Checking in Covid Times

I am sitting here with Madigan. I’m on my third cup of coffee. Turned off the alarm and had an extra hour of sleep. Madigan has learned how to climb up onto the bed last week. He twice tried Gilbert’s old trick of lick face alarm. I pushed him away.  I finally got up. Harsh start.  I have great sleeps, wonderful dreams. I’m not particularly interested in this world. It’s tiring and repetitive and even exhausting.  Madigan gives it meaning. Laura is visiting me again this weekend.  I’m living for the vacation.  

All week I sit in my garage with video screens and computer at a desk that looks like a NASA control room. I listen to despair and anxiety and depression.  Students having problems focusing. Everyone worried about the future.  A sort of ennui and lethargy. 

A marathon of mediocre misery

Life goes on.  Masks and social distancing. The vaccines roll out. Yet Dr. Fauci and Dr. Tam, the bureaurocrats of Agenda 21, keep changing their minds and mouthing gobbly gook.  I listened to Fauci, whose as questionable a character as Gates, and he just didn’t make any sense. I’m scientifically trained, a specialist with 2 years post doctoral training in public health and community medicine. I survived the polio epidemic, worked in the emergency in HIV epidemic, got TB working in the TB infested north. Yet,with Covid 19 the politics has all been fishy, nothing like anything before.  

Fauci has been at the centre of the problem along with the corrupt and broken WHO. Bei Jing is the new Moscow. No one seems to remember all the lies of public health we learned after the fall of the Berlin Wall .  Communists lie. Communism is the religion of Aetheism.  Multiculturalism is an oxymoron. Multiethnicity is true. But truth isn’t boys are girls and girls are boys. There are three genders male , female and other.  Black isn’t white. Yet these political hack arts students and intellectuals and emotional bullies insist they are right. I’m frustrated. 

I’m thankful I have had a vacine. I’ve been drinking tonic water with quinine and popping zinc and vitamin d from the outset. I continue to take hydroxychloroquine when I go out. I have arthritis, wear and tear , but nothing that appeared to work was withheld during the HIV crisis.  Nothing that had anecdotal evidence or retrospective evidence or first level and second level evidence was denied. Yet there was the smug arrogant Fauci, once a great physician, now an appalling double speak politician, saying hydroxychloroquine is no good because we have no double blind prospective controlled studies.  Then in the next breath he’s promoting experimental vaccines. The evidence for remsifer isn’t great yet he was hustling this all the while the Japanese Russian anti virals were better.

The lockdowns were fine in the spring.  Yet here we are with this draconian tyranny led by the despicable likes of Justin Trudeau and his henchwoman Dr. Tam.  It’s like something evil is stalking the land.  I feel like Communist China has taken over Canada.  The  graves of the Kapyong soldiers are being torn up and their remains defiled in metaphor.  Why did my father fight in WWII against totalitarian national socialism of Germany,  to have the Quebec mob boss puppet Trudeau sell out Canada to the murderous totalitarian international socialist regimeof Communist China. Xi Jinping is Hitler.  The Ughers are the Jews.  I feel like my paranoid patients feel after a little time in some cult and they get free. There are so many lies today I am left wondering whatever was true.

Buddha did say ‘Desire is Suffering.’ The Hindus say this a ‘maya’. Life is illusion.  The media is now a great lie, CBC, CNN, Fox, all just propaganda channels. Follow the money and it leads to hell. 

My patients are anxious about the future. So many are facing poverty. Their businesses are closed . They are out of work. They’re facing fixed pension and rampant inflation. The crime is skyrocketing along with suicides. All the government does is punish and tax the good citizens. Law abiding gun owners are targeted while pedophines are promoted. 10 million dollars paid by the government to an Islamic terrorist while  seniors and the vets ridiculed by Trudeau. I feel like I’m in an episode of Zombies, the Lord of the Flies and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, all mixed up in one.

I reassure patients daily, righteously worried about government ,their health, their future, and their saniety. 

I’m prescribing a whole lot of antidepressants, anti anxiety medications and especially anti psychotics.  All the while I remember Freud’ famous words. “Maybe the Paranoids are Right.” He was being spirited away to England as the Nazi’s had a contract on him.

Í go through the motions watching churches persecuted by the Supreme Court,  a front for aetheists and Islam.  They ‘d say otherwise but their approach to Christians has always been persecutors. 

