Benbow KOA Holiday Campground

Love it here .  Beautiful site in the Redwords.  Pleasant helpful staff. A whole lot of pull throughs.  

I travelled up the 101, the Redwood Highway from Petaluma North San Francisco KOA.  It’s much more relaxed after the LA and SF 12 lane freeways. It only a 3 hour jaunt.  Lots of winding turns for the Motorhome. But also lots of pull outs and passing lanes. I was able to travel mostly at 80 - 90 km without the feeling I am holding anyone back.  There were even a couple of rest areas where I let Madigan out to pee.

In the morning there was rain but it cleared up and the day was beautiful.  Blue sky with occasional clouds.  Sunshine.  I stopped in the Leggitt Market to get some groceries as I’d been getting less variety.  My breakfasts have been good with boiled egg, yoghurt, orange juice and instant porridge. I made a coffee for the meal and another to take in a thermos.

Today I felt some more at ease I began listening to Dan Brown’s incredible book Secret of Secrets. 

There’s a restaurant here so I’m going over in an hour.  I’m tired of my own cooking. As much as Madigan likes my barbecue and cold cuts I’d really like a change.  

I’m looking forward to getting back to Canada.  Gold Beach tomorrow.  I have work and accounting waiting for me and I really want to get my slide  fixed so my home is restored.  I have put off doing laundry and am looking forward to dropping this bag off at my favourite laundromat, Tikki Poo in Burnaby.  Will be great to see Laura and next week I’ll be able to get to my men’s meeting. This Sunday there’s a western Canada doctors meeting.  

Thank you Jesus for another great day!!!

North San Francisco - Petaluma KOA Campground

It was a long 5 hour drive yesterday.  An hour of that was 12 lane freeway.  When I reached the KOA I was utterly exhausted with my mind instantly fogging. It was all I could do to check in. I believe the KOA office folk see others like me. They are so clear in their communication.  This fellow actually came out and opened the gate for me because I couldn’t figure how to work the key pad and bar.  Then I was parking in a beautiful drive through site. The action of setting up is becoming routine and grounding.  

Parking brake, level, electricity, water, sewer hose. Then Starlink WiFi.  Once that was done I walked Madigan to the play area. I love that KOA’s a standardized with laundry, pool, facilities and K9 area all Standardized. Talking with Laura who love KOA too I said it’s kind of like and advanced Macdonald’s for its standardization and reliability.  They are all clean and orderly and at the end of a long drive nothing is better.  If I wasn’t travelling I might appreciate something different.  But travelling its all about easy.

Coming up from the south was the most beautiful country. Lots of views of the Pacific Oceans then agricultureal land forever.  There was even a ‘garlic city’.  The last hour was travelling into San Francisco. I didn’t stay on the 101 but followed the GPS directions to head to Oakland.  All the way I was having memories of my first time visitting San Francisco with Baiaba in the early 70’s after the Colorado Peace and Love Festival with Kirk.  The song ‘if’s you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.’ Baiba was the most beautiful girl in the world and wore flowers in her hair.  It was the time of Gracie Slick and Jefferson Airplane,  The Greateful Dead.  We were hitchinking up to Canada to attend the Latvian Song Fest with Baioba’s mother. And we really were dancing in the streets of San Francisco with thousands.

Next I was a young doctor with Mauraen and we’d planned to hike in Banff but the late snow caused us to head south.  We had my Sheepskin Sleeping Bag I’d made in Winnipeg after survival training in living in igloos in survival training in Churchill. Maureen was going into a Pediatric residency.  Camping in Napa Valley we met Warren and Gail. Warren was hilarious and brilliant.  Gail and Maureen hit it off.  We’d ride on their motorcycles to wine tastings and visit with them back their Napa home.  A year or two later they’d join us in Canada for a wilderness canoe adventure taking off from my brother Ron’s cottage in Lake of the Woods.  

