour crowds. 

We were ravenous by this time so we stopped at a river side restaurant called Hole In The Wall. Contrary to the image that name conjures up for me, the interior was light and bright with a high ceiling that absorbs the music 🎶 playing over the sound system. There was a good mix of ages and styles among the customers and I FINALLY had a chance to see the elegant new fashions worn by the young up and coming professional crowd. They are what I think of when I think of New York fashion. Thus far most of the people we have seen don’t dress that much differently than ourselves to go out shopping 🛒 or dog walking or taking the kids to the park during the day…you know, not poorly dressed, but kind of schleppy. It was fun watching the older 20 somethings in their fancier dresses and heels, suits and ties, perfect makeup and hair. They remind me of myself and my colleagues from a few centuries ago when I had a career and money enough to look good all the time. I hope all these young people are enjoying and appreciating their good fortune. 

The menu at the restaurant consisted of a couple of pastas, two salads, four burger choices, a handful of appetizers and about six pages of drink choices, haha. My simple smash burger had more flavour in the beef than any burger I have had here to date and that is because it was also the saltiest burger I have had to date! Hahaha There were four rounds of sweet pickles on the burger…more salt. There were slightly sautéed and extra salty onion slices on the burger. The fries were perfectly cooked and completely covered in sea salt. Salt abounded in both our meals. Salt, salt, salt! The place is an Ode To Salt! Oh yes, my husband’s burger had two strips of SALTY bacon! (and the cook had heated them to crispy blackness in a microwave no less! hahaha 😂) 

Salt 🧂 🧂 🧂 Salt! And again I say SALT! 🧂 

We are currently back in our suite after a beautiful long walk home past the gorgeous gold domed St. Vartan Armenian Apostolic Cathedral and its beautiful gardens across the street from the building, pickle ball courts and a soccer field…trees! 🌳 Flowers! 💐 It was a lovely walk👩‍🦯 home. 

It was really fun to walk along the river path and see the ferries ⛴️ operating. A big tugboat passed by at one point pushing a huge rusting old scow. We have been only vaguely conscious of our proximity to the river until this afternoon. Must remedy that in the coming days! 

I apologize for these ever changing font sizes. Trying to correct them after the fact is too complicated and sometimes it doesn’t even happen until I press Publish…so please bear with me, thank you.  If it is bothering you go make yourself a margarita and SALT the rim! Hahaha….

So Why Is It…..

 …..I have only walked to church at home a couple of times this past spring and summer, a distance of 2.2km and it has seemed like too far to manage, but here I can easily walk to the kids’ apartment, a distance of 3.2km? If I rest at their place for an hour I can walk back again to the apt. Yes, it is tiring because I am so out of shape, but mentally it feels completely doable whereas at home the mere consideration of walking to church or downtown like I did pre-surgery seems too much to bear both mentally and physically. Was I so depressed at home that I was hindered from a proper level of activity? I am going to have to keep up this momentum after I get home! Please Lord, help me find the inspiration needed to start walking once again on those same, boring streets without copping out via some kind of flimsy excuse! Amen! 

Oh Frick!

 We received a nice surprise this morning! Our son had the morning off so he wondered if he could accompany us to the Frick Museum. Of course we said he could. Since he is extremely familiar with the collection, having worked there several times in the last couple of years lighting various exhibitions, he knew exactly which salons we would enjoy the most. What a joy to see works by Rembrandt and Turner, Veronese, Goya, Hals…..the list goes on. It was a delight for all of us to see our favourite painting: Saint Francis in Ecstasy (Saint Francis in the Desert) by Giovanni Bellini! It was painted around 1475-1480. The painting contains a fair amount of symbolism that my husband enjoys. It was amazing to see the actual painting!! There are rooms filled with oriental porcelain and small bronzes, as well as some incredible medieval works from between the 13th and 15th centuries. The colours of the medieval works are still vibrant: reds and oranges in the Italian works and blues and green favoured by the German painters.

Unfortunately the pigments used by artists in the time of Rembrandt, as well as the use of so much linseed oil, are blackening. Details in many of the paintings of that era are disappearing, fading away to black. The fading colours are called Fugitive Pigments and it is a shame their green, blue and brown vibrancy does not last forever the way the bright medieval pigments seem to. Grateful we saw some of these famous works before the remaining background details blacken into obscurity.

