Journal - Burnaby - Wednesday , Dec. 2

I am thankful to be awake for another day. The little dog greeted me . I have a home, running hot and cold water, indoor plumbing, and heat. It’s raining and cold outside. I was going to walk Madigan but so far the rains not let up and he’s enjoying sleeping in on the couch.

I’m a bit in the future given that I head south a week Friday. This Friday night I’ve the Dockside Christmas Party in Carderos’ north Vancouver.  Remember going there with George and the cake friends.  Alina and Iryna of Merry Maids cleaned my place yesterday. What a joy to come home to clean and tidy.  They make my place feel so homey.  Of course Madigan immediately begins to try to turn it back into a dog house, I’ll miss them when I’m away.  I’ve laundry to drop off for the last time so I have time to pick it up then I’m back to doing my own laundry.  I have to drop off my Mini for storage. 

Then. I’ll be ready to pack up and stow and take in my slide on Thursday next.  On the Friday I’ll only have to load my Vespa and Star Link. I can’t load the Vespa yet because the back of my Thor Hurricane is up against the branches of the tree so to load the Vespa I have to pull the Thor forward a couple of feet before I leave.

I’ve got all my paperwork passport, dog passport, Nexus, Vespa and Thor insurance.  I contacted Thaun from Insurance and asked him for a copy of my Vespa insurance. I can’t get into my glove box because its stuck but I only need the insurance papers so with a copy of that I won’t need to go to Vespa to unstick the glove box which will unstick on route most likely 

I made copies of the maps for the route and stops so I’m ready for that. I’ve audio books downloaded I plan to listen to. The first one is Dan Brown’s latest book.  The stowing is getting better.  It will improved this trip south as I’ll be travelling each day and will become efficient and streamlined.  

I am vvcry grateful for my relatives and ancestors.  I have work to do but will try to take a little walk with the dog despite the rain.  

Life is good.

Thank you Jesus

Journal - Dec. 1 - Gratitude

I am very thankful today that Dr. McKay the retinal specialist opthalomologist has passed me for travel.  “You have 20/50 vision in both eyes, can drive and don’t need to return to see me for a year and a half.”  Hallelujah!  Thank you Jesus.  Thank you Vitalux AREDS2  vitamin and mineral forumalation Dr. McKay recommended.

Thank you God.  

Thank you God for the money from the bank and work that has allowed me to pay off my credit cards, pay my rent and taxes and meeting the matching funds amount. Thank you that my Thor Hurricane has been seen and approved by Duke’s Ford and Traveland RV.  Thank you that Madigan is healthy and groomed.  Thank you that I have done all the tasks and errands I needed to do before I could leave to head south.  I’m continuing to work and have the Starlink set up and have spoken to Telus regarding cellular coverage.

Thank you for the Dockside Medical Clinic.

Thank you for the wonderful steak dinner gift of my sister in law I shared with Laura who looked like Meg Ryan and continues to be such lovely company. Thank you that she loves Madigan and he is not trying to hump her all the time.  Thank you for Madigan.  Thank you for my Vespa. Thank you for the Cyberdocs and MD meetings and WCIR meeting.

Thank you for the progress on my book . I’m hoping to publish it in the spring.  Right now I’m excited about LA, Fountain of Youth, Sleepy Hollow and Yuma/ Algadones.

Thank you for my work and please help me be a channel of your peace and help me with being the best physician/psychiatrist I can be for my patients.

Help me to remember the positives in my life and stop slipping down the rabbit hole to the trauma and poor me.  Heal my mind . Purify my soul.  

Thank you for the heat and propane and electricity and water and sewage .  Thank you for my plant and its recovery from too much sun this fall.  

Thank you for my guitar and music. Thank you for my Bodhran.  I wish to learn again how to play them and have more play in my life. Thank you for the computer game app and the challenge to learn this. Thank you for my couch and the books I downloaded from Kindle I’m enjoying reading. Thank you for the Roku television. Thank you for Mark Whalberg .  Laura  and I loved watching both Family Plan 1 and Family plan 2 this weekend.