Now we have extension of the euthanasia laws. Kill the mentally ill. It’s what Communists and Fascists do.  Now it’s Canadian.  Canada is now famous for euthansasia and abortion. The Canadian female doctors world renowned for the EUGENICS which fueled the Nazi Final Solution.   Plannned Parenthood  is more eugenics, the CEO’s confession in front of congress of selling baby bits doesn’t seem to phase people. Meanwhile Canadian women ,thanks to the feminists who claim ‘my body, my own’aren’t allowed to sell their milk or rent their wombs. Canadian feminism  just allows  chauvinist Trudeau to strut about claiming lip service  while titting women in parliament and kicking  the aboriginal woman attorney general to the curb. Where is Kim Campbell when we need her. That woman would have kicked Trudeau in the balls for  an titting an NDP woman.

 I miss Mulcair. Singh is a nut bar. He makes Sikh’s look bad. The Sikh’s I know are the salt of the earth but this guy is a loser Are all politicians the scum of the earth?  I thought PM Harper and PM Turner were the best representatives of Canada. Yet our political class ,including Singh are embarrassing. Where are Kennedy and Churchill when we need them?  

I’m old enough to be thankful for Premier  Horgan and Health Minister Dix. They may not be greatest, whatever that is,  but they sure are the best of a bad lot. Dr. Bonny Henry ‘s attack on business and churches, based on her lockdown  pseudoscience, is frightening.

I listen to my patients fears. They are really bright people. I can’t argue against them. I say Covid is a dangerous virus.  The Flu is a dangerous virus. Covid is 3x worse but you don’t arrest kids playing hockey on outdoor ponds while letting terrorists, politicians and pedophiles go free without adult supervision.

I have hope for O’Toole but his party is involved in the UN and the World Economic Forum. They are just a lighter shade of dark. Canada has no right wing. It’s long been a dictatorship by Toronto and Montreal.  Western Canada is shafted and raped continuously.

I’m here living the good life of trailer trash waiting for my Harley to get on the road next month booked to go camping in a matter of weeks.  I’m going to turn 69 and all I think of is having fun with Laura. I wasn’t supposed to live to 30.  People over 50 having sex were gross. The idea of having sex with someobody’s mother was disgusting. Now I’m hot for grandmothers. I used to think gays were off limits now I’m fine with the whole thing. Live and let live. 

I feel guilt and shame about my past and wonder what my future will hold. It’s ridiculous what I forfeited for 23 years of marriage to different women. The women were incredible despite their twists and families and addictions or defects. I was blessed to know them. The blind man finds the deaf women and they celebrate life together. It’s not about good and bad. It’s all Sado masochism. I miss all the loves of the past. But mostly I’m pissed at the many men and women I refused to have sex with because I was married or afraid. I’m blessed to have memories of naked nurses in call rooms, women inviting me into their apartment when I had only meant to derive them home. I was offered sex by dozens  of men and women who I said no to over the years because I was married or afraid. 

Meanwhile I had to deal with a couple of the ugliest sexually most incompetent doctors in administration. One psychotic freak actually said ‘women don’t lie about sex’. Another said women don’t like sex. I remember another women doctor saying ‘women don’t like oral sex,whether it’s giving or receiving.’ I still feel the male doctor in power who said women only want sex for babies should be put in an asylum.  Chimpanzees like sex.  Humans didn’t know sex lead to pregnancy till later. Anthropology is a great study but the ignorance of science of our administration and legal class is an abomination.  

Merkell and Thatcher were scientists.  Trudeau can hardly hold spit in his mouth.  Failed arts student, part time dramateacher, is now an abomination as a PM.  What hypocricy.  If he needs surgery let another snowboarder operate on him.  I love Hegel. I loathe the little pervert and bully Marx. 

Here I am warm and well fed and about to take a shower. I walked my dog on a lovely wooded path by a pretty stony stream. I’m going to go to a clinic in my Mini to get a cheque that will pay the taxes the government hacks take from the middle class to give to criminals,  mafia and terrorists.  Cronyism.  I’m left with a pittance but it pays the rent so I’m very thankful.  The growing poverty and the declining future of the seniors shouldn’t bother me. I should be a lizard like Trudeau and pat myself on the back because  I’ve got elite priviledge.  Food, clothing, shelter. A job. 