After a delightful couple of hours there admiring the paintings and the lovely fountain featured in the inner courtyard, it was time for lunch. Even though our son has often worked at the Frick he has never eaten a restaurant meal in this most exclusive and expensive area of the entire city. So, he contacted his wife’s aunt who lives in a penthouse only blocks away from the Frick. She suggested the Leo Cafe at the nearby Asia Society Museum. Tucked away at 725 Park Avenue we nearly missed the unassuming looking building. The cafe there was perfect for us: clean, quiet due to a small number of customers, and a short but comprehensive menu. My son had a flank steak sandwich on ciabatta bread with spicy chips,  my husband enjoyed a salmon bowl with a large piece of salmon on a bed of quinoa and assorted cold vegetables, while I had a chicken salad: six large slices of chicken on a bed of shredded curly cabbage, mixed greens, dried shiitake mushrooms, green onions, diced fresh pears and a large amount of slivered papaya. Oh wow, we really enjoyed the clean restaurant, attentive staff, muted sunlight, surrounding greenery, small number of customers and most delicious foods at an incredibly reasonable price. The quiet ambiance was conducive to family visiting before our son had to get back to his studio to continue packing for the move that will now happen early next week….giving us an unexpectedly free day tomorrow to do something on our own that neither of the kids would enjoy. Maybe a ferry ride over to  Staten Island for the day? Could be raining by late afternoon so if we can get ourselves moving in the morning we could get to the Island in time for lunch at Blue, then home before the rain falls. Think I will suggest that to my husband. 

On our way home this afternoon we stopped in at a museum only a block from home: American Kennel Club’s Museum of the Dog. We knew nothing about it and had low expectations, but it was the most fun we have had at such a cute place in ever so long. The walls on the ground floor are set up like a portrait gallery for dogs of any and all breeds. Some of the artists are gifted at realistically capturing the various expressions on their poochy subjects’ faces and the fluid motions of their muscles when walking or running.  There was a large ceramics collection, antique dog collars and leashes,  an interactive video where you can play at being a professional dog trainer, interactive dog recognition and breed histories challenges, a wall covered in drawings and paragraphs about their own dogs written by elementary school children, amazing full sized bronzes and heavy ceramics of several breeds…two full sized ceramic replicas of Dalmatian spotted Great Danes immediately caught my attention. On the top of the three floors of exhibits was an art contest: 20 works of art and photography created by local dog lovers. We were each given a ballot when we paid the entry fee and chose our most favourite from among the twenty. That was fun. I loved a small bronze of a dog carrying a large stick in its jaws, running toward someone with the obvious intent of wanting to play Fetch! It was titled, “Favourite Stick”. My husband voted for a black and white headshot of a rescue bulldog cuddling up head to head with its new owner and it was captioned, “You Chose Me!”  We each took a self photo that was then matched to what breed of dog each of us most resembled. I have done this before several times over the years, in various places. As always I was matched with a bulldog, but my husband turned his head just as his photo was being taken, so he matched with a bulldog as well and I didn’t feel so badly, hahaha. The biggest joy for me was discovering oversized AKC tee shirts for sale in the gift shop! Now I have the extra item of sleepwear I have been needing for the rest of the trip! YES!  👏 

In a couple of hours it will be time for dinner. I would like to return to the sushi shop we went to last week, but am guessing my tired husband will prefer to remain here and finish up the last tomato 🍅 and remaining strips of skinny bacon 🥓 for sandwiches. We shall see whose views win out tonight! Hohoho!

We have finally opened all the windows to try to rid this suite of the disgusting deodorizer that has been making me ill since we arrived. Tonight I will try sleeping on the living room sofa with all three windows open and see if it helps rid me of the overnight congestion. Here’s hoping….

The Benefits Of Getting Lost!