Thank you for the Keg Restaurant. Adell gave us gift certificate and Laura and I so enjoyed our night out.  Madigan enjoyed the left over’s we brought back for him.

Thank you for the attitude adjustment meetings.

Thank you for the prescience of God. Thank you for the Flow. Thank you for the Innner room. Thank you for serenity and peace. Thank you for all you blessings.

I have to make a copy of paperwork I need for the trip

-passport

- license

- nexus

- Madigan’s passport papers

- Madigan’s rabies and chip information

-Insurance for Motorhome

- Insurance for Vespa

- Travel Insurance

I have to go to the bank at noon to exchange Canadian money for American money.  

Thank you Lord for all your blessings. 

Good News, Opthalmology Clinic

Gospel means ‘good news’.  The message of Jesus was that there was life after death and we could be saved if we believed in him, God and resurrection.  If we have faith we would be saved.  The teaching of religion before that had been fairly neurotics sometimes less than enthusiastic.  The underworld was often less than appealing and not so easily escape from.  Christianity said that the bad went to hell for a long time but that they could nevertheless ascend to paradise.  Jesus opened the jails so to speak for all who wished to leave that life. Indeed some have thoughts this middle world was held itself and Jesus definitely said it didn’t have to be.  

Today we believe that God is a loving God. We believe in heaven and even heaven on earth. That the spiritual world is a matter of thought and focus and belief.  Cognitive behaviour therapy teaches ‘what we think is what we feel’.  The spiritual law of attraction says that God gives us more of what we focus on. So if we focus on loss we attract more loss but if we focus on gratitude we attract positive.

The trouble is that spirituality has the potential for even more egocentricity when the essence of acceptance and surrender and the understanding of first cause and trusting the loving God is ‘thy will be done’.  Grace.  Not works so much but grace.

I learned yesterday that my eyes were unchanged from last year and I didn’t need surgery this year. Indeed the good news was that the next appointment was recommended at a year and a half rather than 6 months.  My eyes sight was 20/25 in both eyes and I could continue to drive my motorcycle and my motorhome.  Dr. McKay was happy too.  He was reassuring and smiled.  

My joy was almost childish.  I really could relate to John Mayor’s song lyrics “i want to run through the halls of the school.’  I was hearing the song ‘celebrate’ inside and trying to talk normally like and adult with this other doctor who’d just given me a ‘get out of jail free’ card.  His smile was kind and I babbled thanks and praise and he continued on to see his next patient.  Laura had come to meet me at the Broadway Clinic, across the street from my old clinic in the Fairmont Willow location.  I was so thankful to have this beautiful friend waiting to be my eyes and drive us home.  We walked outside  and my chest was bursting and gravity didn’t seem so great.  She was smiling.  I was so thankful.

I had spoke with my friend Mac, another psychiatrist . I ‘d met him through Madeleine, the beautiful and brilliant internists who’d doctored at the Himalayan base camp given her love of hiking.  When I’d told Mack that I’d asked the opthalmomolgists who’d first examined my eyes and said that I had ‘mild cataracts’. “Will I still be able to ride my motorcycle.”  The doctor had said yes and then I’d felt this guilt that I’d not thought about whether I could see babies giggling, dogs chasing their tales, the eyes of of beautiful women in love, the snow on mountain peaks or the rippled of the sun over the breaking waves at sea.  No first i cared about motorcycling.  Mack with his grey white bearddd and laughing eyes had replied that’s exactly what happened when I had to see the doctor about cataracts.  “Will I still be able to ride my motorcycle.’  We laughed.  And yes I asked Dr. McKay will I still be able to ride my motorcycle and drive my motorhome.  Yes, he’d said. And the joy welled up in side.

It’s such joy to ride a motorcycle.  The song comes back , “I don’t want a pickle, I just want to ride on my motorcycle.!!”