Years later when I left Maureen and visited Warren I’d live with his sister Suzanne and her son.  I’d do my American exams and FLEX, get accepted to a staff position at Stanford having left my assist at professor position at University of Manitoba.  I was suffering the last year of residency  with serious trauma and betrayals and not very nice. I regret how unkind I was.  Warren was a mensch and I loved talking about gravity with him.  There was so much to learn and conversations were like the late night adolescent times when I was at the Manitoba Theatue School .  Knowledge and learning were so incredible in those days.  The girls were so beautiful. Suzanne , Warren’s sister was amazing.  Gail would leave.  Warren’s parents and grandparents and brother were all the most caring and extraordinary people. Warren as Maureen and I separated.  Such heady emotional times.

Then I was back again with Sherrie in the Vanagon driving down from Vancouver where we were living. Next I was sailing down the coast with Tom and Sherrie in the 39.9 foot steel sailboat. SV Giri.  Because Sherrie had adjusted the radar at night we went off the bow wave of a tank in the fog under Golden Gate Bridge.  Somehow we serviced and continued south where Sherrie and I spent the winter in Sea of Cortez.  

Years later I’d sail so low down the coast past the infamous Cape Mendocino and under the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco Bay. I’d anchor off Sausillito to make final preparations. Then in the most memorable way I’d sail under the Golden Gate Bridge dressed in my red survival suit and continue solo in winter to the Hawaiian islands.

It was not just 12 lanes of freeway in a 29 foot Thor Hurricane Class A Motorhome with the broken slide held in by slide locks going at 70 miles an hour. I was do memory lanes with regrets about how arrogant and unkind I was with so many fears and uncertainties.  I really appreciated all the accomplishments and was blessed to know the people I did back then. What wonderful women and friends.  I really had so much but truly was an ‘egomaniac with an inferiority complex’.  We drank too much wine and smoked too much dope. But we danced and loved and share such hilarity.  Now here I was again going through San Francisco and there on my left was the Golden Gate Bridge.

Thank you God for this life. Thank you God for all the blessings.  Forgive me for being such an ass but thank you for all the good times nonetheless.  Thank you now for this day.  I am still getting better from the flu with sinuses that are stffy at times, the cough almost totally gone and yet the fatigue and brain fog persist at the end of the day. Mornings are fine and time for me to walk Madigan, gear up and hit the road again. It’s been raining all night and we’ve left the brown hills and desert and are entering the rainforest.  Soon I’ll be on the Red Wood Highway.  I once drove up here on my way to work at UBC in my beat up Baja Bug I called ‘Pendergast’.  That was some journey too.  Leaving San Francisco for Vancouver BC.  This Thor Hurricane is a far cry from that beater.  I had to adjust the points repeatedly and without a hood deal with electrical shorts in down pours.  Madigan and I are much happier in the Thor even if the slide motor has died.  I look forward to a replacement in Vancouver. Everything works just fine and I’m actually becoming more accomplished as a ‘bus driver’.  Time to go.  

Thank you God for all the love and joy.  Forgive me for my selfishness.  Help me to be a better man today.  Help get Madigan and I and Thor back to Canada safely.  Please protect us all from Communist Coporate madness of eastern Canada and the NWO Carney PM.  Help me to focus more on the serenity prayer and stash in my own lane.  As Zappa said, Politics is only the Entertainment Division of the Millitary Industrail Complex. It’s all above my pay grade.  Soon I’ll be able to work again as each day I feel my body and mind heal. Madigan and I are looking forward to seeing Laura when we return.  There’s Kim and Mac, Helena and Dave, Nicollet and Earnest, George and the men’s group. Gary and Mary Lou and all the people that are part of the Burnaby life.  Thank you

Santa Marguerite Holiday KOA Campground

The Thor is like a wounded goose with the slide closed in.  I thanked Bob from RV Rescue when he put in the slide lock.  One motor doesn’t work but the slide is in. Said good bye to the peacocks.

