When life bites you in the behind, keep moving

This weekend I hit a wall, figuratively speaking. Appears to have caused major damage, still coming to terms with it. I hate when that happens!

Monday morning I took Hapi to the Reservoir, she dawdled her way there and back while I was so frustrated, angry, depressed and tired that I had to really concentrate on not yanking her leash to speed her up. When we finally got home I called a couple of friends and left messages to call me back and then put a big bowl of food out for her and took myself on a two and half hour brisk walk in ugly weather out on the dikes. By myself. Got home exhausted, too tired anymore to be angry, depressed or frustrated.

One of the friends called me back, she'd spent quite a lovely morning at the gym and later out for lunch. When I told her about my forced march and state of mind we ended up joking about it. A lot of laughing. She apologized for laughing but really it was helpful. Took the edge off things.

The trails at the Reservoir are still icy, one dogwalking friend is staying away and another just flew to the Barbados for a month-long vacation. She owns a condo there. Yesterday a couple of us asked her if she was concerned about travelling right now. She said she had looked for hand sanitizer but couldn't find any so she bought gloves instead. Someone asked her, But aren't you scared? She replied, "I'm 94! Something is going to get me! I can't be wasting time feeling scared!" We'll all be counting the days until she returns.

Today I went on a short hike with the Wednesday walking group, they do much easier walks than the Thursday hiking group. Hapi dawdled along behind, waving her tail happily but definitely dawdling. A couple of times I had to go back for her because there was a car coming or there was a big dog at a house we were walking by or whatever. Nothing happened and she was fine. Tomorrow the Thursday group is going to a location that I want to go to but realistically I shouldn't. Haven't made up my mind yet what to do about that. In the state of mind I am in right now it is better to keep moving so I am too tired to feel anything else, but Hapi may not appreciate that. Leaving her at home for a slower walk later in the day is an option but not really a good one.

Slumpy

I'm in a bit of a slump these days, I'm guessing too much screen time. Just don't seem to be able to tear myself away. Tried turning off the internet access but that doesn't last long, within minutes I come up with some question that I need an answer to which only the internet can provide. Maybe it's the weather, or the reduced social life due to not-so-healthy dog. I don't know. Just feel slumpy.

Hapi has always had "loose stool", AKA diarrhea. She had it when she lived with my son and she has had it all the time she has lived with me. For the most part I just put up with it although I did try various dietary treatments over the years. Nothing worked. So now that she is old the diarrhea has gotten way worse and I finally reached a breaking point and called the vet's office. Turns out they have a nutrition expert, and she recommended a "gut reset" involving a week of probiotics and an expensive veterinary dogfood. This morning I went in to the office to pick up the gut reset food at a hefty $80 for one week. Wow.

From there I went to the Reservoir where Hapi and I walked with D and her dog and I told her the gut reset story. She said, Been there done that, six years ago. For her dog it was an instant cure (the dog had projectile diarrhea! I can't even imagine that!), but they could never take the dog off the diet. She advised me where to go to get the food at a lower price. Still expensive but not $80/week-expensive.

Hapi got her first gut reset meal today and she seems to tolerate it. I looked at the ingredients and was quite appalled. Just about every "bad" dogfood ingredient I've ever read about is there, front and centre. But feeding her "good" dogfood hasn't worked so far, I may as well try the "bad" stuff. I looked up the dogfood on the internet and sure enough the technical reviews point all that out and don't seem that impressed, but the customer reviews are overwhelmingly positive. One reviewer said that their dog did great on it and there were no digestive issues because there was nothing there to digest.

I called a couple of old friends on the west coast a couple of weeks ago and left messages. The 4-hour time difference makes it hard to schedule but both friends have now called me back. One has a terminal lung disease and is fading fast, the other is fine but she relayed that a mutual friend is also not well (also terminal, but not for a while). Argh! But I had good conversations with both of them. The healthy friend called me today just as I was peering into a squirrel's nest that D pointed out to me at the Reservoir. The squirrel was higher in the tree screaming disapproval and then my phone chimed in.

There were three of us that used to hang out together (along with a couple of spouses): me, J-one and J-two. J-one and I used to joke about J-two being such a Pollyanna, she always saw the good in everything to the point of naivety. It was J-two who called me today and we had quite a wonderful conversation about the state of the world and various personal events. I take back all that stuff about Pollyanna naivety, she is one of the wisest people I know. Her spouse has Parkinson's and she is tasked with caregiving. She said it's like caring for a toddler and she was never good at that with real toddlers, so she is constantly working on strategies for staying sane. Recently I have been feeling that way about Hapi so I was agreeing with her vigourously. After we hung up I remembered that she had recently travelled to Mexico sans-spouse but I completely forgot to ask her about that trip. Next time.

I told J-two that as long as I have Hapi I won't be travelling but some time after that I would like to visit out west again. She said that she and J-one could provide accommodations for a week each (I sure hope J-one agrees with that!) so there's two weeks covered right there. I have two other friends that I'm fairly sure would consider a week each if the timing was right so I think it could be good. I would love to do a train trip...

Hurrah for January

Yippee! It's January! I know I am supposed to make some new year's resolutions, or goals for the coming year or something like that, but I am so happy that December is now A Thing Of The Past that all I really want to do is wallow in that pleasure. It's over. I am happy. I just had a cup of tea reclined in my lounger reading The New Yorker. I am way behind in my reading so this is only the December 2nd issue, but it is rather nice to read about what made headlines in December knowing that they are now a thing of the past.

Last night I went for supper and card games at a neighbour's place. The weather was truly crappy but knowing that I did not have far to travel to get home made me feel quite secure. Of the seven women—myself included—I knew only three others and I think that was true for most of us, except our host who presumably knew us all otherwise why did she invite us? It was interesting to engage in conversation with women you knew and didn't know. When the conversation turned to cats I was bored (not a cat lover), and when it went to dogs no doubt the cat lovers were bored. But we all put on interested faces. None of us were born here and two of the women currently live in Alberta and the NWT. A bunch of us grew up in Ontario and one woman hails from Switzerland. Three women were sisters living in different parts of the country and enjoying an annual reunion. None of the sisters ever married or had children, they are known in their family as The Three Aunts and are apparently quite popular amongst the nieces and nephews.