 We managed to find our way yesterday around the bus and subway systems to meet Aunty J for a tasty lunch at L’Ami Pierre….tasty Caesar salad and baguette chicken and brie sandwiches. We arrived a few minutes before she did, so sat on a bench outside people watching. The noon hour brought out hordes of younger up and coming business men dressed nearly identically in shirts of white or pale blue and dark navy suit pants and jackets, brown shoes. I guess individuality in suit and shirt colour is not encouraged here. It was most interesting watching this blue suited army. The women tended more toward blacks and greys, their feet shod in dark coloured flats with at least some variety of styles.

After lunch we headed to the Museum of Modern Art where we enjoyed looking at the small exhibition of older Diego Rivera sketches and coloured drawings and paintings. Many of his works paid tribute of course to Frida Kahlo, fellow artist and romantic partner. I had forgotten that she died at the age of 47. The humour Rivera injected into his small drawings about man vs the machine was amusing while still making his point. One large painting paid tribute to those who overthrew dictator Diaz during the 1910 Mexican revolution. Apparently it lasted until 1917 and it took another three years for the country to stabilize. After the Rivera exhibition we stopped at an expansive exhibition of works by Marcel DuChamps. I had seen most of his newer paintings and modern sculptures such as his “Fountain” urinal collection, but what I had not seen before were his earlier published cartoons. They are hilarious! After we saw these two exhibits we sat for an hour outside in the lovely sculpture garden sipping proper iced tea (cold tea with ice cubes, no sugar) and chatting. It was a lovely afternoon.

At 4:30pm as we were leaving the MoMA my husband told me we were within walking distance of Barnes and Noble in case I wanted to pick up a couple of books to take to the cabin this weekend. It would save us having to get up early this morning to race off to the Strand bookshop. Seemed like a good idea at the time, so we confidently headed to 5th Avenue. 

Here we made our first mistake. My husband, the intrepid mountaineer path finder was looking at the street map on his phone and for some reason became directionally challenged. Instead of walking toward the Barnes and Noble outlet we were ten blocks away from starting point before he realized we were walking in the opposite direction! Groan…..we were going to have to retrace the same ten blocks, then start our hike to Barnes and Noble all over again. Nooooo….after two hours of walking, sauntering and standing at MoMA my hips were already tired. Oh well….

There were some lovely surprises though due to our misdirection. We came upon St. Thomas Church which my husband has been hoping to view since his first trip to NYC in 2018, we passed by the famous Plaza Hotel, fronted by gorgeous Pulitzer Fountain, the huge bronzed statue of General Sherman, and lo and behold, a street-side pop up from Strand Bookshop! Oh wow, how cool! Right there in plain sight was the Emily Wilson translation of the Odyssey that J recommended only an hour earlier. I snapped it up! Finding the Strand street side meant we wouldn’t have to go to Barnes and Noble, so could retrace the ten block error and head to the subway station to catch the train that would take us home.

Along that part of the route I realized how exhausted I was getting, but walking along beside the south end of Central Park was a gorgeous visual distraction. Until……hey, wait a minute…to get to the subway we should have turned away from the park at the exact point of having retraced our ten block mistake! Wha? My sheepish husband rechecked the route on his map and realized he had made the same mistake in orientating us to the route on the map. This time we were “only” six blocks out of harmony, but oooh my, such long blocks! Another retracing of our steps to our original starting point, we covered the four block walk to the subway, finally arriving to catch an immediate train as I was about to collapse from exhaustion. (Please note, I was also very ill with the respiratory reaction to sleeping with the AC on overnight three nights in a row.) I must have looked pretty ill by then because two women on the rush hour jammed train cleared seats for me to sit down. Fortunately when we disembarked we were only three blocks from home. I staggered into our suite, dropping my cane into the middle of the living room floor and collapsed on the sofa. By this time it was over six hours since I had eaten and after so much exercise my blood sugar was too low. My sweetly penitent husband, feeling humiliated by his route mistakes, made me a sandwich, forfeited his last slice of Japanese green tea cake roll to me and pampered me like crazy. The poor guy was so upset, I felt badly for him. There were so many nice surprises by us taking incorrect routes that there was no reason to be upset.