A patient had called me the day before wanting to share that the false allegation made against her and her partner had been cleared by the crown.  In Canada, as it slips more to communism and collectivism the re is a rise in ‘proxy violence’.  Accusing the negibhour of any transgression is without consequences.  The State encourages witnesses.  First it was ‘hot lines’ and now it’s all out. She’d argued with her neighbour in the housing district and next day police arrived and her and her boyfriend were arrested based on ‘charges’ .  Everyone knew the accusers was a neighbourhood bully , the perpetual victim, frequent flier accusing neighbours whenever she couldn’t get her way. But the police had this matter of  due process and the charges were serious. My patient and her partner could go to jail They both hired very good lawyers and everyone said it was going to be okay.  And 11 months later the ‘crown’ closed the case because of the lack of evidence and because this woman is a ‘frequent flyer’.  

“I feel like I’ve been in jail this whole time. I’ve been so anxious and so angry. I felt so badly .  Now I feel like I’ve been let out of jail. I feel so good.  We’re off to dinner to celebrate. I just wanted to let you know and thank you for being so supportive.”

I had tremendous support too.  Not just Mac but at least a dozen other men and women I go to meetings and church with hand listened as I shyly expressed my concerns.  My friend George who loves to drive his little red Corvctte and waxes poetic about Route 66 singing refrains of Beach Boys songs as he does, had himself has cataracts surgery and said it had been okay. He could see better and his eyesight for driving was secured.  

Laura told me about her friend who said  her cataract had been removed with lazer surgery and it was like someone ‘had washed all the windows in her house≥ “. 

I was so thankful for people to share their success stories.  I was even more thankful that I was given another year and a half before I needed another exam. I truly trusted Dr. McKay and Pintwala my ophthalmologists.  The visits have assured me of their kindness of heart and competence.  I’m just glad I don’t need surgery.  I’m thankful to avoid any surgery if I can. “It’s best to avoid surgery if you can , Dr. McKay’ had said in parting.  

I liked that. In my darkest moments I saw a mad man opthalomologist starting up his chain saw and calling me into the operating room.  I’d done surgery and spent a year in a surgical residency but now was glad to work as a psychiatrist. I’m thankful I’ve been able to learn to laugh at myself and know that humor is good medicine.  

Laura drove us back to my Thor motorhome my eyes seeing the world like a fish might, kind of swirly with the dilating material.  I felt happy and the light seemed brighter and hugging Laura was the best.Feeling her hugging me back. It’s going to be okay. And then there was Madigan greeting us with his jumping about and chasing the ball and his tail and just as excited at seeing us after 3 hours of being alone as I was learning I could still ride my motorcycle. Oh to feel like a dog does. 

Thank you Lord

HALT

When I’m feeling Restless, Irritable or Discontent, I recognize the RID’s and use the Acronuym HALT to assess my situation.  

Am I hungry.  If so eat something even a candy. My blood sugar may be low.  Maybe I need a meal. Make a sandwich. Have some soup.  Stop at a diner. 

Am I angry?  Maybe address it. Resentment is taking poison and hoping the other person will die.  What is my part in it. How can I change myself.  What can I learn for the future. Can I move on.  Dealing with the physical frustration of anger is best done with aerobic exercise.  Also dance.  Tai Chi. Yoga. Meditation or prayer.  Talk to a friend, counsellor, mentor.  Move on. Do, don’t stew.

 Am I lonely? If so reach out to someone.  If I can’t actually pick up the phone, go out side. Inside alone with yourself you are with someone crazy. Misery loves company. Share.   Outside you are with birds and nature and walking among other people. You don’t have to hug a stranger.  Being with others you realize you’re not a lone but rather there’s a community a tribe you are apart of. You can even find positive people in all manner of activities outside.  If it’s a recurrent thing get a plant.  Talk to it.  Give it a name. Plants like heavy metal music.  They like attention. A goldfish is even more responsive.  I knew people who have acquired spiders or reptiles. It’s better than narcissism.   Commonly a bird, a cat or dog will fill the bill.  Then you are caring for someone other than yourself.  You might even volunteer.  Visiting the elderly in retirement centers. Visiting dog shelters.  Being a foster parent to a pet. Joining a choir. Or a club.  There are countless options to get out of yourself. You can even date, get married, have a family, raise children. The whole catastrophe, to quote Zorba.  But it’s better than being alone and lonely.  Humans are herd animals whatever intellectuals might try to tell you differently.  Get out of yourself. Or at least out of your room.  Do it.