One woman came in the throes of a cold, which I didn't realize until some time after I sat down beside her at the dinner table. At first I hoped it was just an allergy but eventually she confessed to feeling rotten and left the party muttering about wishing she were dead. Oh joy. But the food was excellent, and the rest of us managed to hang in there until midnight when the champagne was poured and we toasted the new year. These days staying awake that long is an accomplishment! Today I am dosing myself with vitamin C and Oil of Oregano (my go-to respiratory infection preventative).

A couple of days ago I got an email from my walking group saying that we would be walking at the Reservoir on New Year's Day. I wrote to our leader advising that the trails there were icy and maybe he could suggest to the group to bring ice grippers. He did not. This morning Hapi and I went early and walked a bit on the ravine bike trails before meeting the group near the ponds. Half of them did not have ice grippers, including the leader. 

I asked him if he got my email and he looked stunned. Yes, he got it but he didn't recognize my (new) name so he disregarded it! I stared at him. You ignored it because you didn't recognize my name? He said that he didn't recognize the name and thought whoever it was probably didn't know what they were talking about. If he had known it was me of course he would have relayed the information to everyone else. I rolled my eyes at him and suggested that perhaps next time he ought not to be so judgmental. 

The walk was cut off early because half the walkers were having a lot of difficulty with the ice without ice grippers. Hapi and I stayed on to walk with our eldest dogwalker (93 years old) who was fully equipped with ice grippers and ski poles. We laughed about it.

On the sad news front, one of the regular dogs has been diagnosed with what Hiro died of. His owner will bring him to the Reservoir as long as he is able, but his days are numbered. Already he is refusing to eat. He is one of my favourites, I tell people he is a cross between Ferdinand the Bull and Eeyore. Very sweet dog.

Pre-Christmas newsletter...

It's been a good news/bad news kind of week, but I guess that's normal for this time of year. Going shopping for the necessaries is torturous due to all of the seasonal gift shoppers out and about. I have kept my own gift shopping minimal; in one short hour I went on Amazon to pick out five gifts—four for grandchildren and one for a distant terminally ill long time friend—and had them gift wrapped and shipped to various parts of the country. Sons and their wives will get Amazon gift certificates on the 24th. Easy-peasy if a little ethically compromised. I'd just as soon skip the whole thing but right now might not be the time for it. Maybe next year…

Hapi is cruising along uneventfully, her limp comes and goes. She has discovered garbage which I suspect is deliberately being left out for her, someone out there likes to see her snooping around their back yard and is encouraging her illicit activities (the garbage was not only not in a bin but carefully placed in what looks like a dogfood bowl!). Now that there is a bit of snow on the ground I can track her and managed to catch her in the act, so now she is locked into my back yard. The picture above is her looking morose about her captivity.

After years of sending unreciprocated Xmas cards I decided to give it up this year, and then two of my dogwalking buddies gave me cards at the Reservoir. Now I am considering rushing out to buy cards to give back. Who knew we would become a little community of card-exchanging friends?

The ponds are now at their most dangerous, covered in ice that looks thick enough to walk on but really is not. Hapi learned her lesson long ago and avoids ice-covered bodies of water like the plague, but many younger dogs don't know any better. Then dog owners attempt to rescue their dogs with the not unexpected results, soaking wet and freezing cold humans and dogs.

The park maintenance guys have been busy doing post-Dorion clean-up and over the past few weeks have come to know all the regular dogs. They stop their chipping machine when we walk by to chat and pet the dogs; the dogs have come to look forward to these little encounters. The other day one of the guys was asking after one dog in particular who they hadn't seen in a while and we realized that we hadn't either. The dog's health has been iffy lately so we wondered if something bad had happened. But that very same morning the dog showed up with his owner, who explained their absence as a happy event. They were off in PEI celebrating her 65th birthday.

The bad news is two-fold. One is finding out about the terminally ill friend mentioned previously. That was shocking. I have been debating going to see her (she lives on the opposite coast), but leaving Hapi behind is problematic and taking her with me is out of the question. So for now our relationship will be confined to the telephone.

The other is regular visits with B, who is in terrible shape. Can't move, can't breathe, can't sleep. All efforts to get her help have either failed, been put on hold due to the holiday season (!!!) or been sabotaged by B herself. It is so depressing and makes me so angry that I am almost beside myself after such visits. I fantasize about angry calls to various authorities but am afraid I will only make matters worse if I follow through on such fantasies. Three times in the past few weeks her son has called an ambulance to take her to Emerge because he can't move her himself. At $140 a pop it's an expensive proposition and they have no money. I said to him, well, they can't get blood from a turnip so keep those bills coming. Maybe someone will take notice of her if she becomes a regular ambulance user. He agrees.

Good advice

These days I am not taking a lot of photos, so pictures for my posts are going to be scarce.

Last night I ushered at the Jeremy Dutcher show. Wow. Powerful music. I'd never heard of him before, but last night was amazing. We ushers were invited to a reception for Dutcher after the show but I had already agreed to meet another usher at a local pub so I didn't go to the reception. Some nights the last thing I want to do is usher but I go anyway and sometimes it is really worth it. Dutcher and the previous show, Between Breaths, were spectacularly worth it.

Dutcher talked about his (and his parents') efforts to preserve their language, Wolastoqey (Maliseet). He said that there are only a hundred native speakers left now. He said that it was not just about the words lost but the unique worldview lost. Every language expresses a worldview, when you speak that language you participate in that worldview. When a language goes extinct, so does that worldview. I think this is true.

* * * * *

The usher that I met at the pub is francophone, from Montreal. At 77 years old she is one of the most beautiful women I have met. I love the sound of her voice and her laugh as well. Mostly I spent the evening just listening. Our server recognized her as someone who had participated in a panel on women aging in her sociology class. The server said she really appreciated my usher friend's advice. After the server took our order I asked my friend what her advice had been.

"I told them to get an education, it would set them free."

She said that living free is the most important thing; and maybe a university education these days doesn't get you as far as it used to, but it is still important enough to help young women be free in their lives. Apparently our server took that to heart.