Long drive.  I’m still fatigued after the flu.  Headache from concentration and congestion but much better sleep.  I stopped being contagious a few days ago and today the dry cough was mostly gone.  We really enjoyed the Ventura Ranch KOA.  Good to be back on the road.  Driving is easier each day 

Today I even drove around a couple of towns looking for Propane. I filled the beast with gas.  Finally found propane.  Was able to back up and maneuver/. Madigan got a walk at a rest area.

The big event was seeing the Pacific Ocean.  Lovely views with the big screen windshield.  Fond memories of sailing past San Luis Obispo in the SV Giri the trip to Baja Mexico..  Looking at the whole expanse of blue brought back memories too of sailing across the ocean. Trade wind sailing some of the most awesome memories. Now I’m in this land barge and beginning to find my groove in the freeway rush. Just stay inside the lines.

It’s beautiful country here.  Lots of rolling green hills and black cattle.  Maybe angus. Blue skies and sunshine.  Still warm. Though cool nights. Glad to have propane . Had the furnace fixed on the way down and was chilled in the north.  Now I’m comfy. Haven’t had to use the generator for air conditioning or heating but now have more options. 

I am thankful each day and feel gratitude for progress.  It’s quite the journey.  Glad to be able to do it. Two and three hour jaunts have been fine but tomorrow it will be 4 to 5.hours like the days coming south. Gave me an appreciation of my friends Larry and Peter who do these trips several times a year and have the travel down to a science. Peter says they make sandwiches for the trip while I have made stops for Madigan .  So far haven’t had Macdonald Burger lunches like I did with the truck and camper.  It’s a challenge to find parking with the bus.  I do have a thermos of coffee and appreciate that. KOA has been great.  I’m reserved for San Franciciso North Petaluma KOA.

Tomorrow I pass through San Francisco and all the memories of previous trips and the time I lived there.  I really have had a blessed life and remember people and places so fondly now. One of the joys of aging. Letting go of the resentments and celebrating life.

Madigan’s is a great companion.  Thank you God and keep us safe on this journey.

RV Rescue

I was in Ventura Ranch Holiday KOAd having stayed two nights on my return to Canada from snow birding for a few months in Southern California. I have a 2022 Thor 29 Hurricane I bought last spring from Traveland.  It reallly has been wonderful home and machine despite ‘shake down cruise’ problems.  One has been the slide.  In LA it had required an RV tech to fix its clearance over the waste water outflow beneath the sink.

Now Horror of Horrors the slide would not close.  Without the slide closed I couldn’t leave. I was on a time line returning with work expectations in Canada and my Johnson and Johnson travel insurance was running out. Besides having had a wonderful time I was looking forward to being with friends again and ‘home’.

Thankfully the KOA office recommended Bob Schlesinger, a certified RV Tech, with “RV Rescue.”  He’s located in Valencia CA. 858-255 4464.  He called me back within the hour, discussed the slide problem and said he could be there that afternoon.

He came and had all the electronic equipment to address  the issue. There are  two 500:1  motors at the top of the slide which can be desyncronized.  There’s a ‘controller’ under the THor on the ceiling of the storage box.  The’ fix it yourself RV internet site” said press the button with a pen 6 times then 1 more.  This would cause flashing lights.  Then go inside and press the retract on the panel and the motors should be synchronized and the slide should go in.  First, while it was easy enough to locate the control its location was was such seeing a pressing the tiny button required a contortionist and extension mirror. I somehow did it.  But the slide  didn’t retradt

.

When Bob arrived he told me there were two motors and that the controller sinked them but one   to be erratic.  He had a marvellous electronic gizmo that bypassed the controller and allowed him to test each motor.  Having diagnosed that problem he disconnected the second motor with the help of his assistant who arrived after being called.  We lower the Thor on the automatic jacks so the nose was lower pulling thee slide forward with gravity and allowing Bob to disconnect the second battery.  Then with the help of his assistant they could manually ‘push’ that end in.