But I don’t have a protected daddy allowance called a trust fund , a personal corrupt glee club called the WE Charity, and a Laurentian Dachau just like Stalin had. I don’t hang with the greatest murderer of our day , Xi Jinping. I don’t celebrate tyranny and demean western Canadians. I don’t mock and belittle English Canadians  and fuck every Canadian except my wife.

Life is good. If I could just have sufficient gratitude and look at my own success and keep my head in the same room as my ass is and seize the day, I’d be okay. But I journal. I squeeze the pus out of my brain in rants and rambles.  I unload on the page and pray. I beg God for guidance. I ask for help. I want to do the next right thing. I want to be helpful. I want to be of service to my fellow man. I want to heal and be a good physician and a good psychiatrist.  I pray that I can see the light. I pray to know the presence of God in each day and moment of my life. I want faith and not fear. I know God is in charge. I know that God is omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent. I know string theory. I know Heisenbrg and Shroeder’s cat and the Law of attraction and Prisoner’s dilemma. Thank you Jesus. Thank you god of the Trinity. Thank you Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit Come. Hail Mary Mother of God. God of Gods. Light of Light , I pray to you. Help me. Help my loved ones. Help my friends and patients. 

In this great spiritual war of dark and light may the forces of light win this day and this week and month. And thank you for the blue sky, sunshine, and the hope of camping. Thank you Lord. Thank you for breath and colours and atoms and the mars expedition.  Watch over my nephews, god children, Laura and her family, friends and relatives. Thank you.  Thank you. Thank you

Tuesday, Feb.23, Covid Lock Downs continue

We’re into the anniversary of the 2 weeks to ‘flatten the curve’.  I’ve had my Pfeiser vaccine. I wish everyone here could have theirs. I’m looking forward to seeing Trudeau ‘reset’. His bid for communism in Canada will get him a place overseas in one of the countries he gave billions too to provide a future safe haven for him and his family.  Communist leaders always have hidey holes.  That’s what the money to Pakistan gender clinics was about.  They hid Bin Laden so why not Trudeau with his countless unethical acts and crimes against humanity.  A terrorist to his own nation.  Meanwhile I’m here in Western Canada trying to broker a trade of Quebec for a Hawaii.  Karma is a bitch.  Imperialist Montreal and Toronto owe western Canada billions.

I can hope.  I’m thankful for the heat here. I’ve got a roof over my head and carpeted floors. I’ve running water. The sun is up.  I’ve a great river walk and a wonderful puppy. I’ve got work today and can be of help and service. Spring is coming. I saw the first buds.  Spring is always a time of hope.

I don’t like the Winter Olympic Games in China.  Xi Jinping is today’s Hitler.  They just keep recycling. Megalomania should have a shelf life.  No more past 20th century.  Communism the religion of aetheism is the bloodiest ideology ever known.

Meanwhile I pray and meditate and walk.  I had breakfast.  Ethiopian coffee still up lifts me. Greek yoghurt. A banana and a protein bar.

I had my Pfeiser Covid 19 vaccine on Saturday.  Sunday I was flu like, tired , achy.  Then yesterday I was fine.  I’m to get the second dose in 40 days.  Laura was over.  We’re looking forward to camping in Keremoos. I bought another inflatable boat for camping. This one on Amazon. Not a particularly great boat like my sailing dinghies, just something to fish a bit with or to fetch ducks when we’re out in the camper. I’ll be able to haul it about on the ATV too.  It’s a hundred pounds but just one bag. My fishing platform last year took up too much room. This is something I know.  Another sailor’s dinghy.  I believe I have one on my boat too.  Duplication occurs with storage lockers and dispersed stuff.

I’m finally getting my little electric furnace fixed.  I’m pleased with that.

I love the sun. I love the blue sky.  The weather priviledge south had a dose of Canada but still they aren’t awake to how they have stole the land from the northerners so should just shut up about priviledge.  They collectively have the best of the planet and constantly demand more. Imperialists.

Supposedly Coke wants me to be less white.  It’s like Marlborough cigarettes wanting me to be less white. The message is in that soft drinks are being used to target the black people dying of diabetes and obesity. White people have moved on. We’d only worry if Perrier told us to be less white. Coke and other soft drinks are the most unhealthy junk food so black people had better wake up. They are about to be the ones dying of heart disease and strokes. We know the soft drink corporations are killers.  I’ll stick with Perrier , thank you.  

God bless.

Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ to the left of me, Christ to the right of me, Christ in the thoughts of all who think of me, christ in the words of all who speak of me. Christ in all my actions today.  Thank you Lord of Lords. God of Creation, ever being, alpha and omega, may I know you more truly and serve my highest purpose and meaning.

Thank you. 

‘

Life continues like Covid

I find his an unusual existence. I do virtual work, 4 days a week, mostly 10 hour days. I walk Madigan he cockapoo a half hour to an hour a day.  I read and recently I’ve been binging on tv. It’s a change. Evenings is been several seasons of Tin Star and now I’m watching Yellowstone. A cross between Dallas and Sons of Anarchy with cows and horses. Grandad was a rancher. I ‘m remembering my childhood riding horses, hanging out with he cousins, visiting the Rez. My friends is teaching his boys to shoot and I’m back on the ranch shooing gophers in exchange for 22 ammunition.  There was the wood stove and big table breakfast. There was the big bed the width of the room where all the kids slept ..  It was a converted old church on the northern prairie.  Cattle and horses.  

Now I’m here about to get ready to take my new Honda 420 Rancher quad ou to store in Chilliwack.  Booked a weekend for Camper and ATV and bear hunting. Introducing the puppy to his future. He probably doesn’t know he’s about to become a bear dog. I remember Stuart the Scotty being so impressed when I shot a big black bear.  Stuart followed me to the kill and then began to try to bury the hill. He really was impressed and I’ll never forget Gilbert’s flying leap onto the head of the antlered deer trying to get up after I’d shot it. The poor buck went to deer heaven thinking he’d been killed by a cockapoo.  Don’t know what tails this mutt will get up to. He’s sure entertaining.

Vaccine this week.  Thankful.  I’m working up to doing some clinic work. Eventually mixed practice with a morning a week in clinic to begin.  I find virtual a mixed blessing.  Patients do want to see me. There’s some real advantages to human contact. Mostly I find myself wanting to get back to church and for some reason the Symphony and Early Music keep calling to me.  Not so much the theatre or ballet nor the opera. Classical music. Why live in a city and be unable to partake of high culture.  

Another part of me wishes to go to museums and cafe’s and just observe life.  Now I stay home. So mostly that’s a weather thing.  Covid and winter a bad combination. Now Texas and the south are experiencing freak cold storms and maybe will be collectively less arrogant about climate change ideas in the twisted universities infiltrated by the communist low brows.  Hegel and Maslow and such are being replace by comic strip thinking.  Nothing I’ve read except Thomas Sowel and Jordan Peterson has been that enjoyable this last decade.  

Now I’m enjoying bird watching, photography of birds and hiking.  Madigan the puppy has been a full time job.  

Thank you Jesus. Thank you Mary. Thank you St. Francis. Thank you St. Patrick. Thank you St. Theresa of Avila. Thank you St. John of the Cross .Thank you St.John. Thank you St. George. Thank you St. Thomas. Thank you all the saints. Thank you all

God bless

Tuesday Morning, Covid and Lockdown’s Continue

It was a hard start today. I measure these by the number of hits to ‘snooze’ button. Three today. The worst has been ‘five’.  I don’t like snow. I feel I did my time on the prairies.  I am due for some of that “Privliedged Southern Living” that Equatorial sorts take for granted.  I want to see Canada trade Quebec for Hawaii.  I’m Western Canadian. We’re the civilized educated well mannered Canadians.  Eastern Canada where Montreal and Toronto are imperialists bullies is a ghetto of colonial thieves.  I like the Maritimes.  I weary of the urban activists and critics who are the sources of all the worlds problems of pollution. It takes a whole lot of energy to move resources to the urban centre. If people would just stay dispersed they’re be no parking lot destruction of habitat.  I miss small town living. I miss my homestead.  

I am so thankful for my river walks each day with Madigan.  I love Burnaby lake.  I’m really blessed.  

Covid 19 continues with the promise of vaccines which don’t so as much scientifically as they are purported to do politically.  I’m upset with the communist globalist agenda, Agenda 21, Davos 2030 and the WEF along with Trudeau to maximize this tragedy for their own greed and short sightedness. I’d rather be camping.  I’m ready for a week by a creek in the BC interior, God’s country.  I want to explore back country. Maybe even shoot a bear.  Bear meat would be a change. 

