Monday Morning, New Week

I miss the need to take Gilbert for a walk. I have time now that I do not want from what I once did with my dog now gone. I regretted the demands and obligations then but miss them now. 

Laura left early this morning. She waits till there is light to drive to work.  She used to walk Gilbert while she waited.  Monday’s he got two walks. Then he had his morning nap while I worked. Then we had lunch together.  

I’ve contacted breeders of cockapoos and other little dogs but their waitlists are full. With Covid lots of folk have been wanting dogs and buying dogs.  I remember the movie where the pitiful but funny boy was adopted by a hunter who took him to the marsh where he shot a duck then turned to the boy and said, « My dog died before the end of hunting season and there’s no time to teach another. So that’s why I got you. Strip and swim.! ». 

We had take out food over the weekend. I didn’t feel like cooking or barbecuing like I normally would.  I used to have this great audience who would share the barbecue.  Take out was a message, though, how high the cost of food has become. I thought prices had gone up at the grocery but I can’t imagine how folk eat out or live on delivery without cooking.  It turned out a lot of young people simply don’t know how to cook.

« I think they eat a lot of those noodle dishes, » Laura commented.

I feel guilty that I didn’t eat the grouse I shot and share a treat with Gilbert. I only had wild rice and had to buy white rice I serve my cubed bird fried in butter and marmalade sauce with.  A dog watches his owner eat like my mother watched me eat when I was a new born baby.  I think a lot of people who end up on TV for bad behaviour like rioting and working for CBC and CNN news didn’t have mothers and don’t have dogs. Andy Warhol said everyone deserved 10 minutes of fame but when you have a dog you are a constant celebrity in your own home. I loved that joke with the song « Every move you make, I’ll be watching you’ and the picture of the guy’s dog.  It’s true.

President Trump is supposed to leave Walter Reed today having had and recovered from Covid. The treatments and knowledge have progressed exponentially.  

I cleaned up Gilbert’s toys and gave unopened bags of Gilbert’s treats to neighbours. The best Liver Jerky is made in Princeton. I’d just been there and gathered months of supply.  The owners of Gilbert’s little dog friends will all be treated this week. They might even connect the delicious treat smell with Gilbert’s butt stink.  A dog’s sense of smell is way beyond our visual capacity. 

I am pleased that I did my laundry.  I also restocked on Ethiopian green coffee beans and  roasted a couple of weeks supply.  Mostly Laura and I read in the day.  We enjoyed the Sherlock Holmes TV series and also the Bletchley Circle girls in SF. BritBox tv contributions.  I arranged audiobook download through the New Westminster library.  A highlight of the weekend was talking in a socially distanced group with three dogs in the middle. Social moments are noteworthy with the isolation. Little Bella, the young Havanese was a show stopper but Emory and Lucy were still very much favoured.  

The fall colours have been increasingly beautiful.  I enjoyed the Harvest moon and setting up the tripod to get some fine pictures.  My nephew with his big telescope actually captured a lovely picture of Mars. 

I was thankful to be in touch with so many friends. Grief is better shared. I appreciated the support. That sense of community.  I loved the care of my family.  Once Laura joined me this weekend it was better. We have a week off soon so will be able to enjoy the relaxation after this emotionally demanding time.  

I’ve not made it to church.  I have several times been ready to go only to hear that they’re taking an interest in all the left prescribed topics du jour. I realize that I’m not interested in church as a social work source or place for politics of the left, especially the Marxist Leninist low brow aetheist material.  As trinitarians the clergy are too quick to reduce sociology to the marxist binary with it’s one shoe fits all ‘oppresion’ model.  

The world election is Nov. 3.  The NDP which did such a good job during the Covid have called an election locally.  I’m wearying of politics and hoping that the world election, between Xi Jinping and Trump will be resolved in Trumps favour.  The reformer is the enemy of anyone who benefits from the status quo. I’m too old for revolution.  Revolutions aren’t good places for the old.  I’d like the west to prosper and the greatest disparity of income in the world, the Communist elite and their ‘worker’s or the Middle East dictator’s and the ‘peasants’ be addressed while we in the west continue to advance with better economic and social policies.  I like our Conservative leader, Mr. O’Toole and can hope that when the stoner lazy lying Quebec serving fob is gone Canada might stop being a laughing stock but actually benefit from the freedoms of democracy and not be taxed to poverty and crime by a crony communist government.  Locally the NDP are much like the old Liberals while federally the NDP and Liberals are left of Mao. Canada’s Conservatives are at most centrist.

I must shower and serve.  I have a day of work and I can fill in my place and do what I’ve been trained so well to do.  Time to move in that direction. Normally Gilbert was moving me along.  Now I have to manage my own schedule.