Am I tired? Maybe all you need is a nap and you’ll fear better. So much one worries about at night is better in the morning. There’s a lot to be said about a  new day.  Consider you may just be feeling tiredness.  You’re overworked, too stressed and need a rest.  Maybe you need twelve hours of rest and have to turn off all the electronics and phone and sleep.  Rest is healing. It helps recovery. It’s a start.  Do it.

HALT has helped thousands of people over come all manner of addictions.  It’s worked for alcoholism and drug addiction.  The desire arises because it was an easy distraction in the past. It’s became a habit to have a smoke, a drink or gamble on the internet, use porn or shop. You don’t have to .  Say HALT and work through the acronym.  The more you try it the more powerful it becomes. Establishing a new positive habit is always baby steps. Start with HALT and break the knee jerk response to do what you used to do. It really doesn’t matter how long you’ve been doing whatever it was you no longer like. We can change and adapt. That was then. This is now.    Start today.  

ODAAT is the acronym for one day at a time. It was found in 12 step programs and by others that when you want to change it is best to focus on the present, on now and make the change for today. Tomorrow is yet to come. Be present. Baby steps.  Make an effort today and each day you will go a little further forward. It’s not necessarily a straight path. It’s often two steps forward one step back. But finally you will be going in the right direction. Slowly at first then it picks up and you’ll be rocketed to a new dimension as one famous fellow of chance once said.  You don’t have to take the elevator to the bottom floor. You can get off wherever and whenever  you want. Then you’re on the up elevator. Don’t look back. Keep picking yourself up and going forward.  It takes a little time but then it’s a whole lot better. You’re no longer doing the same old or going in circles or beating yourself up.  Instead you’re moving forward. You’re making the change you want becoming the person you want to be.  You’ve dropped the rock and feel lighter and free.   That’s the direction you want to go.  So do it. 

Pedophillia

It’s not that it’s unnatural.  I was just reading about Quakka’s the smiling little Australian furry creature whose mother will throw her infant at predator’s to make her escape.  So much for natural mother love. Genetics are diverse and cultures and families differ.  Torontonians homogenize and think everyone is like them.  It was easier for intellectuals like Marx to be reductionist .

The truth is we don’t know who will be pedophiles or how much it’s nature or nurture. There’s usually genetics and epigentics.  The more alcohol and drugs in a community the more sexual abuse and pedophilia.

Pedophila is sexual with a pre pubescent child.  The arrogant law makers want the definition to be child sexual abuse and then they can arbitrarily define the age of a child when biologically we’re much more exacting.  Pedophilia is sex with a prepubescent child.  For the courts child sexual abuse can be whatever. Some to increase the power and reach of the courts said ‘underage’ was under 16 while in some countries it was 11.  Pedophilia is sex with a prepubescent child. Pubescent is the phase of secondary sexual characteristic and hormone surge so genitalia hair grows, breasts, grow, penis’s grow, men shave.  Girlhood to womanhood, Boyhood to manhood.

Pedophilia is rare in civilized humans.  The role of the mother was to protect the child from all adults including her husband and his family while the role of the father was to protect his child from the mother and her family. The biological reproductive drive of the parents was to raise a child to become an adult who would reproduce like them.  Children were critical to the success of family and community because children worked. In the hunter gatherer society children ‘gathered’ untill they were old enough to hunt and fish.  In the agricultural society the children farmed. In all soceities children made soldiers or produced soldiers because numbers were essential to defence and attack.  Industrial society changed things but still family was the central power group and alliance which provided for wealth and success till this day.  