I sure enjoyed the grouse I had last night. I cubed a couple of the grouse I shot in the fall with the 20 guage. I brazed this in butter in the frying pan and added a can of mandarains with sauce to stew for a bit with curry seasoning.  I poured this on the white and wild rice to make a truly delicious meal.  I gave a few pieces to Madigan telling him this will be what we are looking for next fall.

I bought the Lowe’s 5’x10 foot trailer on Friday then drove over to Northwest Marine at Boundary and First. Some of the folk there started at Carter’s Honda. I’d bought several outboards and generators at Carters before buying my first Honda 50cc Ruckus.  Such a great little machine for scooting about downtown when I lived on Beach off English Bay. At North West I’d bought more outboard motors and generators but the last lovely I bought was the Pioneer Side By Side 500 cc ATV.  Tom and I had a good bow hunt with that. Gilbert though didn’t like the hard ride so much. I should have added a cushion to his seat.  I did like the rain cover.  Otherwise it was bit enclosed like being in a car in the backwoods.  When Gilbert went blind and stayed with Laura in the camper I traded the ATV for the KTM690. More backwoods fun on 2 street legal wheels. The difficulty with ATV’s is getting to the legal logging roads. The beauty of the motorcycle is that I didn’t have that issue. The difficulty though was the greater anxiety about crashing alone backwoods. 

So with Madigan needing a ride I bought the 2021 Honda 42 Rancher ATV. I really liked quad’s the best of all hunting machines.  When I shot a deer with my Yamaha 450, a sweet machine, I just put it on the back of the quad to haul it home.  Now I’m fully outfitted again . A good feeling. I dream of a three month tour of the backwoods visiting hot tubs and hunting moose on the way home with my camper and quad. In a year or two maybe. I really am enjoying working so don’t have any real drive to retire. If Laura wasn’t working in the city though I expect I’d head back to the country.  The attraction of being in Vancouver was the Symphony, Theater, Ballet and Stanley Park.  The traffic made the city less and less appealing, bike lanes taking all the parking.  Now with lockdowns the city is less appealing and without the culture there’s no reason for the high prices. I do miss the homestead and chickens.

I also liked travelling. I love travel writing in a cafe and museums and churches.  I had hoped to go to Aberdeen this year and Laura and I want to return to Southern Ireland for another week or two of exploring. We so loved Galway, Dublin and Londonderry.  We’d like to go to Italy again. Rome and Milan were magical.  There’s all of South America I’d live to visit, mostly the bird sanctuary in Brazil.  I don’t have any desire for danger anymore. I was intrepid younger but now don’t like poverty or desperation or aggressive merchants. I may even get to the point where I’d like to travel with a group for the safety in numbers. But my interests travelling, writing, cafe’s and history and spirituality are not well served by the standard tours.  

Covid cancelled all the tours but more it took the pleasure out of the equation. I was anxious visiting the lowlands in Ethiopian not wanting to get disease.  Now with Covid I simply don’t want the risk. I have a paranoia about infections.  I’ts become apparent with Covid. A little PTSD I supposed for HIV and TB days and all the contagious diseases I’ve treated.  I’d rather deal with blunt force trauma but if the truth be known I’m older and more cautious. Everything takes longer to heal and I simply value health now far more than I was a crazy young guy.  I miss that fellow too.  Today though I reminisce about the glamor and elegance of my dancing years.  I loved the theatre and the pageant. I’ve been in these little clinical rooms and doing the small necessary work but miss the big stage.  I’ve taught so many one on one but would re visit the class room. The whole zoom thing is encouraging me to formalize.  I’ve a desire to write another book or two. It’s more than usual. I may actually settle down.  

It’s time to work.  

Thank you God for this day. Thank you for Madigan. Thank you for the life I’m living, family and friends. Help all those I am close to today and help me heal in my work. May i be a channel for your light and peace Lord.  May I serve you. May I be a better person today than I was yesterday. May I find reason for joy and feel the presence of you in the flow of creation.  Thank you Lord.

Friday, morning, Covid, Feb.12, West Coast

It’s a cold day. Thin clouds. Madigan is rambunctious. Nazcar puppy. Busy curious mind. Dependent. I’m his hero and entertainment. I love his little white socks and long white tipped tail celebrating everything. 