We were both in bed with the lights out by 8:45pm and we didn’t get up and going until 7:30 this morning. It is about 10:30 am now and I have made a trip to the nearest pharmacy a couple of blocks away for a small jar of my favourite respiratory healer: Vick’s VapoRub, at my husband’s insistence. Now I am at home resting while he makes a long loop to a few organic markets and  a computer store for a new mouse. He forgot to bring his and that is why we had so much trouble completing our government forms. Using the little roll pad on the laptop was frustrating and slow. It is nice to now be familiar enough with our neighbourhood to each be able to get out on our own. 

This morning our son is picking up the car from an in-law that we are borrowing for our trip to the cabin tomorrow. Once he finds a place to park it near his home he will come here for lunch and an afternoon visit. We may go to the Morgan, or I will send the guys on their own. I want to be as healed as possible before we go upstate tomorrow.

Yesterday was the hottest day yet at only +31C and today is a lovely +27C, with rain possible tonight and tomorrow. Love this weather. It is cooler than usual for August in NYC, but perfect for us.

Well, Dang It! This Is Not Good…..

For some reason I forgot that I cannot sleep all night with the air conditioning blowing even slightly in the bedroom. That is why it was on all night for the first three nights of our vacation, and that is why I had to trundle a couple of blocks yesterday to Duane Reade Walgreens to get a camphor stick inhalant and an inhaler with very strong meds to start clearing my sinuses. Aiiii yiiiii….I am having a very bad reaction to the A/C. The medication in this OTC inhaler is much stronger than any of the permitted OTC inhalers I can purchase in Canada….thankfully. It is working well, but this morning my voice is gone and I am coughing. This is my typical A/C reaction….sigh. Constantly draining sinuses makes for a miserable time.

I don’t know how well our plans for today are going to work out but I will try to plough through them. I don’t feel ill, but not sure of the wisdom of pushing myself. It isn’t even 7am, so I have time to fully wake up and assess. Gosh, we are supposed to be heading upstate in a couple of days to the rental cabin….praying I can be well enough to go as the kids are footing the bill and I don’t want to be responsible for ruining everything. Would my praying family and friends be willing to pray with me about this? Thanks so much.

Maman's Update

My friend has returned home after leaving her dear Maman in the capable hands of another sibling. Her reports are very positive and she is happy to share them with such faithful prayer warriors.

Maman continues to become stronger each day.  She is positive in outlook and is preparing for the TAVI team to get together to prepare for her aortic valve replacement sometime in the next few months. Fortunately that is not an emergency surgery that must be done immediately, so there will be time to get the proper TAVI team in place ahead of time.  For a woman who died twice in the ER when she initially arrived at the hospital she has come along way. As I told my friend, "An amazing woman has received an amazing piece of medical technology."  Thanks again for your prayers. When it is time for the aortic valve replacement I will be soliciting your prayers once again. Bless you all.

Why O Why Did I Bother To Ask???? Hahahaha....

We were "up 'n' at 'em" by 8am today; breakfasted and dressed and ready to go by 9am.  We wanted to get to our nearest post office branch before it got busy and we were successful in that.  It took just over five minutes to arrange for our mail to be held while we are away and then we were on our way home again.  

The plumbers are supposed to come today to suss out our leakage issues but we knew they likely wouldn't get here until later in the day. So at nearly 3pm we are still waiting, but that is just fine.  It is highly likely they got held up on another job, so if they don't get here today they will be here tomorrow and one of us should be home most all day to explain the problem to them.  Who knows when arrangements will be made for the issue to actually be repaired, right?  We know from our years in construction how the best laid plans in the trades can come apart within seconds, leaving the next customer waiting longer than arranged for originally. That is just how it goes sometimes.