Unfortunately the front end of the slide still only went half way in.  Bob then began a search for what could be blocking it.  The previous fault under the sink wasn’t the problem and there seemed nothing in the cabin that could be adding resistance. Under the THOR at the top of the first storange box he found that the slide had become loose. There were three or four of these guides in each of the boxes.  This one was enough out of alignment to block the return of the slide. Once that was diagnosed the assistant could press against the slide to help alignment as Bob brought the slide in with his bypass controller gizmo.

Voila!!!!  The slide was in.  Kaloo Kalay, the Jaberwalky cried. I said Halllujah.  Peacock were in the park at this point walked by to see what the excitement was about.   I was mobile again. I don’t need the slide to be able to go on with the Thor Motorhome . They are made to be functional with the slide in. I can walk right through and use everything I need. I just down have the extra space that adds elegance and charm and extra living space to the vehicle when I’m parked..  

I was really pleased.  3 hours of time and reasonable cost given they came out on a Sunday. Bob had solved a problem I couldn’t  without the experience and training. I  wouldn’t have been able to fix it myself  despite having a variety of ‘fix it’ skills younger.  It turned out to be a two person job anyway. 

KOA was most understanding. I paid the extra day this morning. I had planned to be going on to KOA Santa Magerita but when I called them first thing yesterday morning they were able to cancel my reservation.  I’ll keep a day late.  I suspect I’m not the only one who has been delayed by a slide.  Fortunately for me Bob came to the rescue. RV Rescue indeed.

Right now I’m waiting for him to come with a ‘Slide Lock’. Disconnceted from one motor that end of the slide could potentially swing out on the freeway.  Not something other drivers or myself would appreciate.  I’ve a few days driving and will be thankful for the peace of mind knowing that I’m safe. The slide lock is an extending pole put on the inside to prevent the slide going out. Obviously better than my idea of wrapping duck tape all around the Motorhome and holding the slider in that way.

Thank you Lord . 

Ventura Ranch KOA Holiday RV Park

What a wonderful park. The staff were terrific when I arrived. I’ve only had this 29M Thor Hurricane Motorhome this year.  It’s challenging. I’ve got lost and turned around once coming from the Palm Springs Joshua Tree KOA.  Merging onto the I5 for a bit was very exciting moving across 4 lanes .  I was doing 70 in 12 lanes in Pasadena. This one time I almost smunched the guy beside me but he accelerated past me at the speed of light. He was glad to have a fast car that day. I also thought that other drivers were doing their best to stay alive. I was only honked at once.  So coming into a campground is for me like the starship landing back on earth. Each passage gets easier in the steep learning curve.

The best part about this campground was the Peacocks.  Suddenly there they were.  I was surrounded by them setting up. Setting up was easier too.  I napped. I’m getting over a flu and wasn’t sure I’d be able to do the three hours of driving and concentration. It worked just fine but I was really tired and last night was up at 2 am unable to sleep and feeling sick.  I’m heading north. Coming south is easier going into the warm weather . Now it’s back to barn and lots of anxiety .  The KOA ‘s have been reassuring.

Today was an amazingly restful day. It started with my Saturday morning on line meeting. Then I walked Madigan up to the office. They have propane but I’d have to drive over there.  I’m low but expect. To make another night fine. The nights are chilly and I’m using electric space heaters.  I bought peacock gifts. 

After that we had a delightful walk around the activity area. They have zip gliding.  Bouncing places. Tent and wagon sites. Madigan and I walked for a mile or two along the trails near the swift little stream..More peacocks when when we came back to our site.  Another nap.  It’s quiet and peaceful and such a great nature site for all us in Birch inRV’s   The camping sites were further in.  I love it. 

 I actually did some work on the computer. Couldn’t talke to anyone , my throat still sore but I was able to text and renew prescriptions.  I feel I’m mending. It’s the right direction.  I am so thankful to be alive in this beautiful place with this great Thor Hurricane home.  Madigan thinks it’s all a lark.  