I’m morose by comparison.  The creeping exhaustion of the Covid. Valentine’s Day. Love in the time of Covid. I meditate. I pray. I do exercises. I avoid my kind. I ape my betters. Socially distant. Aloof.  Coward in the Cottage behaviour. Life goes on. I’m uplifted by the return of birds.  These migration patterns are comforting , reassuring. The longer days. I love the sun.  

Still meaning eludes me.  What does God want now. I feel like I’m on the bench and some great tragicomedy is being played out. The media is painful. I feel betrayed. I don’t know who to trust. Lies everyday. Information and disinformation.  A Cacophony of noise.  The feeling of helplessness.

There was this experiment decades ago. They linked monkey one to electricity and gave him a lever he could pull to shut off the shock.  He developed some anxiety not knowing when the shock would come. However he did become fairly proficient at shutting it off. Then they attached monkey 2 to the first monkeys back. Monkey 2 would experience all the shock but be unable to control the lever that turned it off. I feel like Monkey 2. Monkey 2 developed all the stress diseases, ulcers, heart disease, arteriosclerosis, depression.  

I talk to my patients on phone or by video and hear a lot of monkey 2 in their voices and concerns. “My hair is falling out.”  “I’m always irritable.”  “I can’t concentrate.’ I’m got stomach problems, headaches, menstrual complaints.” “I don’t want to leave my room.”  “I’m angry.”

I do what I can. Nothing prepared me for a year long siege. DSM5 doesn’t include ‘Adjustment Disorder’ for 1 year and maybe 2 or 3.  It’s like Sarajevo. It’s as if a meteor hit the earth and we have to stay inside. The whole natural virus narrative is so much deceit. Communist China now dictates to CBC and ABC. Communist China is now God on earth. They can do no wrong. People go missing who criticize them.  It’s a pattern.  

“I am Borg. Resistance is futile.”

“It’s all above my pay grade.”

I feel like Canada must have felt around the American Revolution.  The King had syphillis of the brain.  Something rotten in the state of Denmark is another thought that keeps repeating itself in my weary winter brain. I believe it’s me.  I am ashamed and guilty that I am so fatigue. The sadness and despair I hear seems to leach my soul. It’s knowing that all these lives are being sacrificed by bad judgement, corruption, demonic psychopathy in high places.  Billions of dollars stolen by false charities.  Major government leaders one after another caught for corruption. The standing joke, 90% of lawyers give the 10 good lawyers a bad name. Now it’s bureaucrats.   And in the shadows nefarious characters of the WEF, Chines Communist Party, Oligarchs, Elite. New names to describe old demons. 

I’m fairly content physically.  The existential angst that calls for a Camus to describe as with the Plague or a Kafka to describe todays Castle in Ottawa, Bei Jing. The between the wars poets like Robert Graves come to mind. Where is Farley Mowatt when we need him. Thank God for Rex Murphy.  

I’m just angry at the censorship, the totalitarian pre cursers, gun laws, curfews, loss of rights, churches closing and weak legal challenges.  Where is Philos. Where are the saints of today?  The Pope is so similar to the one who began WWII.  Nothing to write home about.  I miss the Dalai Lama but his voice is tuned low by the powers that be.  Free Tibet is not something the anti Semitic UN wishes to hear.

I mostly don’t know.

Like everyone else, I’m being obedient. I stay in side. Mostly. It is winter.  We even had snow. I walk the dog. Madigan is a major distraction. His puppy mood alleviates my droll Kierkegaardian Dostoyevsky adolescent intellectual position. He poops and I slept in it. He pees and I step in it. My narcissism and intellectual self absorption are immediately brought back into this world. I clean it up. This morning I said ‘no’ and wondered if he just thinks I’m a ‘moody’ parent. Does he even know that my ‘no’ is tied to something he does or just reflective of my ‘mood’.  He really is shameless. Yet every day he becomes more civilized.  He almost always pees on his pee pads. He mostly poops outside now.  He rarely bites me and knows that’s unnacceptable . But he gets carried away in play. He has a puppy brain.  I hope God thinks of me as that way.  Maybe the universe thinks of Canada that way. 

I love that three spaceships are circling Mars, one from U.A.E., one from China and one from the USA.  In Columbus’s times they thought that Europe was overfilled with people. They thought all manner of doom and climate change and they actually had real plagues.  Yet life went on. A new land, old to the natives, but new to the men with big wooden sailing ships was found.  We have a moon and mars and we’re finally getting around to increasing real estate for earth.  