* * * * *

I gave myself a good scare this week, really silly of me. It started out consulting Doctor Google about some signs (symptoms?) that Hapi was displaying. I came to the conclusion that she had Cushing's Disease. Among other things, one sign of this disease is increased appetite, so one day I let Hapi eat as much as she wanted to see just how far she would go. She used to be very picky about what, how much and when she ate but that seemed to be changing. So that day I just kept refilling her bowl to see how far she would go. She ate twice as much as usual. In my mind that kind of confirmed the Cushing's diagnosis. However the next day she didn't eat a single thing and she seemed to be in pain. All she really wanted to do was hide in the basement. So I made an appointment for Friday with the vet to discuss, by which time Hapi had recovered from her day of overeating.

The vet darn near laughed in my face. She waved the results of Hapi's recent bloodwork at me and said, "She's healthy! Old, but healthy!"

I got myself all worked up for nothing. Hapi might have Cushing's, but it's kind of irrelevant. The tests are expensive, there is no cure, and dogs can live for years with it. I'll try not to overfeed her again.

What Crows Know

The other day I was walking to the Reservoir with my dog and we stopped to chat with a woman I know who lives on the road to the park. She is a bit older than me and lives in the cutest little blue cottage set in a garden lot with a screen of trees and shrubs along the roadway for privacy. In the good weather she is often out in her yard with her cat, who happens to like Hapi. Hapi has come to know who I am friends with along our route and she always wants me to stop there and chat with them, regardless of whether their cats are friendly or not.

Anyway the woman was in her yard and I crossed the road to chat. She told me she has been watching the crows and their reactions to different people walking by. Apparently they have been dive bombing some passers-by.

"Really? They don't dive bomb me!" I said.

"Of course not," she said, "They know you because of your dog, and they know me because of my cane, but it is interesting to watch how they react to people they don't know."

That took me aback. They know me?

"Well of course they know you! You have that big gray dog!"

I know that crows are smart and it is interesting to watch them go about their business, but it did not occur to me that it was a two-way street. When I left my friend's yard to continue on to the Reservoir I was thinking about the crows. What exactly do they know about me? For sure they know where I live, and they must recognize my car. But mostly I am on foot around town so they know my comings and goings, they know something of my daily routine.

Do they talk about me?

When I hear them cawing as we walk by, are they saying, "Here they come, there they go"?

The crows must know quite a few people around town, I can't be the only identifiable person to them. Do they keep track of relationships, who knows who and what they do together?

Or maybe they are completely uninterested in me, it's my dog they are keen to watch. The day that Hapi took so long to get out of bed I saw a crow standing in my driveway near the back door where Hapi usually emerges first thing in the morning.

It was pecking at the ground, as if pretending that it was there hunting for food when really it was wondering what had happened that the dog was not outside yet.

It's a Wonderful Day (Not)

Dear Diary:

Well, that's what this feels like, almost private although obviously not. Anyway, my house guest just left with her daughter an hour ago.

She was kind of the perfect house guest: good fun, good company and not really needing to be entertained since she had her own agenda here and the use of her daughter's car. She lived in the area for about a year a couple of years ago and met a lot of people that she wanted to catch up with. Her prime reason for being in this province was to spend Thanksgiving with her daughter S who is at school in Halifax, but that left her with lots of time to visit friends in the Valley. For me it was just the right mix of busyness and downtime while she visited with other friends.

Last night S came up from the City to participate in the Valley Thanksgiving Marathon; she stayed here overnight and got up early this morning for the race. Since S was not feeling well she only did 5K (there were options for 5K, 10K, a half-Marathon and a full Marathon) and then after she cleaned up we all went out for breakfast at a local restaurant.

I asked S what she was studying and she said she was working on her Master's in Nutrition. I asked what her thesis topic was and she said it was about senior women and communal meals. That sounded intriguing so she explained to me that it was a chance for her to combine her studies in nutrition with feminist theory. That older women have usually spent a half a lifetime or more caring for and feeding other people but at the ends of their lives are often deeply marginalized and forgotten by society and even their own families (tell me about it!). So she was looking at how senior women come together to care for one another and specifically how they share food. She said it was a very satisfying topic and an easy one to apply feminist ideas to. I was quite admiring. At least there are a few young people who take notice of that sort of thing.

Prior to breakfast I took Hapi for her walk at the Reservoir and met up with my friend P who is 86 and her dog Maddie. I was in a kind of angry mood so I ranted at her about being ignored by my family on this Thanksgiving weekend. They all make the duty-bound calls at Christmas and my birthday, and occasionally show their faces in my province. But the two big family-related holidays of the year are Thanksgiving and Christmas and not once have any of them called me on Thanksgiving. Everyone I know has some family nearby so they are all busy this weekend celebrating. One of my sons told me that he didn't believe in Hallmark holidays so they never call on Mother's Day because that is such a phoney thing to do. Of course, if you are often talking to or spending time with your mother then you have every right to criticize it as a phoney Hallmark holiday.

Anyway, I ranted. P sympathized as she had similar feelings, although she does have family living nearby and they are planning to get together this weekend. Then we saw Teddy. Teddy is a toy poodle belonging to A (93 years old), so we knew she could not be far behind.

P said, "Let's see if she tells us what a wonderful day it is."

That is A's trademark: she always tells you what a wonderful day it is, no matter what. So when she appeared we waited for her to tell us that. Instead she told us about the wonderful opera she had seen the night before at the cinema. She couldn't remember the name of it but she said it was one of the well-known ones and it was absolutely wonderful. P tried to prompt her to comment on the weather or the state of the day but A wasn't biting, she was totally enthralled with the opera. Since we were headed in opposite directions around the ponds we knew we would meet up with her again and by that time she would no doubt remember the name of the opera. Sure enough, we did and it was Turandot.

Then we jokingly told her we were expecting her to tell us what a wonderful day it was and she said, "Well at least it is not raining."

P and I laughed and laughed. First time A has admitted that the day might not be so wonderful. When you're feeling utterly crappy, it's nice to have a good laugh with old friends.

The picture above: I loaned my house guest a set of keys and she promptly lost them. The key fob is made from my dog's fur and some green wool so it has sentimental value, even though it is quite dirty now. We tried to figure out where she might have left them and I started phoning around. Sure enough, someone turned them in and I was able to retrieve them. I took the photo to text to my friend who was then in Halifax, to let her know she was off the hook on that.