Once we arrived home from the post office my husband headed over to our friends' house to complete the building of canoe racks for their and our canoes, so I stupidly asked myself, "Hmmm, I wasn't expecting to be done with the post office this early so what shall I do for the rest of today?"  Dumb, dumb, dumb.....I barely got the question asked when things began to happen.  I realized it was time to put a load of my husband's clothes into the laundry and some of it needed stain spray...that man never remembers to put on his chef's sized apron when he is stir frying with hot, spattering oil.....and I wanted to get that finished before the plumbers might arrive and have to turn off the main water valve.  Just got that in when my next door neighbour arrived with a giant tote bag filled with more bags of rice and rolled oats that, when added to what she has already brought us since the end of June, could combine to feed a lumber camp crew for an entire summer.  In the top of the bag were two large bunches of carrots and a giant head of broccoli, both veggies needing immediate attention.  So, I spent the next hour cutting off carrot tops and peeling and bagging them for my husband to make soup out of, perhaps tomorrow.  Then I chopped the heavy, tough stem off the head of broccoli, removed a section for our dinner tonight then cut the rest of it into somewhat smaller pieces, blanched the whole works, cooled all the pieces and bagged them for the freezer.  Originally I had hoped to have the freezer and most of the refrigerator free of any food items before we left town, but that isn't going to happen, so all we can do is pray our refrigerator, poor ancient scratched stained ugly old thing that it is, doesn't break down while we are gone. So thankful our friend is checking in several times a week to water plants and check things like basement flooding and dead refrigerators. God bless her!!  

After lunch I got the load of clothes dried and sorted, but I think I will wait and iron them tomorrow.  For some reason our lunch preparations resulted in more than the usual amount of dirty dishes, so I spent a fair bit of time tidying up the kitchen and washing plates and glasses and bowls and pots and and and and....

Now as I write this I am waiting for my son to call in regard to some mutual banking arrangements we need to make together in regard to our trip.  Those arrangements will dictate how I spend the rest of the next ten days in preparing to go. 

Tomorrow morning if I am looking at a chunk of free time after I iron the laundry I washed today I think I will just keep my questions about further chores for the day to myself!  Hohoho!!! I certainly can't whine today about not getting enough exercise.  I have lost count of how many times I have been up and down both flights of stairs and how long I spent standing in the kitchen doing various chores.  

That part is ALL good!!!  My hip muscles on the operated leg are finally beginning to strengthen up to cover up the fact that the tendon has not returned to full operation.  YAY!  I thought I was done with all of the healing and restoration process, but no!  That 18 month time frame for complete or nearly complete healing is still in effect for me for the next 5 months apparently. I am delighted and relieved as I see the limp finally beginning to lessen even when I am walking farther than usual without my cane.  Thank you God.

Maman Is One Tough Cookie!

 Today, 93 year old Maman is going home! She will be able to have the valve replacement in a few months, so that is great news. Maman is a journalist and along with being able to walk and eat properly again, she has also begun writing up the details of her brush with death.  My friend is amazed by how well she is doing and is grateful for such positively answered prayers.  I am very happy for all of them. ⛪️

We had our first lower atmosphere forest fire smoke overnight, so this morning my eyelids are swollen and my lungs feel irritated. What a blessing that we made it through June and July with only a few overnight hours of higher altitude smoke that didn’t even rate a Smoke Warning from the weather forecasters. The sun this morning is a giant, flaming orange red ball, similar to the sunrise suns we used to see in Tokyo on a typical smoggy morning. I was so exhausted overnight that only once was I vaguely aware of smelling smoke and I was so groggy I couldn’t wake up sufficiently to get up and close the windows. What a trade off: breathing in poisonous particulate matter with the windows open or sweltering, sweating, headaching heat. Happy summer night to you too! 😉

I haven’t been able to force myself to get up and check the leaking spot in the kitchen ceiling. My husband is preaching at our own church this morning so he hasn’t the luxury to staying home to babysit that dripping crack and I have no intention of missing his sermon, so hopefully the large catch basin we have on top of the cupboards will hold however many more drips drip! 💧 

Maman's Continuing Health Journey Update

 I have another update in regard to Maman's recovery.  She is still in hospital after all because it has been discovered that she requires a new aortic valve.  While there is no huge rush for the surgery itself, she will need to have an angiogram to ensure the valve will be able to be installed through a vein in the groin.  If the angiogram shows otherwise she could be in need of open heart surgery.  Her angiogram should happen next Tuesday.  Hopefully it will be possible to insert the new valve using the usual method and once that is established she will likely be sent home to await the surgery.  So, more to pray about, but overall things are so much more positive than they appeared they would be, particularly after her actually dying for a bit before the temporary pace maker was put in. Whew....Thanks for praying for her and for her family.  It is very much appreciated.