Pedophilia has been normal in some cultures.  Sparta and the man boy love.  The 8 is too late movement in North America felt that children needed to be sexualized early to naturalize sexuality.  Certainly there is evidence of from pediatric history that children were much more sexually mature in rural communities and early village life long before the Victorian era and modern often bizarre child raising ideas.  

When children are sexually abused a few will go onto sexually abuse having learned this behaviour. Most will not.  

What few seem unaware of is that pedophiles are like addicts and predators.  Often when caught they have some five hundred victims.  It is a compulsion akin to sexual addiction or other compulsive disorders like trichotillomania hair pulling or alcoholism.  

Carl Hinson - the brilliant souther US writer wrote ‘there are only two things and American congressman can’t do / Get caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy.’   

Today pedophilia is a central feature of blackmail.  Epstein’s Island has been said to be an intelligence operation get pictures of powerful men and women under the influence of drug and alcohol in bed with children.

The Cartel Gang leaders will initiate a new member by having him kill and enemie with witnesses. Should the new man screw up the leaders have evidence on him to control him but he being new doens’t have evidence on him.

Pedophilia servcs just as well as murder as a tool of loyalty and control.

Cutting for Stone, the brilliant book by Abraham Verghese describes an African clinic where Muslim wives are two young physically to have children and their uterus’s and genitals are damaged in childbirth leaving the girl a reject because she was impregnated before her body was old enough to bear children.  Major damage and major concern.  

Pedophilia ranges from looking to touching to oral to intercourse. It’s the intercourse that seems naturally to cause the most damage.  Anal tears and lifelong physical trauma as well as pain and disability.

Pornography increases the pedophiles behaviour but doesn’t itself initiate pedophilia.  But pedophiles will share ponrnography and form these lose associations based on locality.  Like the old gay associations where these societal lepers shared a secret.  As gays are accepted in western civilized society their threat is gone but pedophiles remain an outside group.

It’s not a ‘culture’. It’s not ‘normal’.  It’s either bad or mad and honestly I think of it most as an addiction for some and part of a genetic based psychopathic behaviour for others.  

Incest includes a peculiar and particular form of pedophilia that is distinct from the garden variety sex with children form.  Dr. Judith Herman discusses Incest in her seminal book. Incest which followed her classic Trauma and Recovery.

Incest pedophilia appears most a family disorder and the pedophiliac members aren’t interested in sex with strangers.  Some consider it a loving act where the mothers are ‘training’ the daughters .  There are dildo like objects going back thousands of years years found by archeologists and anthropologists consider these were users for training purposes by women in families and women societies.  There were issues of the hymen which might only later have been considered in patriarchal societies rather than matriarchal societies.  

I don’t think there is any successful treatment for pedophilia at this time. Caught early likely there is but the pedophiles I caught or saw with hundreds of victims were such psychopaths and compulsive liars and paranoid the potential for successful treatment was limited in deed.  

The pedophiles were not made pedophiles by being celibate priests. Predator pedophiles considered anywhere children were unattended a hunting grounds.  Priesthood attracted pedophiles.  Most interesting while the media went on about ‘altar boys’ the vast majority off sexual abuse was heterosexual. Only a limited amount was pedophilia.  Mostly commonly awkward young priests were alone with awkward young adolescent girls and sex followed.It wasn’t pedophilia but young love that was not sanctioned by parents , church or courts.  Rome and Juliet.

Today pedophiles would be attracted to gaming arcades and toy sales positions.  Teachers and priests have been thoroughly ‘vetted’ so the predators are having to be creative. They’ve adapted quickly to the internet and its anonymity. The FBI have done well making phones accounts for role play games and meet up s with good success catching pedophiles with ‘traps’ which is effective when judges are better educated in biology and science. 