Hapi tales

Right now I am dealing with a stabbing headache, a gum infection and a sore tongue (from accidentally biting it) all on the left side of my head. I'm thinking this is stress-related. Usually I get these kinds of ailments after the stress has been mostly relieved so I suppose this is good news, I'm out of the woods. But it is not pleasant.

We're seeing some daylight at the end of the tunnel for my friend B. Her son who lives with her will see an increase in income, over $250/month, which will go a long way toward alleviating their financial situation. There is potential for more in the long term as well. Also I made contact with the Continuing Care people in the provincial government and they are going to assess B's situation to see if there is anything they can do to help. Bottom line, she is not invisible anymore; there will be people aware of her circumstances and troubles who actually have the power to do something about it. There is a Seniors department in the government but I couldn't see anything there worth pursuing. Seems to be mostly about "positive aging" and keeping fit.

Hapi's fur yarn and the woollen tail sock

My dog Hapi has been losing the fur on her wonderful tail, there is now a four-inch strip of exposed bare skin near the tip (see photo at top). I've taken her to the vet a couple of times and the diagnosis and treatment has been not so useful. I joked with friends about making her a "tail sock" to cover her bare patch in the wintertime, and this week I got serious about knitting one up for her. I remembered that I have a ball of yarn that was spun from her own undercoat fur a few years ago so I thought it would match her tail fur. It is very soft. I made a test tail sock from sheep wool that is not so soft and before winter I will make the final one, assuming that her tail fur does not miraculously grow back before then.

Life goes on, sort of

Pre-Dorian Avondale Sky Winery

Another windy rainy day but not a hurricane. There are still parts of the province, even parts of this town, that do not yet have power restored. My neighbour with the generator that I mentioned in my last post is still having to use that generator. The kayaking expedition that I was supposed to go on yesterday is probably cancelled, since the location is closed due to wind damage and some of the participants still do not have power so would have been unable to prepare food in advance and keep it cool. I haven't talked to any of them, I bowed out several weeks ago due to concerns about Hapi and her dogsitter.

On the good news front, the MLA's assistant finally called my friend B back and made a suggestion that might give her more income. Her son is following through on that. But her breathing is far worse. I thought it was because of the heat wave but we are into cooler weather now and she is, if anything, worse. She cannot finish a single sentence without gasping for breath.

I said, "You need oxygen."

She agreed but said, "You can't get oxygen if you don't have a doctor. A doctor has to refer you."

She's been on the doctor waitlist for a year now. Getting a doctor is along the lines of getting a pony for Christmas, assuming you want a pony. If your Daddy is rich then you have half a chance, but if not then forget it. I gather that the MLA's assistant is still working on that but it didn't sound like he was optimistic.

I went online later to confirm that she did in fact have to have a doctor in order to get oxygen. Close but not quite. The provincial health people say you have to have a "designated physician", and then give a link to a list of "designated physicians" in the province. There is one in a nearby town. So I will call their office and find out if they can do anything for her. If not then I may have to go to the MLA's office, even though they say I am not a nice person. I just think that not being able to breathe can't be good for her, it must be doing damage to other parts of her body if she's not getting enough oxygen.

There is a rent subsidy available to seniors but there is over a year's waitlist for it. And, unbelievably, she doesn't qualify. First of all they calculate how much you should pay in rent as 33% of your total income. In other jurusdictions it's 30%, but no matter. If your heat is included in the rent then they will include it in the subsidy, but if it isn't they don't. So taking her rent alone into account, they tell her that they would actually INCREASE her rent payment rather than subsidize her. If she moved into a place where the heat was included in the rent payment then she might qualify, but first of all she doesn't have any savings to pay for a move. Last time she moved she borrowed from one of those horrible high-interest "payday" loan companies, couldn't meet the exorbidant interest payments and ended up going bankrupt. She's terribly ashamed of that, she's never not paid her debts before.

And second of all she doesn't have the energy to pack up and move due to not being able to breathe. Her son could do a lot of it but it would be really hard to force her to sit still and not lift a finger to help. She likes to give Hapi dog treats, I buy them for her. But she insists on breaking them up into smaller pieces so that she can prolong the treat-giving process and the effort to cut the treats in half wipes her out. Nevertheless she insists on it, and someone would have to sit on her to force her not to help pack up for a move.

B's Seniors Club was on hiatus all summer but they started meeting again yesterday. B couldn't go. She has a walker but she can't get it up or down the stairs to the outside door of her building. She needs a ride and many of the people in the club either can't help her with the walker or they can't take it in their cars. There is one guy who can and will, but of course she doesn't want to call him every week about it. And even if the walker and the ride were taken care of, there's the small matter of not being able to breathe. And the requirement that everyone takes a turn at providing snacks for the whole group. No one else visits her, that Seniors Club and I are it for social life. So now it's just me. I'm not good at caregiving, I find this whole thing stressful and I just don't want the responsibility. But there's no one else to pass it off to.

The latest news is that the government health people think they will have the proper ratio of doctors and patients in a few years time. They are on course and making progress. I don't think they have any clue what "a few years time" means to someone like B.

Adventures with Dorian

By the light of a headlamp

Hurricane Dorian was here.

A day and a night of strong wind and heavy rain, the power went out just after supper time. Don't often see the world that dark. There was enough rain that the sump pump kicked in mid-afternoon but it stopped when the power went out. Note to self, get a generator to keep the sump pump going when it needs to.

On Sunday all was sunny and clear with a bit of a cool breeze. I went walking around town to see how things fared. No electricity anywhere, all the shops closed except one convenience store. I talked to the women who worked there, they got coffees from the Fire Department and kept the store open all day for anyone who could pay cash. I went to a friend's house and we walked through a ravine to the Reservoir with our dogs, we had to bushwack the trail because of so many downed trees. Between his bad hip and my bad knee it was kind of ludicrous, us clambering over and under and through the bushes. The dogs just traipsed on through, waiting for us up ahead on the trail. At the Reservoir it wasn't quite so bad, we ran into two groups of students having picnic breakfasts there.