It is another very warm day here, the forecast is for +32C; not the hottest we have had, but today there isn't a hint of a breeze anywhere near our area of the city, so even though it is currently only +25C it feels too hot to be comfortable outside.  I had to drive to the nearest grocery store instead of taking my intended walk due to a late start to my now overly warm day. I DID manage to fall asleep again after the 5:30am "Fight Club" on the front lawn and I slept for over 90 minutes.  It was worth getting a late start on the day just to feel better for the rest of the day.

My husband is meeting a friend for coffee this afternoon so I think I will tackle the needed executor's package updates.  I never want to go away without all that information being immediately available to one of our executors.  I learned from my parents' well organized banking and other financial records how important it is to have all the required information ready for the executor, as well as a list of where to start and in what order to do things like getting death certificates, adding up the monies in accounts and investments to take to the lawyer for access to the wills and to find out if probate will be necessary.  There are so many steps and each time something is attempted out of order it slows everything else down sometimes by several weeks.  Mom and Dad made things very smooth going for me in terms of available information that I needed. The financial institutions were the main hold up as probation was completed sooner than expected and caught them unawares.  I learned so much so we want to make everything as easy as possible for any executors when it is our turn to go. 

Positive Update On Maman!

 This morning I received the report that Maman was able to have a permanent pacemaker maker installed yesterday and she has done incredibly well in her initial recovery. In fact she may be released in the next day or two. My friend is thrilled by these results and thanks you all profusely for praying. God must have intervened because the situation was dire, with these positive results not really expected. My friend and her husband will be staying with Maman at her home while she completes her recovery there. My friend is a wonderful daughter!

Thanks everyone and thank you God!

Already An Update On Maman!

 Just in the past few minutes since I posted the request for prayer for Maman, I have received an update that her permanent pace maker surgery is likely going to be pushed up to tomorrow instead of Friday. The situation for her is very serious indeed.  Thank you for praying.

A Lovely Evening!

 After a lovely outdoor coffee time with my friend this morning....despite heavy rain very early in the morning, the mosquitoes barely bothered us at the park table we were sitting at because there was enough of a breeze to keep them at bay....I came home to the news that my husband had invited two of our closest friends to meet us for dinner tonight at a newly discovered and loved Indian restaurant.  The visit was fantastic and the food was as good as always, but the best part was that my husband had not only the idea, but the oomph to take the initiative to formulate and execute the plan!  He has been feeling so much more cheery over the past few days and has been making things happen most every day for the past nearly a week!  Amazing!  I am as grateful as he is that the funk he has been in for so long seems to be lifting.  Thank you Lord for this answer to prayer.

I am wondering if he will continue his journey to feeling even happier about life as we grow closer to our departure date.  He had the paper map of New York City out on the dining room table this morning, tracing out routes from our apartment to various museums and art galleries and restaurants and parks that we want to visit while we are there.  He nearly completed the blessings and prayers format for the wedding reception and will send those off tomorrow for editing and approval from our "kids".  Each morning he has been up and moving in good time to accomplish a lot during the day. All this is in spite of ongoing tummy issues as he now cannot eat Bell Peppers or peanuts/peanut butter.  The last go round we had with new deletions from his diet was about 3 years ago now when both beets and pears became no-no's.  It is most disturbing when things he has eaten all his life and truly enjoyed start joining the "DO NOT EAT ANYMORE EVER!" list, but that has been the way of things since 1985 when the whole CFS/dietary upsets thing started.  Every few years new items must be eliminated from his diet and a few items he has not eaten in a decade or more can then be added back in with no apparent bad effects.  Sigh....it is a constant merry-go-round trying to feed this man properly.  After over 40 years of this I am well used to it, but it never fails to hurt me as well as him each time we begin the process of discovery to find whatever new foods can no longer be tolerated. God bless him. He is stoic about it and never complains or feels particularly sorry for himself.  What an example HE is to wimpy whiny ME!!

Surviving The Heat Thanks To Friends With A/C In Their House!

Last night was the first time this summer that I have removed all the covers from my bed and slept on top of the bottom sheet, thanking God for light summer overnight wear.  I will be doing the same thing tonight.  Today we got up to almost +34C, with not much of a breeze so it was like a sauna outside by mid afternoon.  Tomorrow the temperature is aiming for a high of about +37C and then slowly we will get back to more seasonal mid to upper +20C's.  Can't wait!!

