Gratitude Nov. 29, 2015

I'm thankful I am alive today. I enjoyed the morning with Laura and Gilbert. I'd planned to go to church but awoke with a stomach flu.  It probably was just from eating so much Tandoori Chicken and pork and East Indian delicacies from Meinhardt downtown.  I really stuffed myself in a pig out fest (the pork was good too).  Laura and I had gone downtown to get a coat and ended up in the Black Friday Weekend Sale.  With all this food from Meinhardt's downtown stuffed outselves while watching the movie Man from UNCLE. Both Laura and I grew up on the series and enjoyed the movie as well.  Nothing mind boggling, just a good thriller.  

I worked at the jail in the afternoon. My stomach was fine by noon but I did miss church. 

Now tonight I've barbecued moose steaks that Victor shot and life is good. So I'm grateful.  I'm thankful to be alive.  A good weekend indeed though Friday night I crashed early falling asleep when I got home and only waking later for a while before I fell asleep again.

There's so much I meant to do this weekend, clean up and trip to the storage locker. I really must put away any remnants of early summmer and fall to make room for winter clothes and activities.  I've got bulky motorcyling gear to stow and an outboard motor in the garage, countless short sleeve shirts and summer slcks and jackets. I've no room and what room I have is overflowing with last seasons stuff.  

So I'd planned to do all this organizing and adult stuff but instead go caught up in Black Friday. That and overeating. Or maybe the flu was coming on. I feel fine now but didn't earlier.

I've been caught up in the online media too.  I let it get the better of me this weekend, checking often to see what's happening with friends, what's happening in the news, a bit addictive like.  

Now I'm thankful for my friends.  Just grateful for Gilbert and everyone.  Not much else. Now I'll go back to reading a ship novel.  I just watched the Professionals , the western with Burt Lancaster on Turner Classic TV.  Meanwhile someone needs to contact aliens and learn to teletransport and I'm not contributing to any profound advances sin human knowledge.  I'm getting by.  Praying for folk.  Trying to stay out of trouble.  Taking it easy.  Tomorrows a full work day.  I'm grateful for work. I'm grateful that I can contribute in work and play a positive role. 

Thanks 

Canada's Black Friday Shameful Sales

I came downtown on Saturday to witness and record the carnage after the Black Friday Sale. I was expecting ravaged bodies and ambulances. Caught up in the new world journalism craze for catastrophe seeking and viewing I had secretly hoped for body parts in the cold streets of downtown Vancouver.  A severed head outside of the Victoria Secret might have been newsworthy. Crime scene tape around the new Nordstroms.  I’m a conservative Canadian. It wasn’t like I was asking for much.  I thought at least the Liberal Political Correctness Police would ban the racist designation of cheap sales.  Some white male privilege offenders could be handcuffed naked outside a paddy wagon Maybe a severed arm crushed in the revolving door of Hudson Bay.
But this is Canada.  A decade of Conservativism has made us collectively polite and well mannered.  The US Black Friday Sales invariably cause  the aliens that normally limit their shopping to Walmart and Costco to slut walk and zombie dance through the downtown stores of American cities.      Worse in Canada, Black Friday was hardly an event. Hockey season has begun and Canadians only riot if there’s hockey involved.   The merchants of Vancouver had to extende Black Friday to Black Friday Weekend. A whole weekend of political incorrectness and consumer cannabilism.
Before I could get away from the disgusting low brow mass ritual of insensitive disregard of the world’s poor, I was physically sucked right into Moore’s Men’s Clothing.  A young salesman seeing my passing interest in a winter wool coat sized me instantly. It’s not too difficult. I’m beyond those confusing S, M, L designations.  Size F for Fat or B for Big fits me just fine.  And so did the coat he gave me.  $99.  I’m sure the very same one was in Nordstroms for $1000.  “It’s normally $500 here but that’s the Black Friday Sale price.”  Looking both ways to ensure I wasn’t being filmed I slid my, quite possibly promiscuous Visa card surreptitiously across the counter and watched helplessly as it was  raped by the awful Moore’s Men’s Clothing money machine.
The young man then  wrapped my purchase  in a black wrapper like pornography.  I could only hope that others would think it was my laundry. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I’d actually participated in a liberal orgy of personal financial potlach.  It was alright that our new Prime Minister Justin Troudeau’s wife Sophie was adorned with a Birk’s brooch costing $6000.  It was okay that this young swaggering Emperor Napoleon Troudeau had banished the picture of the rightful English monarch from Canadian parliament.  It was okay that as a couple they rejected the millions of dollar Sussex mansion until it had 10 million dollars of improvements.  I, as a Canadian wanted my betters to have a gold toilet seat to sit on while I lived in a trailer with baited breath waiting announcement of  next Liberal Largesse.
I really like my new wool coat. It’s not bespoke.  Shoppaholism is defined as feeling one coat is too many and no number is enough. But surely 2 coats is ’social shoppaholism’. And as I was sure I was able to convince myself that I was really ‘just doing research’ ,I took Laura into North Face where a $600 coat, perfectly made, was on sale for $300.It was really the saving I was spending, from shopping at Moore’s rather than Nordstrums .  My White Christmas for Laura bought by  Black Frida machination. , I know it sounds dubious but Laura was complicit. Indeed as she was with me through the whole ordeal it was her fault.  It was all her fault.  She does look pretty as a angel in her new coat but she’s really a little devil.
Without any body parts to see on Saturday, we headed here to Take Five Cafe for coffee. I suspect if I let  them other stores would take advantage of me . I have a  genetic diathesis to shopping and pressured by my despicable environmenl I might well participate further in this horrid western world debauchery.  I’m properly disgusted with myself.  I’m sure too that our new Emperor and his Wife Sophie feel badly jetsetting about the world to conferences on how to get us peasants to accept the new carbon based breathing and farting taxes. It’s a shame that they don’t know how to Skype and that their climate change conferences are the principal cause of global warming with all the jetsetting and hot air going on.  As Canadians, though,  we must never doubt the wisdom of our government or any further government taxation.
Look at me I just shamefully bought a new winter wool coat.  I bought one for Laura too. I expect our coats would cost more if we bought them at Value Village.  I love being Canadian even if the new Canadian 'privilege' tax comes through.  It's all worth it, somehow.

Gratitude Nov, 24,2015

Thank God for this day. Thank you God for healing Gilbert. Each day I see him improving a little. Thank you for healing my brother and helping him too. Thank you for helping me in my work. Help me do more. Thank you for my family and friends.  Thank you for the clean water and indoor plumbing and heat. Thank you for this trailer. Thank you for my car.  Thank you for clothing and bed and for computers and phones .Thank you for electricity and light. Thank you for all of my blessings. Thank you for life and this world and the past and future. Most of all thank you for the present. Thank you for books and reading and language and television and films and eyes to see. Thank you for my glasses. Thank you for my feelings. Thank you for my radio. Thank you for the dishes and refrigerator and the stove and barbecue. I loved the barbecue and outdoor cold. I thank you for the store and fresh food and canned food and the Blue Sky ginger ale. Thank you for yoghurt. And thank you for soap and shampoo. Thank you for the little things.Thank you for all I take for granted. Thank you for pens and tables and chairs. Thank you for my colleagues .Thank you for work and banks and skills and training and education and reliability and excellence. Thank you for the heat tonight. Thank you for repairs. Thank you for bed. I’m going there. Thank you for the electric blanket and the CPAP.  Thank you for the dreams.  Thank you Lord for sobriety and saniety. Protect me from the delusional and those who are impaired and know not what they do. Protect me from dangerous people in power.  Protect me from war. Protect me from the corruption that is exposed in Quebec and the deepest evil of Montreal elections and fraud.  Protect me from the hidden corruption that permeates all aspects of Vancouver and BC.  Keep me safe from the sociopaths and psychopaths who lived protected lives here because of their dirty money and threats.  Help me to walk safely in the shadow of death and know that you are with me always.  Thank you Lord.