On my way home I had to go around a tree blocking the road, another friend drove up and stopped to chat. I said how it was impossible to find coffee in this town and she said she had some, why didn't I come to her place. I had to take Hapi home first and then we drove to my friend C's place. I've known C a long time, we were both single parents back in the '80s in this town. She stayed, I left. Now she lives in a housing co-op for seniors. They have a generator, so in all the hallways are electric outlets powered by the generator. People were charging phones, running their fridges off long extension cords, and of course boiling water for coffee. C's apartment was small but really nice, she is very happy there. Even though the rent is very low she still has to work to afford to get by. We talked about that and I told her about my friend B, she told me about a mutual friend L who is also in dire straits. C has her health, she could probably get by without working if she didn't have a car, but the car is a lifeline for her.

Later C took me for a tour of the co-op. It consists of several buildings on a large campus, they have a vegetable garden and numerous flower gardens. In the main building is the Lounge (the common room) and two libraries, fiction and non-fiction. C is in charge of the libraries. There's a small gym, a craft room and a woodworking room. They have a rack of shared bicycles. When we stopped by the Lounge there were a bunch of people there, one of the residents had made a large pot of chicken soup and it was being shared. I had a little bit. There was a man visiting his Mom who lived there. He'd been evacuated out of his apartment building in Halifax because of Dorian. He recognized C, he went to school with C's son and used to come by their place all the time.

C was going to drive me home but something came up so I walked. Saw lots more trees down. Most of them were uprooted, the rain softened the ground and the wind whipped those trees right out. I saw one tree that was easily three feet in diameter on its side. I saw another tree that looked like it had been folded down. Lots of trucks and tree fellers out working, quite a few generators humming away. With the power down there was no reason to stay home so lots of people were out walking or driving around. I hear there's a shortage of gas now. A wheel bearing is out on my car so I don't want to drive it till it gets repaired. That was scheduled for tomorrow and with the power out I wasn't sure it was going to happen. But tonight I heard that the garage has power now and they're planning to fix my car tomorrow.

So 400,000 homes lost power all over the province, about 80% of the population. By Sunday night half those homes were back online and tonight well over 3/4 of them are back up. I'm on the same grid as the university and they were a high priority so I got my power back by noon on Sunday. People on the west side of town were next because there's a medical clinic and a bunch of nursing homes out that way. The east side was the last to get power.

Here's a funny thing. My brother on the west coast was diagnosed with liver cancer (not the funny thing) and he has been undergoing treatment, the second treatment was this past week and on Saturday during the hurricane I phoned him while I still had power. He was doing okay and was optimistic about his prospects. We talked about the hurricane and I told him about the online power outage map so he looked it up and saw how many places in this province were down. He watched the hurricane on windy.com, he could see it heading for Halifax (it made landfall about the time I lost power). On Sunday while I was at C's place I got a text from him saying that Acadia University had power, but he wasn't sure about my street. I texted back that I was going there to see. So I found out I had electric power from my brother on the west coast, that's the funny thing.

Today I went to the Reservoir and all the trees have been cleared off the trails. I met two friends, one with power and one without. the one without is in a building with an elevator that wasn't working. She's 93 so going up and down all the stairs to her 3rd floor condo can't have been easy. Plus her garage has an electric door so she had to find a tall man to open it for her manually. But she made it. She said she met a young person recently who asked if she could call her "a tough old bird" and she said she could. She was proud to be "a tough old bird".

In the afternoon I went to my needlework group that was meeting in a home that didn't have power but did have a generator. We all talked about our various states of electrification and how many trees we had down, et cetera. Our host told me about small generators you can buy just to run a sump pump (they have a sump pump too). One of the women in the group goes to the same church as my friend B so I spoke to her about B's situation. She told me she'd see what she could do, she was very concerned about B but hadn't seen or heard from her in a while.

"Why hasn't she asked us for help?"

"I don't know, she said something about the church being in trouble and she didn't want to disturb them."

Well they're going to try. Strictly speaking they're not supposed to because B lives outside their parish now, but it's a small church and everyone knows everyone and B has been a member there for a long time.

The rain and the ramifications of aging

The downpour last Friday was pretty significant, lots of flooding and washouts. 72 mm, which is a lot in one day around here. Damage to roads, flooded basements, so on and so forth. I heard that Main Street filled right up and overflowed the sidewalks onto adjacent lawns. But my basement stayed dry! All the work done two winters ago paid off. Of course the sump pump was very busy for a couple of days after that.

I just got email from a dear friend out west, she has been very sporadic about replying to my emails. She said there was a reason for that, the last couple of years have been awful for her. And now she knows why, she just got a diagnosis of Parkinson's. Apparently before any of the physical symptoms show up there is depression and anxiety. I remember that the last time I visited her (two years ago) she did seem uncommonly anxious, but I attributed it to recent events in her life. Which it may very well have been, but exacerbated by this other thing. We have a mutual friend who was diagnosed with Parkinson's around about the time I left BC, on subsequent visits I have watched his deterioration and the effect on his partner. Not good.

I was shocked by my friend's email and I was just headed out the door to a meeting. For the first half of the meeting I was kind of out of it. I did eventually get into things, but it was always there in my mind. Still is I guess.

My brother's birthday yesterday, I called to wish him Happy Birthday. We chatted about a bunch of things and he told me about our other brother's call, how other brother was quite upbeat about treatments for his liver cancer. I pointed out to my birthday brother that that may very well be, but other brother's prognosis is little more than a year without treatment, and a few months more than that with treatment. Birthday brother said he did not know that. Birthday brother is very busy right now and I said I hoped he could get everything done this year because next year we may be needing to travel out west …if not sooner.

The meeting I attended this week was a Green Party thing. First campaign meeting for the newly nominated Green Party candidate in my riding. Potluck and strategizing, very exciting. I met a very dynamic young woman in the committee I joined who kind of left all of us older folks gaping. Amazing energy and activism. WWW take note, she's headed your way, going to Memorial for first year university studying the ocean. Molly. We are sorry to lose her but she has left behind everything she can think of, all of her connections and history, for our candidate to use. Voting age is 18, which means high school grads, and I guess there's a lot of them wanting some meaningful change.