I caught quite a magnificent break this afternoon. Two good friends contacted me and invited me to come to their house for the hottest part of the afternoon. Their house has wonderful A/C, so it was quite a treat!  An icy cold cola and a  fruit flavoured "frozen on a stick like a Creamsicle"  snack lowered my core temperature nicely.  I survived the afternoon well thanks to friends!!  God bless them for their invitation.  My husband was also invited but opted for a long nap in our basement instead after spending a few hours working on our kids' wedding reception programme.  

I must be finally getting into holiday mode because after I visited my friends this afternoon I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a couple of food items, noticed their rack containing travel sized shampoos and toothpastes and such was full of excellent product, so I picked up everything that I need to pack in my carry on for our upcoming trip. Tonight I hard copied all our flight and rental apartment information so I have it immediately at hand if required at US Customs and Immigration instead of having to fiddle about on mobile phones trying to find what we need amongst our email files.  I cleaned out my carry on bag yesterday and started making a few difficult decisions about what clothing items I am going to take with me.  It always takes me awhile to get my head around the details of preparing for a trip. Fortunately I have had a lot of lead time for this one. Final clothes shopping trip here will happen either at the end of next week if it cools down enough or the following week.  My second last haircut is scheduled for next week, I have the dates for refilling my necessary prescriptions all juggled around so I won't run out of them before we get home and I have decided not to take my vitamin supplements.  I can purchase a month's worth once we get there and use them up before we board the plane to come home.  I made a list of what else has to be done at the end of this month: setting up our American mobile phone plans, getting our health insurance figured out and paid for, arranging to have the post office hold our mail while we are gone, setting up arrangements with our local utility companies to pay our September bills in advance of the trip, and figuring out how much actual cash we need to carry with us.  I have been putting off even thinking about any of these things because I didn't have the mental or emotional energy available.  Now, my brain is starting to compute the details and I feel motivated to get with it and prepare. YAY! I think my sudden enthusiasm to do these things was triggered yesterday when I paid the bill for our flights and the hold deposit on the rental apartment.  Once that much money is actually invested it is far more motivating to carry through with the rest of the arrangements.

I have not seen many mosquitoes here since all the rain stopped and the heat began, but they have apparently seen me!!  At the moment I have four wrist bites, a back of the arm bite, a back of the leg bit and three bites on my shins that are currently sending me nuts with itching! Fortunately this kind of bad itching usually only lasts for about a day when I get these miserable bites. By tomorrow I will have angry red little welts, but the horrible itch that tempts me with the urge to scratch at them should be gone. 

Sometimes A Little Complaining Goes A Long Way....Sad That Complaining Is Occasionally Necessary Isn't It?

 My husband just received a phone call from the bank where we have had SO much grief over the past few years.  It was to set up an appointment for him next week.  Seems that since I sent in a poor review to a questionnaire that bank sent out a few weeks ago asking how we find their service to be for us, some things have changed!  YAY!  My review was not scathing, but it was negative enough to warrant an in person chat with me a couple of days after it was received.  I explained in more detail what the issues have been and oh my goodness.....all of a sudden we have a new financial advisor there, after not hearing from the one we thought we had for nearly three years, we are getting calls about things we should have been contacted about many times over the past 3 years and heard absolutely zero about. Suddenly the new FA wants to review what we have left in that bank that has not been moved to another institution, wants to give us information we have been needing for more than four years that due to us not having it messed me up badly with the CRA last year that it took hours of phone calls and repayments of sales tax rebates I had received that year to fix the mess.

This is all good news....we hope. We shall see how things go at that appointment and in the future. 

In other news it has been another lovely warm day today.  There was a return of the rain and thunder last night overnight after a couple of gloriously dry days, but by morning the puddles were nearly dry already.  Unfortunately the thunder woke me up at 3am, but since the rain was tap, tap, tapping on the eaves and I love that sound, I got up and threw the bedroom window wide open so I could enjoy it. What's a bit of water on the windowsill after all, right?  I fell asleep again at about 5:30am and slept deeply for another two hours.  Then it was up for breakfast and a visit with my coffee buddy.