Thank you Jesus.

Ventura Ranch KOA RV Park - late night reflections

Arriving at Ventura Ranch KOa RV Park was wonderful.  The staff were terrific. Driving my Thor Motorcoach is a challenge.  I did 4 hours of freeway driving. Only 2 near misses.  In one I just got lost and was directed by the GPS map to make a U-turn off the freeway about 5 km from where I wasn’t able to get across 4 lanes in time.  The other was definitely more exiting. I was merging back onto the I 5 from a feeder when I cut off this corvette.  Thankfully the smart guy accelerate at the speed of light to avoid being crunched by the ‘assshole’ with Canadian license plates driving a motorhome.  I imagined him later telling everyone he was alive solely because his Corvette accelerated fast enough to save his life.  He’s problably right and I was thankful .  I didn’t see him as I was drifting across lanes to get positioned to avoid missing the separation that had me doing a half hour U-turn .  

I was sick with the flu.  Scarey business.  In Canada I’ve annually since childhood had a bad bout of bronchitis.  Terrible sinusitis.  Sore throats and laryngitis.  Smoking didn’t help but I stopped at 10 years and then was diagnosed as having Tubercuosis when I went to work in the US and was required to get an X-ray.  Nobody would work in the north because of the widespread TB.  The fly in doctor position I took had been vacant for several years and they couldn’t only get myself and a wild Irish doctor to fill. Later my friend Dr.  Moody would follow in my footsteps.  Then AIDS hit and people were dying of lung disease and finally Covid.

We called ‘pneumonia’ an old man’s friend.  It meant it killed him in his sleep and removed him from the misery of suffering and dying.  I was a GP and people brought their elderly to the hospital so they could die.  When I was a GP it was one of my jobs.  Palliative care is a fancy name for it.  I didn’t like the treatment for a year with anitbiotics for TB.  I didn’t like that several friends died of covid and lung diease.  I regretted smoking decades younger.  But I did get Covid in India and felt that if I didn’t pay the closest attention to breathing and didn’t panic I would have died. Funny illness. I simply couldn’t get a breath.  I’d had a scuba dive where I ran out of air in the last under the reef passage and had to surface.  Terrifying.  Not beating abler to breathe.

So that was last week.  I think I was overloaded with work. I always seemed to get sick when I overworked and felt self pity.  I met a fellow who knew my cousin. “Always work.”   I thought ‘he’s a Hay’.  My father and uncles and brothers and grandfather were all the way.  Since I was 6 I had some employment.  There was no ‘free money’ in my family. I had to so something to be ‘rewarded’ so feeding the dog, doing dishes, shovelling snow, in addition to helping my parents of course. I had my first job out of the home at 12.  Now I look back at years of multiple jobs, construction, labor, restaurants, office work, giving blood and cleaning septic systems, I suspect volunteer firefighting didn’t help the lungs.  The dirtiest job was clearing an attic of asbestos insulation.  Then all the sick people

Working with kids I was constantly sick.  Some cold or infection.  I felt for pediatricians, school teachers and nurses.  Today I see kids with fingers in their noses smearing snot on door handles.  I could be Howard Hughes but I have a dog and he’s filthier.  We survived.

But I’m past an age when that’s taken for granted and I’ve known so many friends around me dying.  It was once they were getting married, having kids, then divorces and then grand children and now it’s dying. I’m ’of the age’.  I’m actually blessed and know I’m insane. I have a multitude of irrational fears and anxieties and a severe case of poor me and catastrophizing.

Apparently the higher the IQ the more prone to depression and anxiety. That’s why the smartest computer in the world in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was so depressed.

I pray. It’s hard when your throat is refusing to swallow without the feeling of multitudes of Lilliputians cutting with little razor blades.  I like to think God is telling me to shut up. But even though I’ve worked my whole life and given half my income to the government gang and courts and divorces and felt like life was just work work work and die.  The fact is I have had a wonderful life blessed to know the most beautiful and brilliant women in the world with a family beyond anything I deserved and friends who were the best. I’ve had the greatest of mentors too. But meteors and teachers tended to be a decade or more older so for the last decade they’ve been departing. 