On another note, I went for an eye exam today. The local optometrist has quite a shop, employs a whole lot of people. I went to him back in the day when it was just him and his receptionist. Anyway, after the exam he sent me to talk to someone about prices for glasses. After a bit of a wait I talked to this woman who laid out all the options, ranging from the "cut rate deal" of $299 (just the lenses, frames extra) up to $869 (lenses only) for the super duper lenses that make you think you are not wearing glasses at all. We discussed coatings and angles and health benefits and she gave me a bunch of pamphlets and I noted down manufacturers' names and prices for turther investigation.

One of the things she told me about was this coating that is supposed to filter out "high energy blue" (or something to that effect). Used to be UV was bad, now it's creeping up the spectrum through blue.

So I went online to find out what the big deal about blue is. Turns out there is a lot of conflicting information. Blue is good/blue is bad. At my age, cataracts are starting, a number of my friends have already had the surgery. Cataracts cause your vision to yellow, blue is filtered out. One study says blue causes insomnia, another says blue cures insomnia. Cataracts protect against macular degeneration (caused by blue!). Cataracts good/cataracts bad.

Another thing I have been researching is lawn mowers. As noted previously, I can't start my gas-powered lawn mower, so I was looking into alternatives. My lawn is broken up with bushes and garden beds, there is a very dry area and a very wet area and a steep slope on one side. Not to mention all the holes that Hapi has dug either as hidey holes for precious bones or as cool nests to sleep in. A corded electric is out of the question, too many twists and turns. Self-propelled sounds nice but it means you can't mow backwards in tight spaces. I looked at a cordless electric (battery powered) and that was promising, but it was 20 pounds heavier than my rinky dink gas mower. It's big and hard to maneuver, but it's quiet and doesn't vibrate and it stores well.

For the life of me I cannot find a mower that is easy to start, light-weight and maneuverable, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I may have to give up on the idea.

In the mean time I am weight lifting in hopes of being able to start my mower before mowing season ends. And I decided not to worry about blue, I soon won't be able to see it anyway.

Joy, and Obligations

Okay first the Joy. I went skating this morning. The ice was amazing, like glass. And I was almost the first person on it since the last big rain and subsequent freezing. I met the guy who tries to keep it clear on my way in and he said the ice was so good that you really need sharp skates or you won't be able to skate on it. My skates are sharp.

Hapi ventured out but only made it a few feet to a mound of snow that looked like a little island surrounded by a glassy sea. She stayed there the whole time I was skating, she looked like an Eskimo sled dog abandoned on an ice floe. Each time I came around her little ice floe I thought, Just one more time, one more time and then we'll go. It was so hard to stop, I was in skating heaven!

I did finally stop and after changing back into my boots and Lee Valley Icers because the trails are as icy as the ponds, we went for a hike through an apple orchard and then a woodland trail. By the time we got back to the ponds parents and little kids were arriving for skating and hockey because today is a holiday.

The photo above was taken a couple of weeks ago, today it was even better: the sun was shining and the sky a brilliant blue.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The comments on my last post were pretty unanimous, don't feel guilty and take time for yourself. How exactly one does that is of course for me to figure out. After venting about the problem, I then turned it around from what I didn't want to do to what I did want to do. I had a list of things I wanted to spend more time on. That list made me feel better, I felt justified in staking out time to tackle my list.

I called E to explain about how driving to her place at supper time was too hard, that I would drop by in the daytime if/when I was in town to shop. She seemed to accept that, but three days later there was a message on my phone (I didn't hear it ring) pleading for me to come visit. Ugh!

I called her and said I'd visit soon and she was more than welcome to come visit me whenever she wanted. Next day she got her son to drive her over. It was suppertime of course, but at least I wasn't out driving around in the dark, and her son texted me when they'd be arriving so I was prepared. But OMG, watching her struggle out of the car, up the driveway to my back stairs, then precariously manouevre herself up those three steps with her son behind her with his arms out in case she fell backwards, then across the back deck and through the kitchen to the nearest chair: that was painful!

We had a nice little visit, there was a stack of photos of children and grandchildren on the table by her chair which we went through after she fed her little bag of dog treats to Hapi, and then it was time for them to leave. The painful process of getting from the car to the chair was re-enacted in reverse and they drove away. But not before E tried to nail down the exact time of my visit to her place in the next couple of days. I just said, Soon, soon.

But I don't know which is worse, driving to and from E's place in the dark when I am tired and hungry, or watching her struggle in and out of my place. I feel doomed.

So yesterday I was talking about this situation with a dogwalking friend, F, and he described his own struggle with aging parents. First his father and now his mother. His father died in his 90s and was both blind and demented, his mother is mentally healthy but blind and physically deteriorating, also in her 90s. In comparing notes I realized that my relationship with E is rather like his with his parents, and the sense of obligation is not much different. Although E is only a few years older than me, regarding her as a debilitated and dying parent puts things in perspective. There are obligations I can shake and obligations I can't, much as I would like to.

We commiserated on feelings of obligation and what it did to the rest of our lives, also on our growing desire to withdraw from everyday socializing altogether. I think it's a bit easier for guys to retire from social obligations than for women, there is more of an expectation of women to "take care of people". I can reduce the socializing with J more easily because she is still mobile, has a car of her own, and multiple other friends. But E has none of those things. Plus, her son has been a real lifesaver for me in the past, so I can't just say, Sorry, I don't feel like it. He said to me a few years ago, You are part of our family. Unfortunately I'm afraid that is true.

I spent the last few days tidying and reorganizing my home which was immensely pleasurable. I now have bags of garbage and recycling prepared for disposal and a couple of bags of stuff for Value Village and/or the SPCA. If I take it to VV, they will give me discount coupons to shop there which I could give to E, but E commented that she hates that place and would rather shop at the SPCA. So maybe I'll take my stuff to the SPCA.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I am going off Facebook. I disabled my account yesterday, if all goes well I will delete it in a month or so. A Facebook friend posted a TEDx video by Tristan Harris on why one should quit social media and most of his reasons made sense to me. There are pros and cons to everything but right now the cons are outweighing the pros for me.

Mr Harris noted that he thought the first couple of weeks after quitting would be the hardest but then one would adjust. We will see. Last night I went through my Facebook friends list and noted three people for whom I have no other contact info. It may be that I will lose those friends, I don't know. Two of them might be able to contact me if they remember the email address I had before Facebook and the third, well, I think I could probably track her down through mutual friends if I had to. All of them currently reside in other countries.