My coffee buddy and I have decided we are tired of paying big bucks for small cups of tea and coffee at the coffee bar nearest her place, so today we took a short drive around her new neighbourhood. Only two blocks away we discovered a fairly large park with not only playground equipment but several iron benches and a couple of wooden picnic tables to sit at. We sat outside at one of the tables in the glorious sunshine, chattering away like two old magpies and it was so much fun being out of the crowded coffee bar, away from all building construction noise and enjoying a couple of daycare groups who came to utilize the playground equipment.  Fortunately for us, despite the hot sunshine after more rain, we encountered only a couple of mosquitoes and one tiny brown spider that went racing across the brim of my friend's sunhat. We came away feeling energized, less broke, haha, and very pleased to have a new place to enjoy our weekly visits during the summer and autumn months. What a blessing to have only a couple of blocks to go for our time together. Next time I will try to find a visitor parking spot open at her apartment and we can walk to the park.  

This afternoon we ran errands, my husband and I.  He is rotating back onto a diet mostly of cooked vegetables, protein and unleavened bread to keep his CFS food sensitivities in check.  We now have a crisper filled with cabbages and purple turnips, radishes for his beloved potato salad, carrots and cauliflowers and a freezer full of frozen peas and Brussels Sprouts. I was able to purchase quite a few packages of free range ground turkey and chicken and some extra lean ground beef that is actually extra lean over at SaveOn Foods....the difference in the fat and transfat contents in those poultry packs and the ones with meat from farm fed/ big production farm birds is phenomenal. SO MUCH lower in the free range poultry.  

The horrific swollen glands (from the CFS) in the back of my husband's head are much better today and far less painful after being completely debilitating yesterday so he decided to take advantage of feeling considerably better to pick up his food items.  Tomorrow he has no out of the house commitments so he can rest again AND have a good long talk with our son and his wife when they call to confirm the plans for the spiritual portion of their wedding reception programme.  All I have to do tomorrow is return to the doctor for my osteoporosis meds injection and then I am done with all things medical for this week, yay!  I spent so much time in the waiting room earlier on that I think I could draw a diagram of very paint chip and black mark on the walls in there! hahaha  

We caved in and watched the chuckwagon races from the Calgary Stampede grounds all this week and even picked up some of the bull riding, kids' teams working to get one of their members on the backs of wild ponies, the womens' barrel races and free roping.....it has been a fun way to spend our evenings at home when my husband has been feeling lousy.  I am adjusting to having only 3 wagons per chuckwagon race but oh my....we very much miss the commentary from Tommy Glass who passed away, somewhat unexpectedly I believe, the week prior to the Stampede.  I can't imagine his son having to perform in those races the very next week, but he is doing his dad proud with his times and skills.  I know darned well I will also cave and watch the entire rodeo the afternoon of the last day to see the winners pick up their cheques and their gorgeous bronze castings of bucking broncs, bulls, cowboys and other ranching related scenes.  I am not really a big rural ranch scene fan, (although I have a great admiration for the hard work cowboys and ranchers have to do...very, very hard, dirty, physically taxing and often discouraging work), because I grew up in the city and, only knowing personally one rancher in my life,  have not had the opportunity to develop a lot of appreciation for that lifestyle and geographical scenery, but those bronzes take such artistry and skill to create. (How's that for a run on sentence, right???) They are lovely. So, I am learning that once a Calgarian who grew up loving the Stampede as a kid, always a Calgarian who still loves watching the Stampede events as an adult and is not ashamed to admit it.

We are about to embark on our own heatwave here on the prairies over the next three days at least. By Sunday we are forecast to reach +37C and overnight lows of a big +16C...not cool enough to help prior to the following day's heat. Church is going to be very difficult to sit through, but it will be a good break from our not air conditioned suite!! If it is only for three days before we get below +30C again we will survive. My husband will disappear for three days into the cool of the basement and I will have an opportunity upstairs to train for our trip to NYC during some of its hottest summer weather!!  There is good in almost everything, right?

Hmmmm...summer heat wave or winter ice....SUMMER HEAT WAVE all the way!!! hahahahaha