I like to think of Rainbow Bridge.  That’s my portal to heaven.  I liked Moody’s work on NDE’s and I have had many close encounters with divine. I’ve had the sense of the ‘presence’, the experience of ‘guardian angel’s’, communications of relatives and of all things dogs. I have marvellous dreams what I presume is the after life .  I liked Robin Williams Movie what dreams may come and Mark Twains Captain Storm get to heaven.

I thought it very rude that when I a doctor felt earth was imminent and I couldn’t work I had to fight to have space.  I love Zorba the Greek for that Image. I’m as narcissistic as the next person.  So I love. I forgive and then I slip into self pity my go to mood. Thank God for AA and Church and Mystical Teachers. Brother Lawrence is the best.  But I stop sucking on the tit of despair the second it raises its naughty head.

That was the old ‘pour me, pour me, pour me another drink’.  “Look at me mommy.’  All that attention seeking one downmaship stuff.  CBT teaches thought blocking so before I even get a run going I repeat All shall be well, All shall be well. All manner of things shall be well. I also do a lot of thank you’s .  Gratitude is the ultimate answer to despair. Not easy. Especially with pain and not getting air.  I especially like the Monty Python ‘Look on the bright side of life sung from the crucifixion.  Don’t know what happened to three days and night. I suspect a little delirium.

I have a closet of antibiotics and I’ve the best travel insurance but I thought it was ‘just a flu’. The last time I was sick a few years back my neighbour Nicolina cured me with chicken soup she made. “It cured my husband s flu’ she told me.  A simple random act of kindness when I wondered if i was going to die and thought no body cared.  

Everyone cares but we are all busy with our own living.  But three days, brain fog, fever and chills, sore throat, headache , full sinuses, cough and phlegm and the dog thankfully needed to be walked and when he wasn’t pooping and sniffing he’d cuddle up beside me hoping his can opener carried on.  

And just like storms at sea I got better.  We’d actually had severe rain and wind and cold and a terrible couple of days of storm. So of course my microcosm was alliogned with the microcosm.

It didn’t help to read that Carney was serving his own Brookfield interest getting rich like the PM before him, something that didn’t happen in the ‘good old days’.  Now the PM goes into office with a million and come out with hundreds of millions. Meanwhile all my work is going to pay rich dictators overseas and Liberal buddies in the ‘foreign affairs’ game of money laundering .  Meanwhile the Climate Change Barbie has lost a few billion dollars and no one can account for the missing money in Canada and there’s no accounting overseas.  Pakistan is the bet Bermuda Triangle for my tax dollars.  See the creeping poor me.

So gratitude. I really do have all I need except life is slipping away and my relationship with God always needs work. I tell people I play peek a boo with Jesus and whack a moll with the devil. 

Thank you Jsusus.  I’m looking forward to Mel Giblson ‘s new movie and am delighted he got into the Coptic Christians. I just saw how much love the Copitic Christian Nurses gave my dying mom.  So I went off to Ethiopia and visited the Balack Jesus scrolls and the ARck and the places of worship.  I like the sacred and holy. I loved being in Bethlehem even if I had to walk thorough a block of snipers.  Makes the hair go up on the back of your neck.  All these guns pointing into this squared.   Best to think positive.  Hope no one is going to twitch. 

Nothing i could do about it.  I love the Serenity Prayer.

Yesterday I felt better. I’d stopped coughing My throat wasn’t sore. I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t read. I wrote precriptions to keep the ball rolling thankful to be part of a team then.  Worried always about making mistakes. Perfectionism.  I could ‘argue’ like I do for disability and insurance and legal forms. I wrote a draft for a court case. There were all these unreasonable deadliness. Patients being told they need a psychiatrist opinion in weeks or months when the dying are doing it daily on waitlists and Carney has reduced health care to euthanasia .  And I’m like the guy living in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. How can they vote for someone who’s given away our gold mines and now our pensions.  See the ‘poor me’.  I support the opposition. I’m a conservative. 