Aspiring Recluse

This is a bit of a whiney post, but …

I have this friend who is a shut-in, health issues and poverty keep her confined to a basement apartment that she shares with her son. They both love my dog. They used to live just up the street from me and several years ago I got into the habit of taking Hapi to visit them and E would feed Hapi dog treats. I usually went around supper time because E's son didn't get home until then and I wasn't up for going there much later than that.

Anyway, they moved to the next town over but wanted me to continue to bring Hapi to visit, at suppertime. Now it involves a 15 minute drive on the highway one way and in the wintertime I am driving after dark and sometimes in bad weather. I have cut back the visits to twice a week rather than almost every day, but E notices and comments that I don't come often enough and do I hate her, has she done something to offend me?

Since the town they live in now is where all the big box stores are I usually try to combine the visit with grocery shopping, but I have to say it is my least favourite time to shop. Last week I didn't go for the whole week, due to bad weather and a mild sinus infection that sapped my motivation.

Another friend's father is 102 years old and just got out of the hospital after a bout of pneumonia. He's OK, but my friend tells me he is fading fast. His 103rd birthday is coming up in March and we think that anticipation of that celebration is his primary motivation in staying alive. I like this man, I have known him for well over 40 years. He's in an extended care home and I'd like to visit him while he's still around, but trying to schedule that around my visits to E is problematic. At first I thought I could do both in the same trip but then realized it was just too much. I still haven't managed to get over to see him yet.

I feel guilty that my ability to be helpful and compassionate is rather limited, I get impatient with it all rather quickly. I just want to be left alone, I don't want to be running around helping people or visiting them because they are needy.

I spent all of last week (when I was staying home not visiting E ostensibly because of the sinus infection) thoroughly enjoying sitting around reading and sorting through my accumulation of useless junk. Being home alone and without responsibilities feels like a holiday in paradise.

I get out with Hapi every morning for about two hours. I often meet other dog walking ladies, which pretty much satisfies any need I have for social interaction. When we get home she expects water and a treat (she doesn't come indoors and her water bowl freezes if I leave it out so I have to bring it in and out all day), then I have to remove all the winter clothing and put it away and then bring in a load of firewood for the day.

By the time all that is taken care of it is lunchtime. If I don't have errands to run or household chores to take care of then the afternoon is free time, although once a week I go to one of book club, needlework group or bridge club. I have my writing group on Friday mornings which means Hapi's walk gets postponed until the afternoon. She howls when I leave her behind on Friday mornings.

Due to increasing insomnia I have great difficulty getting enough sleep. That means I don't want to go to bed late and thus I don't want to go out in the evening. I do go out occasionally, but I pay for it in sleep deficit for a couple of days after.

I'm really having a hard time with this. I am at heart a petty selfish person who does try not to be, but at the moment petty selfishness is winning.

Off to a grumpy start, with flowers

Last summer I planted some nasturtiums in my garden but I did it late and they sprouted but not much else. So in the fall I dug them up and potted them to bring indoors. Now I have nasturtium flowers in the window.

My writing group has been trying to come up with meeting guidelines. We meet once a week to read what we've been working on and then reviewing/critiquing what we are listening to. There are plenty of examples online of such guidelines and various people in the group have sent copies around for our edification. Recently, someone thought we should finalize a set of guidelines for our group, that we could follow and also present to new members. So one set of guidelines was printed and distributed to the group shortly before Christmas, and about the same time it was decided (by the same person after discussion with a few of us) that we should close our group to new members.

At our annual Christmas get together a few people confided that actually, they didn't agree with that decision or with how some of the guidelines were worded, but did not feel in a position to object. I raised this at our next regular meeting, there was a discussion of the guideline document and the issue of closed membership, and an edited version of the guidelines was passed around via email for discussion. At our meeting last week some minor changes were made and the document generally accepted. Also, membership was officially reopened.

Through the process I changed my opinion from being fully in support of the guidelines to not wanting guidelines at all. I am in a minority of one, no one else supports my view. My viewpoint is, the fewer rules the better, we should only require rules for specific ongoing issues. While this document is intended to be only guidelines, nevertheless I have heard several people refer to them as the Rules and I think it's a slippery slope between guidelines and rules. I think that a solution to a particular problem often creates new problems while solving the original problem and one ought to be very careful in trying to solve a problem with a 'Rule'.

I asked the question, what is the problem we are trying to solve here and was told that it was twofold: too many people showing up for a meeting and thus limiting the time for reading and critiquing for each person, and some new members being disruptive due to no clear guidelines on how to comport themselves.

My view is, any new members who have been disruptive have moved on pretty quickly, they decided for themselves that they did not fit into our group, so why do we need rules for them? Also, we have been operating for a number of years without guidelines, why do we need them now? The behaviours deemed disruptive were arriving late and receiving cell phone calls during the meeting. The lateness issue was discussed at length, and while some people are bothered by it, others feel that occasional lateness can't be helped when travelling some distance to get to the meeting especially in the wintertime.

The obvious solution to me is just common sense: if you arrive late you may not have a chance to read if there are a bunch of people who arrived ahead of you. I also pointed out that we don't advertise and new members come by invitation only, so the inviter can fill the new member in on our current protocol in a brief conversation not requiring a written document (avoid lateness and turn off your phone or take your phone calls out of the room).

The discussion got a little heated and someone accused me of changing my mind from being fully supportive of the guidelines to fully opposed. I freely admitted that yes, I had changed my mind. Is that a problem?

Last night I was at a surprise birthday party for a friend and got into a conversation with another friend about "vision statements". She told me how she had wanted to join a particular local community group and was encouraged to do so, but when she was told that the next meeting of this group was devoted to coming up with a Vision Statement, she immediately decided this group was not for her. Having spent a career in various offices where Vision Statements were hammered out, she had concluded that they were a total waste of time and were of no use at all for busy groups just trying to get a job done.

I agreed with her heartily, the few times I have been involved in such exercises the discussion inevitably devolved into hair-splitting, and in order to achieve consensus the end result was a bland inanity. I have to say that that is my opinion of guidelines and rules as well. Such discussions are rarely useful and often result in creating new problems in place of the old ones.