Pemberton Hunting, Roughing It and Staying Alive

Pemberton Valley Lodge is one of Laura and my favourite getaway locations. We’ve come up here other years for hunting as well as in the summer. They have elegant rooms with kitchenettes, rural views, great walk along the river out back, underground parking, and 2 minutes drive to the town of Pemberton. Gilbert loves the dog friendly staff. They also have outdoor swimming pool and hot tub with indoor spa and steam room.
So it’s really roughing it as a hunting camp.  I began coming up to Pemberton to hunt in the late 80’s.  Mostly it was great for grouse hunting. I shot a deer or two as well.  But the real draw was Meager Creek Hotspring. After a morning of climbing mountains I’d find myself in the afternoon languishing in the scenic hot springs, thinking, now this is really ‘hunting’ and ‘roughing it"  It was nudist back then so everyone was friendly and young.
A couple of winter hunts I stayed at Pemberton Hotel whose rooms seemed mostly cubbyholes where drunks would sleep it off after a night in the rowdy bar. That’s changed too. The Pemberton Hotel has had a huge face lift as the whole town has.  Pemberton is now tourist central catering mostly to the cyclists,hikers,  climbers, photographers,  back country skier sand horsey set.
When I came up I would mostly tent by the river.  There’s great fishing around Pemberton. The young guys who run the  outdoor store, Spud Valley Sporting Goods Ltd.,in town also do fishing guiding.  I remember catching a Mountain White Fish that I pan fried by the river having one of those unforgettable outdoor meals.
My last wife and I would come up in the Vanagon.  She was terrific in those days.  I’d come back from slogging about in the woods, climbing the mountains, up before dawn and she’d have bacon and eggs and coffee ready at noon.  Then we’d go off to the hot springs together.  She was a whole lot of fun. My dog Shinto was the great companion back then believing that the Vanagon was his solely and letting us share it.  I had installed a great propane heater that made it doubly cozy.
Back in those days I’d made friends with the Wayne Andrews, the World Champion Indian Rodeo rider who lived in Mount Currie. We’d go riding. He had riding tours back then.  Later we’d ride together with him as a guide for mountain riding. My ex wife came along on what she called our ‘man from snowy river’ riding weekends. She was a good rider and very styllish. I just seemed to learn to stay on a horse when I began riding on my grandfather’s ranch at 6. I can’t say stylle is my long suit but I’d done a lot of 2 legged horse riding and even some broncho bucking but stayed on mostly.  Back then we just followed Wayne galloping down mountainsides and riding across moonlit meadows.  Now riding is what Pemberton is known for.  Everywhere there are stables and beautiful horses dotting the backcountry.
About 10 years ago I found the Pemberton Valley Lodge, long after the Vanagon and beautiful girl had gone. The dog had died and a cold night tenting in sleet and snow made hunting seem incompatible with traumatic arthritis and age.  Pemberton Lodge brought a whole new attraction to the idea of a weekend of roughing it hunting.
Laura and I came up here on motorcycle too.  Even Gilbert and I came here on motorcycle. The famed Duffy Lake motorcycle route starts at the Pemberton and goes up to Lillouett.  Great winding trail made better by the upgrade on the Duffy Lake road a couple of years back.  It travels through some of the most picturesque country in the whole world.
Well, this weekend we arrived up on Friday night early enough to enjoy the meat lover pizza we got from the hometown pizza place a couple of blocks down the road.
Gilbert hurt his back jumping out of the truck a couple of weeks ago. He’s fully mobile after being unable to move his flanks for a day, thanks to the good care of Oak Street Animal Hospital. But, as they would say in hockey, his ‘injury has benched him for the season’.  He’s the main grouse dog, finding and retrieving them after we shoot them.  He’d stay with Laura and suffer her loving care in the Lodge while Tom and I would go out into the cold.
6 am the alarm went off. Whose stupid idea was it to go hunting?  7 am we had our gear loaded  and were driving down the road with Egg McMuffins and Hash browns and coffee from the Macdonalds in the gas station near the lodge. That made the whole cold unpleasant experience tolerable.  Nothing beats Egg McMuffin on a cold morning.  We could see our breath. We’d had to scrape frost off the windows. I had long johns, quilted overalls, parka and outer layer of camouflage gear, with felt beret, scarf and thick work gloves on. There was snow deep on the ground and the road was icy. This hunting trip was a stupid idea.  The MacDonald’s Coffee marginally improved things.
Gilbert had got me up at 3 in the morning to take him out for a pee and poop.  That happens to him in hotels sometimes.  I stumbled around looking for shoes and clothes and leash and had waited out back of the hotel till he found the perfect spot to gift with his offerings.  I’d had trouble getting back to sleep.  Thank God for coffee. It was a while still before I got my head around the idea that hunting was a good way to spend a weekend. It was good that Tom was driving.
Without chains for the truck, I’d made the executive decision that Tom and I would park the truck and unload the ATV to drive with up the mountain logging roads. We’d stopped at one where a couple of young guys were setting up their snowmobiles. A lot of folk out enjoying the trails this day.
Further on we found an isolated place I had known about from previous trips ,unloaded and began riding up the mountain.  Pristine setting.  Beautiful mountain views. Pine trees.  Spruce.  Not a deer or bear in sight.  As Tom driving with me as passenger on back we got to the steep part and I got off.  I didn’t like the idea of being flipped over backwards having already done that myself on an ATV and found it wasn’t fun.  I suggested he drive on and I’d walk.  I waved him on.
I don’t know how I survived growing up in Winnipeg.  I began to have PTSD flashbacks stumbling and sliding around in that snow.  I should have brought snow shoes. The snow came up above the ankle and was half way to the knee in places. I trudged.  I had the 300 win Mag Winchester Model 7 over my shoulder, my Bushnell Binoculars and just trudged.  The trail just kept going up. There were a lot of big deer tracks but I didn’t see a single moving thing. I had my hat and scarf off and all my clothes open and despite trying to move slowly was sweating something fierce.  A couple of hours into this I collapsed on a rock.  We had our nifty matching yellow motorola waterproof radios but I couldn’t reach Tom.  Where’s a taxi when I needed one.  No wonder people stay in New York.  I called but the line of sight communications on these radios is affected by mountains and trees.  So I waited hoping for a deer to come along.  It didn’t and I hiked higher in the mountain my legs long dead and useless by this time Tom came chugging down the mountain again raving about the glory of the mountains and the wonder of creation. I could hardly get my leg up over the machine.  All he’d seen is day old bear poop.
Back at the truck we loaded up the gear.  We drove back down to the Macdonalds loaded up on burgers for lunch and joined Laura and an ecstatic Gilbert.  After lunch I collapsed on the bed.
Tom woke me a couple of hours later with the stupid idea of going out for the evening hunt. Apparently I’d suggested it.  So we geared up again. We drove out through Pemberton up the valley where I saw so much development.  Where there had been one dude ranch there were several. More wilderness lodges too. The great potato farm was still there. Pemberton produces the best potatoes in the world.
It was already growing dark when we got to the split on the Goldbridge road and I stupidly suggested we head up hill to Goldbridge rather than continuing along the river to Meagher Creek.
With the sun going down the road had iced and damn but the truck just stopped short, wheels spinning before the first level and turn.  Tom’s a great driver so despite my natural tendency to blame I had to confess that I’d have encountered the same problem if I was in the driver seat.  But I have a monster winch on the front of the truck so after chalking the tires with big stones to prevent the truck rolling back I began  smugly playing out the winch cable.
Oh no! No. No. No. The winch cable broke off at the connection onto the winch.  No more winch. Shit. A minor problem had now become a major problem. We were stuck in the middle of the road and on one side was a steep cliff drop off going down hundreds and hundreds of feet while on the other side was a mountain.  When Tom was trying to tie the cable onto the winch cylinder horror of horrors.
Despite being in park and braked  the truck began to slide back down over the heavy stones I’d chalked it with. Tom screamed holding the cable in front of the truck trying to anchor it but instead began snow skiing down the mountain in front of the rapidly accelerating truck. I’d been out pulling the winch to it’s full length when Tom called out.
I am not an athelete any more. I’m older and fat and given to the sedentary life of a desk jockey. Besides I’d used up whatever strength and leg muscles I had that morning.  My body had not recovered.
Despite all this, seeing my Ford F350 Harley Davidson Truck carrying  my Yamaha Kodiac ATV in its cargo bed accelerating downhill with Tom holding onto the cable and skiing before it in a futile attempt to slow it, I was a galvanized as they say in fiction.  Without a rational thought I ran like the wind and jumped into the open door of the truck and slammed my foot on the brake. This indeed caused the truck to slow with the back wheels just short of the edge of the great ravine.
I sat shaking as I realized I’d almost lost the truck and ATV but also put myself in a position where I could now go over the cliff along with it.  This seemed rather stupid. I wondered if the air bags would help.   Tom was truly surprised that I was alive and we’d stopped the runaway truck.
At that time a couple of young guys in a jeep came along.  We tied a rope to their jeep and to my truck and tried towing.  The rope broke immediately but the effort had helped straighten the truck out so it wasn’t pointing directly over the cliff. They headed on leaving us to our devices.
I told Tom that it was clear that we couldn’t go forward so I planned to back down the mountain.  The difficulty with this is that it’s hard to tell exactly where the wheels are turned. Normally I’d climb out of the truck and line matters up and then get a go at it.  I wasn’t leaving the brake under any conditions though so Tom thankfully was there to guide me backwards and we actually got the truck over to the mountain side. Only trouble then was we got a bit in the ditch and I was horrified at the thought of the truck rolling over on Tom .  He came to his senses at that point realizing that was a possibility and took up guidance duties from the other side. He was amazingly right that we could ride along on a slant in the ditch and soon enough we got to a flat area where with his direction I backed the truck up to the feared cliff side and had enough room to turn us around.
I drove back to Pemberton.  Tom was disappointed that we hadn’t seen any game but I told him that ‘come to think of it over the years a whole lot of hunting had been about arriving back alive”.  I was reminded of the times I’d been up on logging roads when the whole roads had given out,  the countless mechanical failures of equipment or the blizzards and such that had added to the hunting adventures.  I’d even lost my truck one night and after spending a night out in the cold been happy to find the truck in the day light.
We stopped at the great little downtown Pemberton food store and delli. I shot us all some barbecued chicken and whipped up some great delli vegetables and baked us some fresh bread and made a container of Hagen Daz ice cream.  It was a feast we had later with Gilbert very impressed with what great hunters we were.  Laura loved the caesar salad I’d found with folliaging especially as it came with it’s own salad dressing.
Now it’s morning. I decided I’d had enough hunting and without the tire chains and the winch now broken and still shaken by last nights adventure , decided against the ‘morning hunt’.  We’re going to drive back to Vancouver this afternoon and thankfully alive with equipment relatively in tact we’ll consider it a very successful hunt.  It was also good roughing it at the  emberton Lodge.  Gilbert let me sleep in but woke Laura to take him out to pee first thing in the morning then jumped in bed with Tom to lick wash his face for him.

   

Gratitude Nov. 19, 2015

Thank you Lord for Light. Thank you for this World. Thank you for the entertainment, the diversity and myriad detail. Thank you for the mystery. Thank you for the illusions and truth. Thank you for discovery. Thank you for the hunt. Thank you for learning. Thank you for science. Thank you for religion. Thank you for spirituality. Thank you for God. Thank you for man. Thank you for woman. Thank you for animals. Thank you for the senses, the colours, the tastes, the scents, touch. Thank you for all your blessings. Thank you for healing. Thank you for wellness. Thank for sex and joy and being. Thank you for prayer and meditation. Thank for for the dance. Thank you for particles and lines and cubes and millennia. Thank you for love. Thank you Lord. Thank you Jesus. Thank you saints of all religions. Thank you for all the roads that lead to the light and love of infinite cosmic Christ. Thank you for St. Peter and St. Paul and St. John and Saint Luke and Saint Mark. Thank you for reading. Thank you for stories. Thank you for wisdom. Thank you for nature. Thank you for the seasons. Thank you for the rain and wind and night. Thank you for sleep. Thank you Lord.