I have only the mail to get today.  I thought to look at a trailer. I’m considering getting a smaller quad for myself for my birthday. I’m anxious taking madigan on the back of my Vespa in the woods on logging trails.  I worry about the little guy. Want him to live long and be safe. I’m less anxious for myself The prospect of camping and riding about on logging roads excites me. In a month or two the weather will be warm. Laura and I are talking about camping on Easter break.  Friends would like to stay here as a break from the city. I move to a little camper in the hinterland. They move from the city to the suburbs. A week of change for both of us.  Today Madigan and I will walk to the lake or along the river. That daily walks are good. I could be retired.  When I’m not working 10 hours days with the telephone or virtual screen, 4 days a week, I have these breaks where I catch up on paper work deal with lose ends and feel a bit like retirement must feel.  Nothing terrribly written in stone.  Vague plans. Something like a necessary trip to the post office to build a day around.  It’s not bad. Whatever is happening in the political cosmic universe, here it’s not so bad. Food in the fridge. Heat and clean water.  

Thank you God for all your blessings. Keep my family and friends safe. Help me to be a better physician of service to my fellow man. Help me to say Fuck this less. Please help me to control the vulgarity that spews from my mouth in fear as I describe the rude antics of the charlatan chamberlain in power.  Help me feel less anxious about the future. Help me to focus on today and make the best of the time I have on earth. Guide me. Show me the way. Thank you again and again. It’s been a good life and may it continue to be. Thank you. 

Hope

John Christensen, MD FRCPC, friend

Today was the Celebration of Life for my friend, John Christensen. He was an amazing man, truly brilliant, wise, humorous, a loving man, deeply spiritual and profoundly caring. I’ve known him more than 20 years. It was sad to see his coffin. The Celebration of Life took place at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish.  The music was beautiful, hymns I knew John loved. The Priest shared the Beatitudes, a particular favourite of John’s. His sons Daniel, Luke and Jesse made the arrangements. John was so proud of his sons. He and his wife Pru, simply adored them. For good reasons, bright boys who I watched grow to be great men like their father.

 

Suzanne, a tall elegant, dark haired, sophisticated, impeccably groomed and coiffed, was a friend of John’s sister, Kay, a vivacious, gorgeous hilarious blond. Suzanne was from Toronto while Kay was,like John, from ‘down under’.  Like a tall Jolie and Kidman. They were a delightful pair. Their company made a man feel happy to be alive.   I met them at a place we called ‘the last club on the block’.   Kay invited us to dinner at her brother John’s. “You’ll like each other.”  We did.

That was the beginning of many fine lamb roast dinner’s at John’s. There were also the Greek Restaurants on fourth. Also the pizza nights.  Dinner in the Kitsilano home, conversations that moved from the living room to the dining room were a true joy.  Often listening to the genius and heart that flowed round the table, I felt like this must have been like what the Huxley circle or Bloomsbury Circle encounters were like, with a bit of the Apostle suppers thrown in.  Missionaries, engineers, models, doctors, carpenters, priests and always a reference to spirituality in the midst of discussion of politics and anthropology, psychology and physics.  John liked St. Francis and Richard Rohr, the Franciscan monk, whose book ‘Falling Upward’we both so enjoyed.

After our first dinner I met with him to ‘walk the dogs’. He had an Australian Sheepdog and I had Shinto, a cross Irish Setter, English Springer spaniel.  

‘Would you mind picking up my dogs’ poo, Bill? John asked.

‘Why? You don’t when you walk him.” John was in an electric wheel chair . It would have been impossible for him to pick up his dog’s poo.

“It will make my dog look bad if you don’t”.

“I don’t think so. I’ll pick up my dog’s poo and no one would expect you to pick up your dog’s poo.’

John thought about that and came back with:

“ If you picked up your dog’s poo but didn’t pick up my dog’s poo I feel my dog would feel badly.”

So I picked up the dog’s poo and we carried on.  We had many deep and meaningful conversations along these lines such that over time John one day said.

“You know Bill, I think I’d rather be in this chair than in your head.”