The driving this bus though takes total concentration.  I’ve ridden my Harley across the country to Sturges. I loved Kid Rock  It was great to hear him at the alternative half time show for the NFL.  I bicycled across Europe. I’ve driven cross Canada and the US in trucks and cars. I drove to Napanee and back with my truck and camper last year. I drove this route with the truck and camper. But the bus is so much bigger.  Riding my motorcycle if I don’t pay attention I die. The trouble with this bus is that I’m not at all likely to die if i nod off or become distracted. But I will munch the car or motorcycle in the lane beside me .

I almost did that. I’m a doctor who’s committed his life to service,  Silly shit.  And here I am trying not to kill people with my bus.

Thankfully the Hound of Heaven taught me God’s chasing me like I’m chasing him. The guy with corvette beside me today hit Mach 1 to avoid me. His life wish was great.  I was just overwhelmed with the limited time between seeing the sign and having to get 6 lanes over going at 70 mph.

I have this incredible IPhone that has a Map and I chart my route and look at this IPad type thing on the console and it tells me what to do. I can’t see it because of the sunshine and it’s one of those things I have to change . The iPhone speaks to this screen but if I turn then the cameras for turning come on and I lose the navigation page.  Fortunately my Apple Watch has the tiny direction which I look at or feel and I somehow stay on track.  It’s a steep learning curve and I was so tired and so fatigues and so weak and when I pulled of for gas there was literally no room and I was hoping for a truck stop. But I got it done.  Pick up more orange juice.

I survived.  I’m here for 2 nights.  Minimum stay on KOA Holiday weekend.  I’m shaking when I pull in . I’m ecstatic when I park and hit the automatic jack then put out the slide.  Then I hook up wanted and electriciticy,. 

All the while I was doing this peacocks were interested in me and walking buy.  I gave them some bread when I set up the Starlink. It was roadrunners in Palm Beach and Quail in Yuma and humming birds in Niland.  I love the birds.  Evolution of dianoaurs.  Great sex lives.  Weird behaviour. Amazing survival skills

Madigan was anxious about Big Bird and watched them from inside through the door and didn’t even bark.  

I watched Star Trek Acadmy and was disappointed in this episode but Boston Blue with Whalberg was worth the watch.  I ate microwave chicken pot stew.  Drank looks of orange juice. I’ve been doing aspirin and teaspoons of apple cider vinegar and bottles of listernine.  Otrivin got me through a couple of nights.  Now I’m must up at 2 am and writing nonsense.  

I was worried about Danny and thinking of my brother and parents and then all those night vigils I did in intensive care.  All the fights with administration for oxygen or IV’s or nurses.  I don’t know why I remember the negative. I was married to the greatest girls in the world but rather than remember the joy and wonder of love my mind goes to the divorce.  The ugly months out of a decade of alright with ecstasy and love blooming in beginning.  I really have been blessed. 

Life has been good. I ‘m enjoying JD Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy.  I remember seeing white poverty in the north and maritime and how no one talked about it. Now it’s DTES and drugs and overdosages .  

I’ve a meeting in the morning. I enjoy the fellowship. I’ll try to go back to sleep again.  Usually journalling gets the puss out my head and I can sleep.  I coughed and cleared my lungs so don’t have that breathing challenge that woke me up.  I’m rallying.  Just enough work and movement and concentration and the systems coming back on line. If this doesn’t work I can have the peanuts butter and jam therapy. All those decades of on call I’d use peanut -butter and jam and milk with morning coffee to look forward to and somehow got through the nights.  I’d worry about a patient and God would give me an answer and a miracle would occur.  

Thank you Jesus.  The peacocks were a real reward for today. Well worth the struggle and challenge.  Thank you Jesus.