Language Terrorists, Jihadists and Christanophobes.

Win the “war of words” and you win the war!
Christians have been collectively criticized because of the one church, Westboro Baptists.  Jews are condemned because of extremist Zionists.   Catholics have been collectively criticized because of the Pope’s statements.
But criticize ISIS and you are called “ISLAMAPHOBE”.
CHRISTOPHOBIA is almost universal today.  All over the world Christians are persecuted.  Christians are the most persecuted people in the world.  The Left dominated media ignores deaths of Christians.
Yet when Christians object to ISIS killing Christians, what do we hear.  “ISIS is killing Muslims too”.  Two wrongs don’t make it right.  Yet the real issue is that CHRISTIANS DESERVE TO BE KILLED. That's the message between the lines.  CHRISTIANS Don't COUNT.
The Radical Left are the Mainstream now.  They “Control’ the language.  If you are moderate, they call you “Radical Right”.  The Language Terrorists have attacked the language.
Only the LEFT can speak for the Oppressed.  Yet the LEFT is the greatest oppressor of all time. Communist Atheists killed 60 million in Russia.  Chinese Communist Atheists killed 100 million.
ISIS actually says they represent the MOSLEM JIHAD but when a Christian says , “Christian Crusaders will stop your invasion just like they stopped your invasion of Spain,  France and Venice and Jerusalem, Christians are called Islamaphobes.  The Hindus and Siks had to put a stop to the Moslems because the Moslem Jihad there killed hundreds of thousands.  No one dares call a Sik an Islamophobe. Siks are always armed.  The LEFT wants CHRISTIANS disarmed.
If you called yourself a Christian Crusader, and looked with pride on your Christian forefathers protecting Europe from the Oppressive Moslem invaders, the Radical LEFT (Mainstream media) would call you are ‘worse than a jihadist’. The LEFT has rewritten history.
Israel defends itself from recurrent attack by Moslem nations and now Israelis are the OPPRESSOR.
It was the Moslems that were expanding in the day of the Crusades.   The Caliphate, titular head of the Moslem people, is given to the leader who ‘expands" the physical geographical territory of Moslem religion.  The Rampaging Pillaging Monstrous Army that swept through countries like India who the were the MOSLEMS the CRUSADERS Fought was a forced army of conscripts and slaves. The CRUSADES were a VOLUNTEER army. You would never know such things if you didn't read history which is repeating.
ISIS claim to be the new Caliphate because there is a prophecy that the greatest Jihad will begin in Raqqa.  Crusaders were the ‘defenders’.  The last Caliphate was Turkish.
The Turkish empire was one of the largest land mass empires of all time.
Constantine is no longer called Constantine after the Christian leader who made the Roman Empire Christian.  Constantine the Christian created the Christian seat of the Orthodox Church which was invaded by the Jihadist Moslems and became Istanbul after 800 years being Christian.  It’s still Istanbul. That's because of MOSLEM Conquest.
Communists are “oppressed", they say.   Moslems and especially Palestinians are  “oppressed” but Christians and especially Americans and Jews especially Israelis are, according to the LANGUAGE TERRORISTS, the ‘oppressors’.
It doesn’t matter that America is a secular state as is Turkey, now.    ISIS calls the ‘response’ to their ‘attacks’ ‘Crusades”.  And western Leftist media uses the language of the enemy.
Post Vietnam the review of the Vietnam War showed by the report of the North Vietnamese generals and Viet Cong that America had militarily won the war because the North was virtually about to collapse. However the Americans pulled out because the Leftist Media and the likes of Hanoi Jane Fonda lost the war by fraudulently convincing America was losing the war.
WWII would have been similarly lost if the “War of Words” wasn’t recognized.  “Loose Lips Sink Ships” .
Freedom of information is what we have to offer the world.  MOSLEM dominated countries collectively deny Freedom of Speech.  In large swaths of Moslem territory Christians are as restricted as they are in Communist Atheist countries where freedom of speech is simply not allowed.  The MOSLEM ISIS are teaching their children JIHAD.  Yet in the west I can go into any library and read a Koran and even read the writings of ISIS.
There are two worlds here.  The world of “freedom of speech’ where the ‘language police of the LEFT” are raging a war or the very words of freedom and the world of “oppression of free speech” .
A frightening statistic that has arisen is that 90% of academics are LEFT leaning.  It turns out a very high proportion of IMANS are radical.
Watch the "War on Words”.  Learn to identify CHRISTANOPHOBES, Language Terorists, and Communists and the RADICAL LEFT by their highly selective use of words.
The politically correct sound so nice but the first thing to go in war is ’truth’ and the LEFT doesn’t believe in ’TRUTH”.  So it never cares if Truth is a casuality.
Now the interesting coalition in Europe is the Radical Left allying with the Moslem Jihadists and ironically this is being joined by the Fascists.  They look so different on first glance but the Radical LEFT wants war. MARX said all war is good.  WAR is necessary to the Left.  They believe that if there is enough war then they will accept Dictatorship. This is what Lenin succeeded in doing. The LEFT Always promotes war directly or indierectly because War is the Means to the Marxist/Lenin end.  The Moslems in major areas of Europe claim be ‘oppressed’.  They come from countries where there was no freedom of speech. They are commonly without competitive skills and many ghettorize so they don’t assimilate and learn the language and skills useful outside their religiofanatic countries of origin.   Now the FASCIST ironically are growing because the RADICAL LEFT won’t listen to the majority of people but rather push their ideologies causing the centre to shift to the right.
Here in Canada petitions of hundreds of thousands ask Trudeau the new Prime Minister to go slow with the refugee relocation but so far as a radical leftist Christanophobe, Trudeau like his autocratic dictatorial father, doesn’t listen to advise, but pushes his own agenda uncaring of the voice of Canada.    The terrorist attacks in Paris have woken up Canadians who so quickly forget 9/11 and that jihadists attacked their soldiers and parliament.  The RADICAL LEFT doesn't even want the word "terrorist' to be used in Canada.   With such extremism in power the moderate middle is pushed to the right.
That’s what’s happening around the world with the rise of the defensive right wing shift.
Radical Right Germany, Hitler and the Nazis, actually made a PACT with the the Radical Left, Stalin and the Communists.  The Left and Right hate the Middle. You are either for us or agin us the extremists of Right and Left say with Governments, Media and Courts and Prisons to back them up.
Historically the Old Testament (Torah) and the Koran are ‘TRIBAL” texts which are filled with war and killing and chiefs and glory.
The New Testament or GOSPEL is the CHRISTIAN “BOOK”.  GOSPEL means "GOOD NEWS". The only story it tells is of the killing of Jesus and the killing of Christians and the peaceful living of Christians who share the story of LOVE and Salvation.  Rather than come as a Rich Man like Abraham, the prophet of Israel or the Warrior Mohammed, Jesus comes as a baby.  The Christian story is the story of true ‘oppressed’.  WE are the persecuted.

Yet the CHRISTIAN Crusaders stopped the MOSLEM JIHAD.  Perhaps we could as moderates win the war on wards by the language terrorists and restore the light.

Refugee Warrior Army - The Free Syrian Force.