Just some thoughts. I don’t think incarceration helps pedophiles but I’m impressed with the electronic ankle bracelets and notifying parents when a pedophile is in the neighborhood. I don’t think they should have jobs that mix with children.  However I distinguish early onset and incest and do not do the terrible thing the courts do including ‘under age’ sex with pedophilia.  Romeo and Juliet is breaking the law.  Young love can be stopped and taught and is responsive to all manner of therapy.  Pedophilia is not.  When you’ve had a few hundred encounters maybe there’s no going back.  Certainly one old cannibal said his behaviour was because of the taste. 

Journal - November Morning

She told me how she had times of despair when she couldn’t sleep because she had fears and worries she couldn’t shake.

“But I’m always happy in the morning. When the light comes and the new day begins.”  She smiled , her enthusiasm infectious. 

My dog is that way, always .  Sometimes I wake to see him staring at me, waiting to play.

I struggle to get out of bed. The alarm with the song “Holy, holy, holy’ some days disturbs my sleep, my dreams.  Most days I have positive dreams.  I have these few places I return to, a great meeting, a conference on a Greek Island. I recognized Santorini when I saw pictures of it.  Another is I’m in the mountains at a hunting lodge.  I’m often riding trucks or quads.  The wilderness is magnificent.  I’m. sharing a lodge with other people.  It’s good when there aren’t problems with plumbing and toilets.  I like the people and the surroundings.  I’m sometimes hunting. 

I like to visit Cathedrals.  I like to pray where thousands sometimes milllions have come to worship.  I imagine myself a chord in a symphony of peace played through the ages.  I listen and feel for the music.

I pray and meditate in the morning.  Talking with God. Going into the inner place. Thy will be done.  A loving God.  Kindness.  I find these days I’m often thinking of the holy men I’ve know in my life, family and friends.  I’ve been so blessed. Mentors and teachers.  The ones who’ve passed away. Today I thought of John and George.  Our discussions of the sacred.  Our dinners and walks, or with John, it would be wheels.  

Today I have work and pray that I can be of maximum service to those I care for.  The days are busy with tasks and conversations, calls and requests and things to remember. I’m going away in 17 sleeps. I’ve a doctors appointment Friday. I’m looking forward to seeing Laura.  Madigan is always so excited.  Then it’s pack up and drive. I’m looking forward to being a truck driver/bus driver/wheeling my Class A motorhome down the highway. I think of my father doing this and find I’ve followed in his footsteps so often with camping and hunting and fishing and traveling.  I’ve trail blazed too at times.

The passage is always a challenge, I remember her saying. A tall beautiful woman with several children and a husband who was an oceonographer.  ‘We sail from work to work,” he said. “My jobs anre  always on the ocean[.  They lived in their 42 foot Swan.  A magnificent boat.  She sang at night when the guitars came out.   We all liked Jimmy Buffet those nights in the coastal harbors of Mexico.  

I’ve left the sea.  I have the picture of the SV Giri on the table. My steel hulled cutter rigged sailing ship I crossed the Pacific in winter  to Hawaii in.  I loved that I had the capability of going anywhere in the world in that blue water vessel.I’d sailed down to the coast to Mexico and up the coast to Alaska. I imagined sailing to Africa and India and sailing the Seven Seas.  But the days of anchoring off an island and enjoying explorations, a kind of idyllic time of solo sailors and relatively inexpensive travel bringing your own home as it were. 

The costs were in the ship but then the countries began to see the westerners as all ‘rich’ and even anchoring began to cost. The government saw the sailor as a tourist and increased the regulations and costs so that sometimes a whole day was needed to go through government offices and get all the stamps and approvals.  Pirates began to proliferate. When we wanted to sail to the Philippines or beyond Malaysia we heard that ships were gathering in flotillas with expensive armed escorts just to get by the terrorists.  We were also told we couldn’t defend ourselves or the countries would protect their citizens against us. well, it looked like the days when the Marines were raised.  Pirates and kidnapping and weak governments until the Marines addressed the issue of white slavers.