I am starting off the new year being a grumpy iconoclast. Where will it end?

For a chuckle, here's a sign posted at my mechanic's garage:

Across the divide of time

I thought I had a dentist appointment this afternoon but I got the day wrong, it's tomorrow. Which gave me a whole extra two hours this afternoon, better than a time change!

Yesterday was my grandson's birthday, and the family tradition is for me to Skype or Facetime in for the singing of Happy Birthday and the cutting of the cake. T, my grandson, had requested a cheesecake for the occasion. He is now 17 years old. What was remarkable from my perspective was that he initiated the Facetime call with me. While everyone else in his family was getting ready for the 'main event', T made conversation with me.

He asked, "So what are you working on today?"

This was so unexpected I didn't know how to answer. I sat there trying to remember what I had done that day, and since it was actually a busy day there was lots to remember. I finally came up with: "I made salsa."

He was impressed that I made salsa, he said he didn't know that you could make it yourself. I asked him what he worked on today and he said he was rehearsing Twelfth Night, for which he had scored a main role. Then he picked up a small child and showed him to me on camera. He told me that it was cousin with a name I can't remember or even pronounce if I could remember it. Told his cousin to say 'Hi' to me, which he did. Then swung the camera around to show me another cousin, a slightly older child, and finally his younger brother P.

What impressed me about the conversation is that he asked me what I was doing that day. Never in all the conversations I have had via phone, Skype, Facetime or even in person have any of my kids expressed any interest in knowing what I was doing. Occasionally I will mention something but it falls into the conversation like a rock into a black hole, never to reappear or be acknowledged.

Earlier that day at the dogpark I was chatting with a fellow old lady dog walker and mentioned a conversation with another older woman who had been quite ill this summer and whose husband is paralyzed and keeps her very busy looking after him. Her illness made the summer extremely stressful and she complained that none of her kids stepped up to help. When I repeated this story to my dog walking friend she chipped in with her own stories of offspring neglect. How the youngsters don't seem to appreciate the difficulties of older age (my friend is 85, the other woman I spoke of, 80) and blithely expect one to carry on unaided. So far my own experience is similar although not quite as extreme.

At the dogpark

I complained that my kids want me to listen to them talk about their lives but seem totally uniniterested in what might be going on in my life. My friend countered that she remembered having that same attitude towards her own parents. That they must be endlessly fascinated by the lives of their children and couldn't possibly have anything to say for themselves that might be of interest. I said I knew what she meant and that 'what goes around comes around'.

So when my grandson actually asked what I did today, I was struck speechless.

Towards the end of the call he suggested that I download a particular game that we could play over the internet, he thought it would be fun to have a 'gaming granny' that he could play with. After the call I looked up the game he suggested and it was a popular shoot-em-up last-man-standing-wins kind of game. Much as I would like to have the interaction with the grandson, I don't know if I can bring myself to play that particular game.

The difficulties of navigating intergenerational communication…

Wednesday July 29, 1998 - Ottawa

Sunny and hot.

Today I earmarked for errands since I plan to leave tomorrow. Shopping, paying bills, getting caught up on email, and packing the truck. Liz waited all day for a phone call from her daughter who is currently in Czechoslovakia; the call never came. Yesterday Liz had gotten email from her daughter that the Amex cheques that she sent never arrived. As it turns out, they were returned here and Liz found out she could wire the money if necessary. But frustrating to wait all day for a call that never came.

In the middle of the afternoon I discovered my credit card holder was missing; it had all my bank cards, ID and driver's licence in it. I freaked. After searching the apartment I started phoning stores I'd been to. The Baseline Loblaws had it. A long way to drive in rush hour but what a relief! All my cards and ID were there.

We rented Boogie Nights which was pretty awful. Made the whole pornographic business look pretty abysmal, painfully realistic in parts. A whole lot of dysfunctional people.

It was late by the time the truck was packed and I could go to bed. I gave Yohan a little bit of food, he's allowed to eat now but I am being cautious, I don't want a recurrence.

Tuesday July 28, 1998 - Ottawa

Cloudy with rain.

Yohan's diarrhea is no better so I took him to a local vet. He diagnosed gastroenteritis and prescribed Pepto-Bismal and an antibiotic. I have to force it down his throat (the vet also prescribed no food for 24 hours) which is awful. He bites and snarls, he cut my hand twice.

Liz and I walked to the Market and had lunch at Bistro 615. We talked to a woman at the next table who was visiting from San Jose. We took the bus home and then later Liz drove me to Mexicali Rosa's where I was to meet a friend from Mitel for dinner. The friend did most of the talking, about her recent separation from her husband, how weird he was being, her fears of being laid off at work and her new house. I talked a bit about my own family. It started to rain really hard while we were there and since we were seated on the patio we moved indoors.

I phoned Liz to pick me up and she said I'd have to wait because she was busy. A bit annoying since it was her idea to drive me there in the first place, I could have just driven myself. Oh well.

Monday July 27, 1998 - Ottawa

Cloudy and rainy.

I called the local library and found out I could get on the internet there for free, right away. So off I went. Also called another friend, Nancy, that I used to work with at Mitel, and we arranged to go for dinner tomorrow night (Tuesday). I got email from Isaac to say that they plan to be in PEI September 1-7, which is when I thought I'd be in visiting them in Toronto, so I don't know what I'll do about that.

Sunday July 26, 1998 - Ottawa

Sunny and hot.

Yohan has diarrhea, not fun taking him for a walk in the neighbourhood, next to impossible to pick up after him. Liz and I did laundry at the local laundromat, some grocery shopping and then picked up The Full Monte to watch in the evening. We ordered pizza.

Saturday July 25, 1998 - Ottawa

Sunny and cool.

Liz and Jim and his two boys, Noel and Andrew, and I went out for breakfast to a place Noel wanted to see, a sports bar on Bank Street called Local Heroes. After breakfast Liz and Jim dropped the boys off at McLeod and me at Glebe Avenue and took off to go computer shopping and looking at houses in Gloucester. I did a few chores at Liz's place and tried to take Yohan for a walk. He's sick again, not sure what the problem is.

In the evening we sat out on the porch drinking wine spritzers and watching the world go by. Like old times.