No one has suggested the obvious solution to the present problem of ISIS invasion.  ISIS is equivalent to the Hell’s Angels.  To put it in perspective the Hell’s Angels ride into your home town,  kill, main and pillage and people flee.  The reason the Hell’s Angels are able to do this is simply better training, superior weaponry and bad attitude.
There are two parts to the Syrian crisis.  The Syrian government leader, supported by Russia and clearly a tyrant caused a civil war.   This happened over and over again when other Satellites of Russian rebelled against Communist Atheist Dictatorships.  Eventually the people rose up and won. Communism died as a state and Russia went back to being a Christian nation.  The  civil war in Syria failed.  Moslems fought moslems.  Canada can't fight Russia and American and China aren't going to either. So the Syrian tyrant survives another day. The same occurred in Hungary.  The civil war is going on in only one part of Syria.
The other part of the equation is ISIS. Isis is in Syria, old Iraq and all over the place. ISIS is both and idea like atheist Communism but it's also a state.  Islamic State.  The idea is pure Moslem jihad.  It's the same idea the Christians fought against in Spain and Venice.  Jihad.  Saudi is probably backing ISIS now but they're not 'allies'.  They may be investors.  America probably backed ISIS in the beginning but not anymore.  ISIS has no 'allies', only "investors' right now.  
We now have a million and a half refugees and migrants.  Refugees are escaping and would like to go home.  Migrants are just looking for a better place to live. Canada says they’re going to accept 25,000 tomorrow.  We're not sure if they're going to be Refugees or Migrants.  I'd rather have Mexican Migrants.  But we can accept Syrian 'refugees'.  Instead of 3 years of screening we would normally use before taking refugee/migrants we're going to accept them this week because Justin Trudeau made a political 'promise'.  So we turn the Department of Immigration into a Fast Food joint. Give them a place to live.
Britain accepted refugees in the early part of WWII.  The difference there is that Britain armed their refugees.  They were called the Free French and Free Poles.   They prepared for D Day.
Watch Justin Trudeau ’s behaviour (don’t trust his smooth upper class privileged boy words).  He  give the Hell’s Angel’s California.  He says , let ISIS win. In WWII, the leader who said that was Chamberlain.  Winston Churchill was the other guy.  It was an Islamist Jihad convert who attacked Parliament. ISIS, like the Communist atheists before them, used propaganda to convert Canadians.  No one doubted that Communist Russia got it's nuclear weapon capacity because of traitors in Canada and the US.  The same traitors today leave to go join ISIS and plot to blow up Canada.
So we’ll let those who don’t want to live in California under a tyranny of killing, whoring, drug addicted criminals come and live in our country. Hell's Angels wins.   Naturally the Hell’s Angels will keep expanding.
 Canada the Coward forsakes NATO.  Coward Canada runs. When I travelled Europe Canada’s name and honour and respect was ‘won’ by the Canadian Armed Forces. Canadians were admired because they helped Europeans defeat Hitler. The idea that Canada is admired for leftist ideology. Canada is admired for it's success. It was admired in Europe for fighting Hitler. It won't be admired for cowardice.
A very large proportion, some say most of the refugee/migrants are young men, fit soldier aged men.  What if we take all the ‘young men’  and  simply offer to accept train, equip and lead them back to fight ISIS.  
Syria, backed by Russia isn’t going to give up.
If Californians ran to Canada to escape the Hell's Angels we'd support them by training, equipping and even leading them on a counter assault.  We'd help take back California from the Hell's Angels.
That's what Britain did.  Armed and equipped the Free French and coordinated the Free Poles and Free Dutch and lead the retaking of Europe. If you've watched American TV you'll be as confused about WWII as Canadians are today confused about ISIS.
That’s what we did with the Belgiums and French after the NAZI’s invaded their country.   ISIS is the new NAZI religious dictatorship.
The absurdity of Justin Trudeau’s solution, running and hiding under the bed, is classic Chamberlain, pro Hitler logic.  Instead we accept that the Hell’s Angels doesn’t have a right to California.  We Churchill the situation.  Follow the winners.   We train, equip and lead those refugees who want their homes back and they take middle eastern land back from ISIS.
Justin Trudeau is Chamberlain.
ISIS has threatened Canada  and Justin runs home.  The Hells Angels wins.  ISIS wins. California goes to the Hells Angels.  The Middle East goest to ISIS.  Paris this week. Ottawa next week.
It took Germany a few years to win Europe.  Time moves faster now.  The French learned their lesson when they ran away.  Now they stand and fight.  E
Justin Trudeau nees to stand up.  Right now he and Canada are seen as cowards by their NATO allies.  Take this opportunity. Kill two birds with one stone. Accept Refugge warriors and build a Free Syrian Army whose first objective will be to take back the land taken by ISIS. Refugees can return home.  Syria is divided.  The civil war is postponed.
Our military bases are for military training.  They shouldn’t be turned into homeless shelters.  Help the refugees get their land back the same way Churchill helped De Galle.  Build a Refugee Army to return and take back what ISIS has claimed.  That way Canada chooses when Canadians die rather than letting ISIS pick us off one by one, the terrorist way.

Sexuality and Masturbatory Frequency

It’s politically incorrect to touch patients. As touching patients may be misunderstood, especially by the psychotic, and as having touched a patient appropriately might still lead to a psychopath having the basis of a complaint, physicians are collectively, cconsciouslly or unconsciously touching patients less.
I know this because I ask my patients if their physicians have done various examinations when the patient has presented with various complaints. Invariably the answer is no. The physicians send them for costly less accurate blood work and xrays and ultrasound but forego a simple palpation.
Further it takes time for patients to disrobe so that busy physicians in the business of ‘fee for service' "walk in clinic" medicine cut corners by taking the least time possible for each patient all the while smiling and being ‘caring’ in a politically correct way. Make the ‘customer’ comfortable.Avoid complaints at all costs.  Do the least for the most financial return. Good business model government and corporate model health care.
Women especially complain that physicians no longer are willing to do pelvic examinations or pap tests and many tell me it’s been years since they had examinations appropriate for their age and complaints.
Now the same is increasingly true in psychiatry with respect to sexual history.
At first I just thought my colleagues, male and female, were not recording these histories for confidentiality reasons, to protect the patients. Yet, when I asked the patients about other psychiatrists histories I was shocked that no one had ever asked them.
Consequently patients told me, and told me sadly and tragically for the first time.

1) The medications the psychiatrists gave me ruined my sex life. I lost all sex drive and my relationships broke up. Did you tell your doctor, I’d ask. No they would say. Did your doctor ask? Never.  He/she never talks to me about sex. I think he/she is afraid to talk about that.
2) I’ve never had sex. I’ve been depressed for years and seen several psychologists and psychiatrists and no one has asked me about that.
3) I masturbate all the time, many many times a day. No one ever asked me about that.
4) I’ve never masturbated.
5) I can only have an orgasm when I fantasize about sex with children.
6) I have rape fantasies when I masturbate.
7) I fantasize about orgies when I masturbate.
8) l feel really badly after I masturbate.
9) I have sex with animals.
And the list goes on and on. In the standard psychiatric ‘history’ there is a simple heading. It’s called “sexual history”. Everyone is supposed to have this taken. I actually did these cursory questions in general practice. “How are things sexually?” “Is your sex life okay”. “Are you having any problems sexually?”
Increasingly my depressed female patients are disclosing that their doctors just give them pills for their depression but never talk to them and don’t ask any questions. Then they go on and tell me through sobs and tears about their abortions.
Others tell me about their years as escorts. Others tell me about their sexual abuse. Men seem equally upset but it's usually about their partners refusal to have sex or their sexual abuse.  Real men aren't sexual abused just normal men.
In my introductory survey questions I ask if they have ever been sexually abused as a child and then what age was their first sexual intercourse. With men and women , so many patients with drug and alcohol histories were sexually abused. So were the patients with depression especially bipolar and almost all the patients with borderline personality disorders and some of the antisocial personality disorders.
What has always been fascinating is that men over and over deny sexual abuse but then go on to tell me of an older male or female usually late teens or 20’s or older having sex with them when they were just pubescent or prebescent. Boys are sexually abused with a rather high frequency by women and men but they are not asked, and they are commonly ashamd to tell, don’t know they were sexually abused and often are further shamed by the caregivers if the matter is ever discovered.

When I began asking about sexual frequency in the 70’s it was common for the number of sexual partners to be 1-3 with 10 or more unusual among my patients. Now among young people, it’s not uncommon for women patients to have 50 or more sexual partners and further to break down crying as they attest to unprotected sex when I ask them about any ‘risk taking behaviour’.
All the while the sexual perversion of the Sexual McCarthyism of the medieval administration was occurring, the internet was exploding with misinformation about sex, pornography was spreading like wild fire, and countless societies had sprung up including the various dungeon groups, swingers clubs, S&M parties, and various on line dating services for whatever preferences one might entertain.
Meanwhile I have muddled on pedantically asking questions always in terror that the authorities would again swoop down upon me and threaten my license and livelihood for taking a sexual history. So many people, especially radical feminists and their male equivalents radical religionists , get ‘offended’ by questions about sexuality not because of the questions but simply because ’the lady protestest too much.’ After hearing that a person is offended by being asked even a cursory sexual history, I’m not stupid, I avoid the subject like the plague, only to have learned countless times as I continue to see the person, that the woman works as an escort or has some major ’sexual secret’ and that the very religious man has indeed had homosexual affiliations that bother him considerably.
The reason it behooves me to ask these questions is that I’m a consultant and commonly my patients have seen several physicians, psychologists, counsellors and psychiatrists before they see me. The principal complaint in my office is that the ‘medications are no longer working’.
It normally follows that the ‘depression’ that some rich and shallow knee jerk prescription pad physician or psychiatrist has treated them for years or the stupid hand holding gushing counsellor has sympathized with, is directly a consequence of an undiscussed never touched on underlying issue, like grief, post traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol abuse, sexual perversion or compulsion etc. CBT is a marvellous therapy that also works well if one wants to avoid discussing the elephant in the living room. Pills, further, are like band aids in these cases and eventually the ‘pus will out’ as we learned in my days as a general practitioner.