I was travelling down coasts at 5 knots an hour and looked to shore and saw motorhomes going along at a 100 miles an hour. I didn’t want to face risks where I’d be kidnapped and held for ransom. I became older and I’d been mugged and robbed travelling and older wanted more peace. I liked the safe adventure and driving on a highway with the yahoos on drugs and alcohol who cause so much damage on the roads were somehow less daunting that maintaining a sailing boat and engine off hostile coasts. I liked the idea if I had a problem I could just pull over.  I also have so much I want to see in North America and less desire to go where people don’t speak my language or wish to kill Christians. I am tired of being seen by others as the enemy when the enemy is their own leaders just like our enemy is our leaders too. We’re  the middle class and we are the guilds and workers  not the kings and queens and corporate leaders.  You can recognize us because we don’t have body guards and private armies. We’re tourists.  We’re friendly and we buy things and we are good for your economy.  Don’t let us be attacked

 and make it safe for us older people to visit. 

I like that the motorhome crowd have their KOA’s and Good Sam clubs. I like the security of the RV parks just as I once liked the marinas .  I know I can boon dock and do but I’ve done my time sleeping under the stars in the mountains hiking without a tent or sleeping in a pup tent I’ve carried on my back or on the back of my bike or motorcycles.  Now I’m glamping.  I like that I have this little world of all I need and I can make my own basecamp and go out from here on my Vespa or Harley.  Next year I imagine having a Marverik hybrid I can tow. For now I’m learning to drive the motorhome and am satisfied with my Vespa. I have a box which the dog rides in behind me on the back seat.  It gets us around when we leave the mother ship.  I’m looking forward to a passage if with a little trepidation.  Once I get settled it’s hard to move. I’m so quickly comfortable in my space with electricity , the city water hose and sewage hooked up and my star link antennae out.  

Driving and motion is a kind of moving meditation and a change from the deluge of calls and requests. I’ll just have to deal with my own anxiety.  I like that I’m comfortable driving in what Archie calls the ‘serenity lane’. I’ve learned to pull in behind some trucks and go with the flow.  As tempting as it is to pull ahead I’m so much more inclined to just enjoy the journey. It wouldn’t be different if I was on a train or bus.  I like the professionals and especially in those 8 lane highways in the mountains I like to join the working gang and go slow. This isn’t a race.  

Thank you God for today. Thank you for family and friends. Thank you for Madigan. Thank you for the pets and children of all I know. Thank you for their vehicles too. Thank you for our sundry recreations. Thank you for music. Thank you for dreams. Thank you for work. Thank you for today.

Journal - Monday - Low Propane

The propane truck comes on Thursday.  I just found one of the two electric heaters had been off. The propane tops up the heat and contributes to the hot water. I’ll be rationing now. The meter shows low. I can connect my propane bottle turn it upside down and empty half the little tank.  I may do that. The experience encourages me to take the barbecue propane tank along.  I’d fleetingly thought of leaving it.  

It’s 18-19 days till I leave.  Peter asked if I was counting the sleeps.  I wasn’t then but this weekend I counted the days.  

I’ve been speaking to God, the loving God of my understanding.

Mostly I call God, God, sometimes Lord, sometimes Holy Spirit, sometimes Jesus Christ.

I meditate. I pray.  Since reading ‘pray unceasingly’ in the Bible I upped my prayer life, talking to God whenever. I have rote prayers, Our father, and others.  I practice the presence. Realizing I’m not alone .I’m at peace when I am in the present.  God is with me. I am with God.  God in me God and I one.  God above me , God below me, God to the right of me, God to the left of me, God to the back of me. God to the front of me.  

I pray for protection from evil and fear. I’m adopting an attitude of gratitude. I am grateful. I thank God each day first thing for the day and for Madigan.  He’s sleep on the couch. I ask help to be of service. I have patients to see and I want to be the best doctor I can be for them.  I ask to resist temptation.

I’m looking forward to the driving.  I like my time listening to audiobooks and watching the scenery and miles go by.  