Specifically I ask about masturbation. Not everyone. It arises when an otherwise smart, attractive,educated, intelligent male or female remains single and is unable to find a mate. It also arrises in questions for people in recovery because sexual cross addiction is so prevalent especially in those who have had cocaine addictions.  Having subspecialized in trauma and addiction I am also seeing a lot of people who are in recovery from one addiction and I ask specifically about sexuality because sex addiction is a common problem and sexual trauma is also a common problem for those who have had any addiction. It almost goes without saying that if a woman has been a black out drunk or commonly 'legless' or 'blotto' that she has been sexually abused while in this state, especially the young and pretty.  It's also true for young and especially attractive men who suffer addiction.  The young and attractive are particularly vulnerable in this area but anyone can be a victim.
Asking about masturbation may or may not occur in a whole discussion that follows as one addresses issues of sexuality. Many rape patients have disclosed that they can only orgasm in masturbation replaying sexual abuse or rape fantasies. This has to be worked through in therapy and a positive outcome is a later history of orgasm within a less traumatic context.  It also comes up when patients are describing sexual difficulties and relationship conflicts they have with their partners. One wants something the other doesn't and sometimes they don't even know what each is asking because of the ignorance surrounding language and difficulties that still exist in the area of sexuality despite our putting men and women in space stations and sending rockets to Mars. Society will always be limited by the slowest, and too often these people aggregate from fear in positions of control in administrations , courts and high office.  Cross culturally many men and women aren't even 'allowed' to discuss sex and in their countries discussion of sexual matters has resulted in them being imprisoned and sometimes tortured.
When I trained psychanalytically in Freudian and Jungian psychotherapy I was trained to focus on ‘sexual fantasies’ and ‘sexual dreams’. Fantasies and dreams were considered a royal road to the unconscious. Patients conflicts were conceptualized as unresolved conflicts and the richness of material which flowed from the interviews was rife. So many of my patients sexual abuse followed from exploring themes that arose in these discourses. So many patients who had suffered anorgasmia, social phobia, and sexual promiscuity responded to the insight therapy. Others addressed faced their homosexual fears and even others had marriages that were restored.
In marriage therapy discussion of sexual issues was central as the three principal areas around which marriages conflicts arise are sex, money and family. At one time I my success with marriage therapy was as high as Goffman’s research statistics but my own marriage broke down so I left my work with marriage and turned to the area of trauma.
Patrick Carne’s book Out of the Shadows is one of the classics of sexual psychiatry, right up there with Judith’s Herman’s Trauma and Recovery. It was Patrick Carne’s that first clued me into an interesting aspect of masturbation that I’d never thought to question. This is specifically how one felt ‘after masturbation’. I had naturally thought that people felt good. What Carnes noted was that some people felt ‘badly’ not physiologically but psychologically, either within hours after or the next day. Indeed I learned that many of my patients had guilt and shame attached to masturbation only by asking ‘how one felt’.
This was an important area for both men and women.
As to the frequency, there isn’t any very good literature on how much one should or shouldn’t masturbate. Clearly when men tell me they ‘masturbate more now that they’re married’ than before when they were single there is a serious concern. At University of British Columbia, there’s a specific Sexual Medicine department and I’ve referred couples there because of this disclosure. Marriages that would have otherwise failed have been revived because the specific sexual disorders have been addressed as a couple by the specialists who thankfully have also been experienced and empathic.
In the asylum I’ve had to bandage men’s hands to stop them from harming themselves from compulsive masturbation. I’ve also had to use anti testosterone drugs in these contexts so there really is an upper limit.  Despite libertarian fantasies, there really can be too much of a good thing.  ‘too much masturbation’ is not good. Seeing a penis that is raw and bleeding will hopefully even change the mind of the most aggressive sexual libertarians.
That said I don’t know if ‘no masturbation’ is good. Religous there has been all manner of rot around the subject, specifically the perverted misinterpretation of the ‘Sin of Onan’ in which the real sin was the “sin of levy” , ‘failure to have sex with the dead brother’s wife to keep all the land to oneself.”
With the proliferation of pornography and the ability to call up sexual parners like pizza through apps like Grinder, I’ve increasingly encountered people whose ‘depression’ appears directly linked to the sexual compulsion. It’s not different from the depresions that I saw which were not responding to a pharmacy of medication because no one asked the patient about their drinking 26 of whiskey daily or the daily 2 bottle of wine habit (alcohol a depressant counteracting any antidepressants). The same seems to hold for masturbatory and sexual compusion.
Female patients have admitted to masturbating many times a day but to date I’ve not been able to note the same apparently ‘physiologically based’ depressive 'quality that men have presented who are doing this. I suspect I’ve been biased by the belief that men are ‘loosing’ some sort of ‘essence’ because their bodies have to produce this fluidd whereas women don’t produce an equivalent compound but have spoken to 'feeling badly' or 'being depressed' about masturbation.  Often one has to address religious taboos and more and more the issue of 'body shame' is becoming apparent with both women and men.
I’m interested in the question of ‘frequency “ of masturabation for men and women. If we say ‘masturbation’ is not ‘unhealthy’, then what ‘frequency is ‘unhealthy’ or even 'normal’. Because of political correctness sexual research is more often confined to the dark anecdotal realm of the internet than academia. Asking the question at what point is a bodily function a contributing factor to depression or not is of interest especially as recent research confirms that psychopharmacological treatment of depression has been shown as less successful than psychotherapy and psychopharmacology. We all knew this but the prescription pad pushers with the support of the authorities made a fortune avoiding talking to patients.The authorities meanwhile have all but outlawed talking with patients about anything relevant to psychiatry.
Life style turns out to underline much of medical illness and now if we take complete rather than 'politically correct'  histories we can learn once again that life style underlies much of psychiatric illness.
(  I just watched Vacation with Chevy Chase, and the new Griswold family and almost died laughing over the sketch and confusion and hilarity around the term 'rim job' so in a way that contributed my sharing here because there's such a gross disconnect between the world of patients, especially the young and the world of administration, regulation, clinical medicine and psychiatry.  Rim job appears as a comedy sketch on one of the best family rated shows but a doctor could lose his license if he asked about this today despite increasing awareness of the untold morality and mortality that are a direct and indirect consequene of political correctness and the thankfully declining reign of  era of terror some term Sexual McCarthyism. Perhaps now we can learn medically more about masturbation considering that it does go hand in hand with pornography, which today is more often called more fashionably 'erotica'. )

I

Gratitude, Resentment, Grief and Aging

I am thankful for my fingers, Lord.  The knife cut I did to my index finger did not severe a nerve.  The joint capsule may have been penetrated but there is no more infection.  Daily iodine  with hydrogen peroxides and bandaid changes has saved the finger.  How come I was not so careful initially when I was washing the knives.  But thank you Lord if there was any lesson I was to learn from my injured  ‘pointing finger’.  I have not had to at least have it removed. I’m grateful for that.  Help me always to see more my own faults than the faults of others, or the faults of the world.
Thank you Lord for the health of my dog.  I was so devastated when he was paralyzed that day. I was in fear all day as we drove back early from the north. Thank you for X-rays and Oak Animal Hospital and the lovely Indo Canadian veterinarian who did a thorough examination of him and found his nerves had not been injured, that he would walk again with medication. Thank you for his slow recovery. Thank you for science and medication.
Thank you for the end of elections. Help me to recover from all the hatred and shame I experienced again for standing up for what I believe in.  For years I have taught people ‘love the person’, don’t accept the behaviour.  I have taught that guilt was what we felt when we did something wrong but shame was what we felt when we felt we were wrong fundamentally as a person.  I have experienced so much shaming.  Throughout the election and even now I am told by so many that I am not a Canadian because I do not believe as the victors do.   Always shaming. Always ‘ad hominem’. I have never been ‘good enough’.  I have always been ridiculed and condemned.  Meanwhile I serve like an untouchable, treating unclean bodies and unclean minds.  Men and women get rich off the sales of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, heroin, cocaine, poor lifestyle, unsafe practices, yet I am there serving, healing and helping and I am told I am not worthy to live here.  I am unwanted.
I treat many old men like me.  Some old ladies too.  There is sadness in aging. There is sadness in a whole variety of poverties yet some poverty takes precedence.  The single mothers go to the front of the line while us men whose children were aborted are shunned.  We stand in lonely groups sometimes touched by the men and women whose children were killed in crime.  I huddle next to them.  Their sons and daughters murdered or killed in war or by accident Somehow we face dying together in the greatest of loneliness. I have no tie to this world, no illusion of immortality.
And so much I gave in taxes, taken from me, voluntarily though, I had no choice, to pay for education and children and I supported the children of others knowing my own were killed.  I am a laughing stock.  Worse than a cuckold.  The women jeer at us men whose lovers killed our being and say ‘you deserved it’. Man. I’d rather be a hammer than a nail.
I am shamed for being a man. And I’m not even a very good one.  The heterosexuals hate me because I’ve had sex with a man and the homosexuals hate me because I’ve had sex with a woman. I’m divorced and divorced men are the scourge of the earth.  Divorced women were obviously done wrong by men but divorced men get what they deserve.  They’re contemptible.  I was punished and condemned in the courts, laughed at by the judge whose eyes did not look at me but instead focused on the loosely covered breasts of the one who had once said she loved me.  As I once said I loved her.  In the end I paid her all I had financially. She was smug in profit.  The courts made their money too. The judge looked like he wanted to have a tryst with her.  He ogled her. She looked coy.   I was thrust aside. Loser. Fool.  Shame and humiliation.
50 shades of grey.  The billionaires are worshiped.  The women read with lust what girls are willing to do for the monetary winner. Eva Braun ruled all of Germany.  Only her man is condemned.


My mother is dead.  She didn’t do drugs or drink.  She insisted we go to school. She loved education.  She insisted we go to Sunday school and church. She loved the Lord.  She insisted we play hockey. She and my father loved hockey.  So I fished with Dad and hunted and fixed cars with my brother and my father. I learned cooking from mom and mixing cement from Dad and I helped him build buildings and boats.  My parents had lost so many friends in WWII.  Dad had served in the RCAF. A spitfire mechanic and a bombardier.  My parents met in the war.  Dad and Mom weren’t racists. I didn’t know racists till the government began dividing and conquering the people by calling everyone racists.  My black doctor didn’t even know he was black in those days like I didn’t know I was white.
Dad didn’t know that being a man and being white was wrong.  He didn’t think of himself as coloured.  My mother and her sister had black friends.  They were Baptist.  She didn’t have Catholic friends.  Dad had Catholic friends and Jewish friends and Buddhist friends and Hindu friends and secular friends.  Our family were as coloured as everyone. Mom joked about us having freckles.  My brother and her had red hair.  
Dad liked smart people, people who did things, ‘made something of themselves’.  Always growing up I heard my parents say, “It doesn’t matter where a person has been it’s where they’re going and are they building things up.”  Mom and dad most admired people who were working and taking care of their children.  They didn’t like people who were ‘living off of the government because they were too good to do a honest day’s labour’.  They didn’t like people who weren’t willing to ‘get their hands dirty’.  They especially didn’t like people who stole and criminals.
 “I didn’t fight for this country so I had to put a lock on my own doors,” my father told me.  The judge who lived a couple of houses over was a rip roaring falling down drunk and my parents didn’t have any time for drunks. They especially didn’t like drugs.  “Wasting their lives.  Caring for their own pleasures when they should be caring for others.  Not caring how much their behaviour hurt others. That’s their problem."
They both said, “You always were too smart for your britches.”  “I don’t care if the teacher is wrong, you’ve got to learn to not tell them that because they’re hurt you for it. The more wrong they are the more they hurt people who are right.” My aunt was Indian. My Baptist aunt was the executive assistant (we called her his ’secretary’ back then) to Canada’s ambassador in Washington DC during WWII. My grandfather arrived as a poor immigrant from Scotland and homesteaded northern Canada to become a great rancher and lumber man.  My other grandfather arrived from Ireland. Both poor, the “made something of themselves.’  They “didn’t take handouts’.
My aunts and mother told me the history of things.  The teachers told me lies. I was strapped by the principal for correcting them. The same occurred in chemistry when the teacher had the equations wrong.  But he didn’t have me strapped. He corrected his equation and thanked me.  That’s probably why I liked science.   We were caned in gym class, our buttocks bared.  I got my first ruler in kindergarten.  The female teacher undressed me in front of the class and held me across her knees smacking me hard over and over again on my naked bottom.
Much later I was punished for stopping men and women killing people. The people whose job it was to ensure the safety of the children hated and shamed me for stopping the killing. The provincial enquiry years later vindicated me but a half dozen babies more were killed before that occurred.  I never received an apology. I was never returned the money and time I lost for doing the right thing. I was suspect then. I didn’t keep quiet and mind my own business when I saw people being killed and raped.  I wasn’t a ‘team player’ they said in the government.  There is no “truth and reconciliation” for ‘whistleblowers’.
I’m surprised I don’t like S and M.  So many boys have come out of school spanked so many times like me that they at least got some pleasure sexually later from their twisted education.  I just got this twisted idea I’d stop people being abused. I try mostly to stop people from ‘turning anger inward’.  They continue to hurt themselves after being hurt so much by others.
Now the government tells me I can’t touch people.  Standing helpless in my office men and women cling to me and their tears run down my suit.  I cannot hug them.  All over the province men and women physicians are being publicly threatened fines and loss of license if they touch a patient, especially if they hug a patient.   I eventually push them away and tell them the government says that doctors can’t touch their patients even when they are grieving. There are so many laws today.  I am afraid of everyone and everything.

Thank you Lord for these moments of peace. Thank you Lord for bringing me safety this far. Thank you for the light. Thank you for the coffee and the cream and the porridge. Thank you for this computer. Thank you for letters and language. Thank you for the opportunity to learn. Thank you for the chances I’ve been given to make something of myself.  I am still walking upright. I’m still able to help others.  I am so thankful that my finger still works. I am always in pain, Lord.  I am just so thankful that it’s not as bad as it has been. I am so thankful that I can get out of bed and get to work and have some work.  I look back and remember the abject poverty of those years of being a student, giving blood for books, not having food because I paid the rent, eating at family and friends because I had no money. We were in love then. We lived so simply.  Years and years of hand me down clothing, hand me down furniture.  We pooled our resources for a party. I studied from 6 am to 12 pm and saw formulas in my sleep.  I lived in hospitals.  I went for years without sleep.  Plane crash. Polar bear chasing me.  Deadly diseases.  Old people dying in my arms alone in the night giving me their last words as gifts.  I thought I’d never get clean. The lice, the bacteria, the virus, the sickness. I was sick for so many many years.  Tuberculosis. I was treated for a year.  She condemned me for going where no one else would go. “You’re not a Christian, you’re a fool.” she told me when I wanted her nakedness and she was angry that I flew away to serve the aboriginals because, “no one else would’.  Now no one cares.  The government regulator sneered at me and said, “It’s just a job.”  I’ve never got my back pay. There never was a bonus.  Everyone said I had status but ever shopkeeper raised the price and stole from me.  All the while the government took in taxes and paid themselves fat salaries and froze my income.  Among ourselves we laugh if we make minimum wage.  7 days a week for how many years is it I worked and was on call. No overtime. No on call. No danger pay.  I fell asleep in an operation.  I wet myself too.  An adult man peeing dribbling unable to hold it. all night with an unforgettable bowel after a shot gun wound.  I wake with nightmares screaming lost in guts that are perforated seeing faces of suicides. It’s a good week when I don’t remember, when I get a full nights sleep.  This morning I woke at 5 am.  Now I know it’s just the rain.  It’s the darkness and the rain. It’s that season. I remember the rains coming and the palm trees flying over my car, my windows knocked out.  The rains and the darkness. I’ll get used to it again.

Thank you Lord for the memories. When I smoked pot and drank wine I forgot.  I don’t remember my holidays. Those brief weeks when we’d get away from the ‘front’ and escape to beaches.  I drank wine and smoked weed and now don’t much remember those days while the horrors of guns in offices and knives and the angry faces fresh from jail in withdrawal demanding valium and more valium or narcotics and more narcotics threatening shouting.
She said I ’sexually harassed her’ when I asked her to leave because she was stealing and smoking crack. She ‘d been raging and shouting at the Indo canadians in wheelchairs.  She hated Indo Canadians.  I didn’t know when I hired her. I didn’t even know she was a drug addict. I didn’t know she prostituted. I took others words. She lied. I didn’t know her johns had been her references. I didn’t know that her minister was her bisexual lover. I’ve never known anything when the shit hits the fan. I’ve been so focussed on saving a life that I didn’t know that I was being stolen from. Only when the bank balance didn’t match did I know something was wrong.  Only when I saw the receipts from the store did I realize that she was a thief.    Everything she said and wrote didn’t match. Lawyers showed that.  A hundred lies but it was never about truth.  I told the truth and was condemned for it.  Government’s don’t want the truth.
The government woman said, “Women don’t lie about sex.”
I learned there was no ‘justice’ and went to work pro bono with my friend who was killed when he said that only the rich could afford justice in Canada.  I still think it was a hit.
Thank you Lord for the lifting me up. These moments come and go. The set backs. Reflecting on people saying I’m not a Canadian.  People telling me to leave Canada and that I’m not wanted here.  It took me back to the time when I was getting death threats, when my windows were shot out by 22’s, when my cars was keyed over and over.  I had been diagnosing alcoholism and addiction and saying that people were unfit for work. The management thanked me for halving the accidents on the job. Men and women thanked me for making their workplaces safe but the cost was high. Drug addiction changes a person.  The pot heads were just as violent as the alcoholics and cokeheads when it came to wanting revenge.  Here there were having this good thing, the doctor before me saying they were depressed and giving them a week or two in hospital to dry out before they went back to work to wreck havoc on management and their fellow workers.  He was the loved doctor.
"The other psychiatrist  never asked about alcohol and drugs but this knew little shit doctor did and he fucked me up. The fuck cost me my job writing down what I told him I smoked and drank. It was supposed to be confidential. When the insurance company saw it they said that I had to go to treatment. I didn’t want to quit.  I just wanted the other psychiatrist to keep writing a note saying I was sick because of my bipolar disorder.  I didn’t want this fucking asshole to fuck me up.  I talked to everyone about him.  I didn’t think it was relevant to tell anyone how much weed I was smoking when I was working.  It’s medicine. It’s a herb.  It’s not like the pharmaceutical’s that little shit puts people on.  The boss is just like him. A fuckking shit. Keeps telling me I’m forgetting and not concentrating on the work.  Claimed I caused their multi million dollar machine to break down.  All the stress he was giving me made me do coke. I needed it to concentrate at work after I started the day with a few shots and a doozie or two.  Then I go to the hospital for my normal break, like we all did with the old doctor and this shit blows the whistle.  Of course I hate him.  Fucking boy scout.  Little do goober.  Of course my friends and I made his life miserable. After what he did to us he’s lucky he didn’t have an accident."

Now I’m just sad, now , alone.  Thinking how many lives I must have ruined drug testing.  If I’d just backed off, turned a blind eye like my colleague, these guys might have gone on to be Prime Minister or at very least headed the company. Instead they probably left regular work and went into growing dope full time and becoming part of the multi billion dollar BC industry that now has essentially been pardoned as well as getting to take the money and run.
I’ve never been “pardoned" in my work.  I’m just scrutinized, regulated, criticized,  shamed and threatened. They call the punishment different names like ‘re-education.’  It’s still punishment.  The hitters get paid and the victims get framed.  When I was doing so much pro bono work, about 20% of that years income, because the parents didn’t pay their premium they and their  kids couldn’t see private doctor and they were told to go to government clinics where they didn’t want to go because everyone their judged them and put them down, I saw them.  I didn’t get paid.  May e $20,000 loss of income a year. I thought like any business I should be able to declare it as a loss so I did.  Revenue Canada sent out three people to audit me. It wasn’t an audit. It was harassment. They went through all my books.  At the end of a week, this thug said, “No doctor sees patients for free. We haven’t caught you yet, but we’re watching you and we will.”  Every private doctor I know works for free but we’re not allowed to declare our ‘losses’.  Even today people miss appointments and I  don’t pay but I can’t declare my losses against my earnings like all other businesses can.  The reason is that psychopaths think others think like they do.  Lizards think other think like lizards.  So our government doesn’t do anything for free.  And they can’t understand a physician any more than an insect can understand a bird.
It’s not good to stew. It’s better to help someone. I am so thankful. When my mind wasn’t working I used my body to carry folk. When I couldn’t lead I followed. Today I know the people I’ll see are hurting more.  I have so many people with cancer and surgeries and all I do is provide relief.  The heroin addicts are far gone but here and there one awakes and wants to live.  I’m happy to provide solace. I love to see people cured. But now we’re all getting older and the only cure for life is death.
I think of that too much these days.  Kierkegaard, “Life is suffering unto death’. I think a lot about my buddhist days.  I’m praying and meditating.  I miss rejoicing.  I miss dancing.  I have to have a shower and get to work. Everyone is always angry that I’m late. Some days I’m afraid to leave my office. A day of my life has not gone by that someone hasn’t been angry with me. A year in my life has not gone by that some official hasn’t hated me and tried with all their power to destroy me.
 For so many years the friends of the man I stopped killing people haunted my life. They were in so many high places and their loyalty to their drunken dangerous friend was admirable.  They were more afraid than me.  I saw that but now a couple of them have died and the others are retired.  They’re rich and have young wives and their children visit them.  They tell war stories like we all do.  They’re victors.
I don’t think I ever wanted to be a victor. Maybe if I’d set my eyes higher. As long as I can remember I've just wanted to survive and help others survive.  .  Thank you God for letting me survive. Thank you for the easing up of my back pain and the healing of my finger and my dog. Thank you that I can type.  Please banish my anger, my self pity, my negativity, my comparison, my jealousy and envy and my resentments. Help me rid myself of these character flaws so I can better celebrate this new day and be grateful for all that you have given me.