I’m seeing the ophthalmologist, Dr. McKay this Friday.  Laura will meet me and drive me home. My eyes are much better this year than last so I’m hoping I’ll just be reassured.  I’ve three weeks booked at Hollywood RV Park.  We have tickets to the LACAM and are planning to see the Getty.  I was looking into the Christmas Day and Christmas Eve service. I’ll be renting a car to pick up Laura.  My finances are improving. It’s been tight with the hunting holiday and clinic closing and transfer.

I have a meeting with another virtual doctor agency.  I wonder about a half day back up.  

I’ve been thinking of trading in my Mini Cooper for a Maverick hybrid since that can tow bedhind a car and I’d be able to carry the Vespa or Harley in the back.  The Mini doesn’t tow like the dinghy towing capacity of the little truck.  There’s work to be done on the Camper and on the boat so those are upcoming costs. I like going south with money and credit. It looks like I’ll clear my credit cards this week when I pay rent and taxes. The month in LA is paid for. I’m thinking I’ll got to Fountain of Youth from then then Sleepy Hollow Algadones.  Last years I did the Bombay Cafe on return but this year I may do it on the way out and on the way home.  

I liked Philomena Cunk when she’s asked ‘what she is doing with her life’s’ responded “I’m just trying to get to Friday’.  I’ve been enjoy Eagles music again. 

On the weekend I loaded the game Tour of Duty and began to learn to play a video game. It’s been years since I play Duke Nukem , Diablo and the duck hunting one.  I think it’s good for my mind and fine motor skills.  I did my foundation training this morning and have been swimming once a week again. I’ve not been walking the dog as much.  Exercise is so important and I’ve been too much on the couch watching tv and reading. Reading has been fun, westerns and thrillers. I read such serious material and listened to such serious audiobooks. It was fun to be enlightened with knowledge. I’m looking forward to the art galleries in LA Then there’s St. John’s Cathedral and Our Lady cathedral visits and St. Monica Beach 

Just keeping track of the schedule is a challenge at times.

I am blessed . Thank you Lord. Thank you for this day. Thank you for the family I was born into, my grandparents and mom and dad and Ron and Aunt Sally. Thank you for the friends and schools and teachers and lovers and wives and adventures. Thank you bicycles, boats and motorcycle, trucks. and motorhomes.  I made a rabbit stew on the weekend and finished the grouse paella. Thank you for the hunting and game. Help me with my plan to fish more and eat more fish.  I loved the fried fish in Mexico. Thank you for chickens Lord and barbecue.  Thank you Lord for food and clothing and vision and hearing. Thank you for Touch. Thank you for Laura coming this weekend. Thank you for my motorhome and the dawn yellows and orange coming now into the eastern sky. 

Thank you for my great nephews and nieces, the nephews and nieces in laws and sister in law and god children and their parents. Thank you for my colleagues and the administration. Thank you for the banks and commerce and all those that work and assist in the maintenance of community and structure. Thank you for Peter and Larry, Ernst and Nicolette,, Shane, Mack, Helena, Dave, Kim, and all the others I know as neighbors. Thank you for George and Marty, Neil and Mario, Jack and Tomco, Stan, and Dean, Terry, and all the other men in the men’s’ meeting. Thank you for Hugh, Mac, Jake, Sally, Dave and all the men and women in the cyber meetings.  Thank you for Mary Lou, Upta, Garry, Raven, Moninder and all the folk at the clinic. Thank you for all the patients Lord. Thank you for all the people that I meet in passing at the IGA and Choices and the Lougheeed Mall, and the Tiki Laundry, the Full Basket butcher, the London drugs, Coquitlam Apple, and Bosley’s Pets, Staples and Canadian Tire, Walmart and Costco’s. Thank you for Chatterr and Professional nails, and the little men’s clothing shop in the mall’s, Thank you for Starlink and Cellular phones and electricity and water and roads and gas stations and doctors, nurses, and hospitals and medicines.  Thank you for chiropractors and massage. Thank you for the pools and hot tub. Thank you for all your blessings. Thank you Lord.