Dysthymia, Adjustment Disorder, Major Mood Disorder, Bipolar, Melancholy

I'm feeling blah.  Vaguely disgrunted.  The technical term for this state is 'dysthymia'. I'm off. It's that Monday morning thing but it's Tuesday morning.
It's not an intrinsic thing. It's not autochthonous. It's not 'fixed'.
I haven't been continuously like this fo 2 weeks or more.  It's not like I have a major mood disorder. On the weekend with Laura, walking about Vancouver, playing tourist in my own city,  I felt really good. With a major mood disorder that wouldn't happen.  The depressed feeling would be more continuous.  I was enjoying something I'm interested in whereas with a major mood disorder I'd not enjoy things or people I usually do. I usually enjoy Laura and I certainly enjoyed her this weekend.
It's not that I have mood swings, either. Technically "mood swings" represent spontaneous shifts in mood independent of my environment. I felt good on the weekend because I was walking about town with a beautiful woman on a sunny day.
Today I feel blah and probably can come up with some pretty good reasons.   My concentration and memory were just fine on the weekend and they're fine today.  I was highly motivated on the weekend and I still am.  I certainly don't feel like there's no reason for living.  I wouldn't rather die. That's what one feels with  severe depression.
It wasn't melancholy either. If I had melancholia, Laura, Angelina Jolie, Nicole Kidman, Sophia Loren all couldn't put humpty dumpty together again.  Winning the lottery or getting a months vacation in Hawaii wouldn't lift melancholy.  Melancholy is the deepest depression and its independent of environment.  Severe major mood disorder doesn't get better with environmental rewards though with a mood disorder one can fake it a bit and smile. Not with melancholia. There's no faking it with melancholia.  Major Mood Disorder is fairly common.  I've only encountered a very few cases of melancholia.  The principle reason for so few of the latter is the success of modern psychiatry.  The cases of melancholia I saw had begun as major depressions but just got worse and worse without treatment until a couple of  people were mute and catatonic.
My minimalist blahs seem more related to the coming of winter, the routine, the stresses daily living and working in a city like Vancouver living, the same old - same old, aches and pains, aging, injured dog, self pity.
It's more an adjustment disorder sort of thing though not  even important enough or at the level to get that label.  Adjustment disorder is an exaggeration of a normal response to life stress.  One's reaction can be so negative and prolonged that an Adjustment Disorder can become a major mood disorder. But the standard adjustment disorder with depressed mood or mixed emotions can be related specifically to a significant event like loss of a job.  My blahs are too general for that.
Dysthymia is a lower grade  but more chronic thing. It can be permanent. Cognitive behaviour therapy says clearly we feel what we think. So negative thinking begets dysthymia.  Hemorrhoids do too.  Lots of things contribute to the dysthymia. Mostly it's self centeredness and bad coping habits. Personally, physiologically, I've not been getting to bed on time. So I've had a couple of days with an hour or so less sleep staying up later watching tv. That's all it takes when you're older to have a bad disposition.  A little more rest and I'll probably spring back.  
I've been isolated more this last couple of weeks. Misery loves company. Because my dog has been injured I've missed  church and meetings I'd other wise attend.  I'm in the midst of a slow process of change with a new office and staff.  Change, positive or negative, is experienced physiologically as stress.  I've had a lot of changes recently.
Where I might other wise have taken a course to "energize' me, I've just been 'taking care of business'. I'd forgotten how much stress is involved in a move. It was kind of negative stress too. Forced upon me by management.
There is  nothing like a positive new activity to perk up a dull life.  For years I took evening school classes till I had a Master of Divinity.  That really made the winter months fly by.   I might never use my M Div officially  but the learning was really exciting. Before that I'd done my Ship's Captain studies in Navigation and Offshore Sailing. I certainly used that learning.  Life is more an adventure when one is learning new skills.  The same held true when I took Spanish Classes and Hebrew.
The blahs are a bit like 'boredom' or 'ennui'. They're a bit self centered.
If I want to feel good, I must do good.  So I have to make changes. Maybe I'll go swimming tonight.  I always feel better after I exercise (never before).   I cleaned my place a few months back when I was feeling listless.  Nothing makes one feel better than scrubbing the house down.  I may have to put up the rack I got which will unclutter my kitchen. Anything that gets oneself out of oneself will take care of the blahs.  I'm not sure I'm feeling bad enough for such a drastic intervention as house cleaning but I know it would work.
I haven't been able to go for runs or long walks like I did with the dog since his injury so that's contributing.  Sloth and sedentary living are a major cause of all depressions.
With the sunshine lessening I probably should get the SAD Lite out.
It's also  Remembrance Day tomorrow. So this is an anniversary.  I 've felt sad every year at this time. As a child I was talk gratitude for  the soldiers for their service to Canada. As an adult I've been priviledged to help so many.  I've heard the most harrowing stories and never wanted to change places with guys who've been in the front line. Sure a good office job far from the front looked seductive as anything but nothing 'out beyond the wire'.   Without the Canadian Army, Navy, and Air Force we could all be like the Syrians or Afghanistanis.  My dad was RCAF .  I was honored to meet alot of military folk because of him.  Men who'd been in our army, navy, or air force in WWII. With Remembrance Day tomorrow I can't help but think of him.  I miss him too.  This alone could explain a day of the blahs. Grief. Grieving Dad.  Grieving all those soldiers who sacrificed their life for my freedom.

Croissanterie Cafe, Vancouver

Laura and I loved the Croissanterie Cafe on Granville Street.  We’d been shopping on Robson and were coming down Granville on our way to Granville Island.  This perfect little cafe suddenly appeared.
“The hot chocolate is real cocoa, “ Laura exclaimed.  “I’ve been wanting a hot chocolate since the rains began.”
I enjoyed  my Americano and croissant.  The beautiful hostess had been particularly pleasant. The ambience was decidedly European.  The weather had been balmy. Laura and I had walked through Vancouver enjoying it as much as if we were in Belfast or Milan. Tourists in our own town.  

Gilbert on the mend

Last month Gilbert hurt himself.  I’d jumped out of the truck taking the 20 gauge shot gun leaving him in the truck with Laura.  I shot the grouse only to hear a yelp behind me.  Gilbert seeing the grouse rotating on the road headless knew it was his job to capture the bird. The trouble was I’d obviously forgotten to leave the door open for him to join me.  So despite Laura’s attempt to grab him he jumped through the 3 inch window opening to land terribly wrong on the ground.  Looking back I saw my little cockapoo limping to his duty.  Somehow he pounced on the still flopping grouse and held it down till got to it.
I was concerned because he was tender for a week protective of his back and flank. We took him to the vet partly because he was due for a vaccination and needed some tick medication. He was well again by then  and the vet found nothing untoward so we all thought he’d just ‘pulled a muscle’ or ’strained a ligament’.  There are any number of soft tissue injuries that can explain things.  The trouble with investigations is that if you do enough of them  you begin ’treating the lab’.  Whatever, Gilbert seemed to have healed.   For a week he ran pell mell about my brother’s 5 acre property with his cousin cockapoo Eva.  So we thought he was well.
Then a couple of weeks later his best friend forever Tom and the love of his life Laura and the old guy me took him on a hunting adventure to the north.  He loves these long rides with the stops to sniff and pee out in the sage countryside. So many new scents.  Then there’s the Macdonald’s stops for hamburger.  He loves these and is actually triggered by seeing the Golden Arches.  Who would have thought a dog would start whimpering and jumping up and down just seeing Macdonald’s Golden Arches. But he loves their hamburgers and he is one of the team on our hunting missions. It’s not that we would ever spoil him.
At the motel,before dawn Tom and I were packing the truck with guns and ammo for the hunt. Tom threw a yellow tennis ball for Gilbert and he screeched on the run.  It was dark. But he seemed fine.  No limping.  No change.  He didn’t seem abnormal.  We didn’t even know anything was hurt.  Maybe he’d stepped on something. I checked him out but the hunt and pre dawn and time were all in progress.
Tom and I separated, he continuing in F350 truck while I went off on a back road in the Yamaha 450 quad with Gilbert sitting behind me..  I parked the quad and shot a two point back in the woods.  I noted Gilbert yelped when he jumped off the quad. It thought it was excitement. I certainly was excited.  I ‘d gutted the deer with Gilbert assisting me by running around in circles before he settled down to watching the woods.
Some other guys had got a moose the morning before and had said how much the quad would have helped them if we’d arrived earlier.  Then that morning before I shot my deer I’d helped another guy get his deer out of the woods to the road with my quad.  I was glad to help.  Easy two guys lifting.
Now getting this deer on the quad myself took some doing. I tried lifting it but my back isn’t what it used to be. I remembered carrying a deer over my shoulders for miles one year, up and down hills and up to my neck through bog. While these memories seem like yesterday, the truth be known that was 25 years ago. I was 40 lbs lighter and climbed mountains and stuff like that for fun.
Now I couldn’t lift this deer onto the back or front of the quad.  Thank God for winches.  I ran the winch under the quad and up and over to where I could latch it to the back of the deer’s  rear knee. With the winch I hoisted that up so the back end was level with the top of the quad.  Then with a mighty back jarring lift I got the front end up and lashed the whole deer down.  Without the quad and winch I’d knew then I’d never have got that deer out of the deep woods.  It’s terrible but I’m getting old. Who would have figured a nice guy like me would be punished with age.  Being a desk jockey I’m getting more and more out of shape too. I blame that partialy on hagen daz ice cream.    My back however wasn’t happy with the unusual effort and the cold.  Besides I’d cut my finger first thing in the morning on my own knife.  So not only was I old and out of shape, I was also stupid.
And that’s when I noticed Gilbert wanted help getting back on the quad.  I can’t say I thought anything of it except that maybe with the cold he had some arthritis that was slowing him down since I was having that problem myself.
After that Gilbert couldn’t jump up onto the quad or into the truck.  We left the deer hanging hoisted up in the woods on a high tree.  We’d planned to hunt more but Gilbert began to stumble then and  not to be able to lift his back end.  We headed back to town.
Back at the motel we noticed he was tender too and didn’t want us to touch him.  Laura was frantic.  I phoned the vet but there was nothing we could do but wait till morning to get him in.  I worried.  That didn’t help.  I prayed and that felt better.  I really hoped a night of rest and warm would help the little guy but in the morning he was no different.  Unable to lift his back end he couldn't even pee.  It seemed he was  paralysed but I couldn’t tell if that was just the pain or if something was seriously wrong with his spinal nerves. .
We headed back.  Tom would get the deer and take it to his country home where he’d butcher it himself.  We’d done a moose together years earlier so he knew all about butchering and preparation.  I felt badly because we were cutting the hunt short with Tom not having shot his deer despite seeing one.  But Gilbert, we all agreed was now the priority. Tom  went off in his vehicle and Laura and I continued to the city.
Oak Animal Hospital has been our veterinary clinic since before Gilbert. They took care of our cats. So Gilbert has gone there since a puppy for all his vaccinations and now they saw him immediately as an emergency visit.  The lovely Indo Canadian veterinarian was wonderful. Thorough and caring she explained what she thought. I ‘d done a cursory exam and thought him neurologically in tack but was so thankful to hear give us the good news out loud.
“I checked his sensation and reflexes and they’re all  in tact.  Theres no damage to his spinal column. His muscles are okay as well. Based on my examination I think he’s damaged a disk in his back."
Her and her assistant had taken Gilbert in the back for the complete examination.  It was better that way.  After driving like a madman for hours from the north I wasn’t in any shape to hold my little guy in pain.  I blamed myself. But then I blame myself for everything.  I’m also incredibly sensitive to others pain though over the years I learned to compartmentalize this professionally.  Not this day, my back was killing me and I’d cut my finger deeply with my knife so that was throbbing too. And here I’d hurt the best little guy or at very least let him get hurt on my watch.
“I’d like to do an X-ray.”
“Of course.” I said.
They told me the price would be $200. Of course. On the way down I’d been running through my head how much I could spend on Gilbert.  Given they have bionic limbs for hundreds of thousands the idea of what can one afford or what is reasonable to spend is ever a matter in all health care.  Insurance companies defer the decision.  I didn’t have insurance but even then bionic limbs aren’t part of the normal package.  I always remember my brother’s dog Tartan. He’d got cancer and they’d amputated his leg.  Tartan hadn’t been happy as a three legged dog and my brother confided in me that he’d not do that again. The dog couldn’t understand that his life was being saved. He just seemed to think he’d done something wrong and this was punishment.  Without communication caring became cruelty.  We loved Tartan’s company for the end of his life but he was suffering and it was tragic.
So I’d concluded that Gilbert could have broken his hip, broken his back, severed his spinal column or simply had trauma to a joint.  I’d hurt my back.  Laura had hurt hers.  The doctors thankfully hadn’t put us down.
The X-ray showed the hips were fine and the most that could be detected was a possible narrowing of a disk space.  So Gilbert joined the family in terms of his back.  Hopefully conservative measures, rest, prednisone, and pain killers would solve the problem but if not back surgery was indicated. I agreed. Surgery is a last resort if the nerves are intact but even then surgery for this sort of injury was likely safe and successful.  Not something we wanted but worth the cost should it be needed.
Laura and I took Gilbert back to her apartment. I was carrying him everywhere because his back end was paralyzed and he couldn’t walk. It was so sad.  The lovely vet had catheterized him so his bladder was emptied. I’d been concerned about that when I examined him at a truck stop.
“Bring him back if he can’t pee and we can catheterize him again.” she said.
We waited.  Prednisone and Tramadol.  Gilbert didn’t like the taste of liquid tramadol at all.  But the prednisone, a tiny blue pill, was easily concealed in cheese or meat.
Hallelujah, within twelve hours Gilbert was standing again.  He couldn’t walk but when I took him outside he was able to pee. Laura and I were jubilant later in the day when he actually squatted and pooped. He was walking unsteadily within 24 hours.  I had to work and Gilbert comes to work with me.  I had him leashed to my chair and drugged so he was able to rest at the office while I worked.  Everyone who learned he was hurt was devastated.  Angel my assistant who has her own dog was so solicitous as was Mary Lou at the other clinic.
Gilbert is a pet therapist so all his patients came to pet him. He has his favourites and it was all we could do to keep him from jumping into their laps.  That’s what he likes to do and they like too so I had to keep telling people and Gilbert that now that he was injured we had to keep him in his little bed in the office.
I talked to the vet on the phone and she was so pleased he was recovering so fast.  When we took him back to the vet it was a man on duty that day. I think he was Persian.  It’s a typical Vancouver multicultural clinic.  Gilbert loved the first vet he’d seen there, a lovely caring big hearted beautiful young Chinese lady.  The older English white man got Gilbert to totally relax on another visit.  Now this fellow was perfect as well.  I saw how thorough his examination was and learned that it was normal for full recovery to take weeks. I know all about backs and disks in humans. But we’re a two wheel drive. I simply don’t know what should be different with the 4 wheel drive.
“Rest. He should have as much rest as possible for another couple of weeks. Almost kennel him."
It was important I heard this because my tendency was to walk Gilbert and if I’d done this it would have delayed his healing.  I realized too I wasn’t being professional with my own dog.  When the vet said this I realized that when I’d seen initial disk injuries in men back in my early days of family medicine when I’d assisted in orthopaedics and been a rodeo doctor, I’d  put them on strick bed rest. We’d even used traction but we couldn’t very well do traction with Gilbert.  So it was good that I asked the Vet questions and listened carefully.
It had only been a couple days before Gilbert no longer squatted to pee.  Like the proud male dog he was he rained his back leg like a flag beside the tree to pee. . The only trouble was he was still veryl unstable on his feet.  So he’d flag his leg beside a tree then lean on that leg up against the tree while he peed.  I don’t think the other dogs in the distance could see what he was doing. I wasn’t going to blow his secret. He fell over sometimes when he didn’t have a prop but more and more he was getting his own back.
He kind of sashayed at first when he walked.  This was Vancouver so no one really noticed that my dog now looked liked a rather flamboyant drag queen.  He was always very cute.    Then his back end motion took on the appearance of the drunken sailor. Again this being Vancouver no one seemed to notice.
Now he’s walking fine except first thing in the morning when we both hobble outside.  Laura and I both have to watch him like hawks now and hold him back.  Early this week he tried bounding up the couple of stairs at the front only to fall back down.  I wasn’t watching later when he actually made it up the two stairs without any difficulty. He seemed to be planning that because he wasn’t supposed to but I couldn’t very well haul in the leash once he was on his way up. He seemed satisfied with himself.  I’ m still carrying  him so that’s not happened again.
I can’t say lifting him in and our of my car or carrying him up the stairs has been any good for my back but my finger has been healing.  That was a deep cut and kept getting banged carrying Gilbert.  I should have got stitches.  I’m sure the cut went down to the joint.  It’s my index finger so I figure God was telling me that I should stop pointing and look more at my own character flaws.  It will be a reminder too.  With the election I’d indulged in too much ‘righteous anger’ and ‘judgementalism’. It’s not good for me. I don’t know what Gilbert thinks his back injury symbolizes. Maybe he shouldn’t have been humping everyone and everything including my former Thai assistant Aim.  She called Gilbert the humper”.
Taking care of Gilbert has had me focussed again on what really is important in life.  There’s been my work. Laura and I have been caring for Gilbert when we haven’t been working. His back is no longer tender and he sure loves getting massages.
I talked to my friend Stan Jung, the chiropractor here who has his phd in rehabilitation as well. He’s branched out into orthopedic athletic wear and had dropped by to leave me an anti slouching undershirt.
“I wish you did chiropractics for dogs,” I said to  Stan.  Stan and his friend Richard Cho have relieved my suffering on occasion.
“Some do, “ Stan replied, " but they need to have a veterinarian assisting them here.”
Physiotherapists are like that. They work with orthopods  and can have advanced  training in veterbral manipulation.  The chiropractors though usually work independently except Stan who consults with doctors.
“Well, you’ll have to get some dog atheltic wear then,” I told Stan.
He was spear heading the introduction of this new material into Canada. The Navy Seals were wearing it in the US.  He had me wearing an undershirt and it actually reduced my work stress, pulling back my shoulders and ensuring that when I sat at my desk I was more upright.
“it’s designed to stop people slouching and it does,” Stan told me.
All the while Stan had been talking to me he’d been massaging Gilbert’s back.  Gilbert could have had Stan stay the whole day.  
Gilbert’s now  at the end of his tramadol and prednisone. He’d had a week of daily prednisone and this second week has been tapering off.  All the pain appears  gone except when he gets up in the morning.  I think what he needs is a cup of coffee. That certainly gets me going.
Now we just have to keep him from running and jumping. The pizza kid came last night and Gilbert in a flash was all over him, barking and jumping up and down. .  Gilbert loves pizza. Laura was caught trying to get the pizza , keep Gilbert from jumping, and all the while trying to get the money out of her purse to pay the kid.  It was a real  juggle for Laura.
I was on the bed watching tv.  I didn’t jump up and  run to assist. Last week I would have.   I guess I trust Gilbert is out of the woods now.  All he needs  is time.  And pizza.
Laura brought the pizza to the bed and I lifted Gilbert up  between us so we could all get a slice while we watched Nicole Kidman in the Irtsh Australian movie, Strangerland.  Gilbert doesn’t care what the movie is. He just likes meat pizza.  And being with us.  I love watching his little tail wag, especially now.
Gilbert is on the mend.