John had trained psychoanalytically as I had but psychoanalysis was his true love and focus. At UBC he was a founder of the Psychoanalytic Society and had headed the Psychotherapy Division. After his Christopher Reeves accident he’d not worked for a while.  He was asked by so many including myself to see people for therapy. He was involved in the catholic parish and accepted pro bono consults from the priests. Eventually he would return to work part time seeing patients in his home for in depth psychoanalytic psychotherapy. I and a few other psychiatrists would refer him specific patients for whom only such intensive therapy would be effcctive. I’d continue adjunctive psychopharmacology while John helped these patients work through egregious childhood trauma, often incest or rape, where betrayal had left them unable to trust and prone to repetition compulsion.  They had been treated as objects and lost any sense of their wholeness and worth. John would work through the negative transference and I’d be there to watch adult children who were so hurt work their way back from the darkness to the path of light.  Over and over again I witnessed this miracle and was thanked for helping patients to obtain the therapy they needed in a psychiatry system where band aids and factory models had begun to rule.  John was a true healer.  I once spent some nights helping him tabulate  the CME credits he needed to continue practice. I was amazed at the depth and breadth of his study in analysis. He was a member of the most  esteemed psychoanalytic society but continued to pay personally for supervision with an analyst. I’d done the same for years, the humble psychiatrist, discussing cases with a colleague, exploring the dynamics and transference and counter transference.  John had more than ample credits but because he was always studying and always reading and consulting for his patients he had no idea  how to input the Royal College MOCOMP process.  It was an honour to help with this, my computer and typing skills , reflective of my younger years and lack of spinal injury. It was an honor to see how much he cared for his patients and how great his mind was with it’s continued thirst for knowledge that could help him help others ‘out beyond the wire’ so to speak.  I used to tell him he was a ‘scalpel to my hammer’ and he’d humbly as ever bemoan his limitations.  We’d talk at length about the dynamics of difficult patients struggling with life threatening decisions. It was a joy to know such a colleague and share the care of these extraordinary persons, 

Meanwhile, at one time his son Jesse was in the back yard with friends rehearsing a play where he’d get shot. Teen agers would be flying through the room talking about paint ball burns from too close shots to the chest and us trying to provide medical care. The oldest was learning  Mandarin and falling in love.  The youngest Jesse,admitted he’d been spoiled by his mother’s cooking and went on to be a chef.   Luke became a carpenter and one day brought home the most beautiful girl.

“Your son’s really attract the most beautiful intelligent women, John.” I said one day.

“I know. It surprises me. Their mother , Pru was the most beautiful woman I’d ever known.  I couldn’t believe that she loved me because frankly I thought I was ugly.  So I concluded that most beautiful women were attracted to ugly men. The boys get their good looks from Pru.  They’re  definitely challenging my theory.”  I laughed.

A colleague who knew John and Pru when they were young described them as the most outstanding couple at UBC.  Pru was definitely celebrity material, like a young Helen Mirren,   with a wit and vibrance that delighted all .  John was described as a kind of Aussie Paul Newman character. They were a couple so deeply in love. They’d both been through Vancouver in its hippie era, LSD, the Vietnam war years, the great rock and roll music, Beatles, Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, the beginning of Green Peace. 

In later years, respected professionals,  they loved the classics. John’s brilliant psychiatrist friend,Oliver Robinow  married to gifted Order of Canada violinist Gwen.  The boys remember growing up with all these illustrious gifted friends of their parents coming for dinner.

John and I would attend the BC Ballet together for years, having seasons tickets. I loved when his friend, Karen Kain, the famous former principal ballerina later artistic director from the National Ballet, rushed off stage at intermission to see him. They chatted throughout the whole intermission tete a tete like school kids.  All the while everyone  looked on,myself included. 

Equestrians. John loved riding and would wax poetic when I talked of camping and sailing about his time with his family riding. They’d do these cross country weeks long cattle drive cowboy rides with the boys.  

“I never held it against the horse, “ John told me one time, speaking of his accident. “I knew he felt so sorry for letting me down.” 

John would write about his accident, the failed horse jump, the fall and feeling his spine twist and break. “I don’t remember being afraid,’he said. “I just felt like I’d fallen into God’s hands.”

I was studying Christian spirituality when we met and invited John to join me for Dr. Shirley Sullivan’s courses on the Catholic mystics at St. Mark’s College. That’s when the pizza nights began. I’d finish a full day of clinical practice, rush over to John’s where they’d always remember I loved coffee and off we’d roar to an evening of incredible teaching and discussions.  After we’d have late night pizza and share our thoughts on St. John of the Cross', Long Dark Night of the Soul and St. Theresa of Avilla.  Several of our friends, including my friend Laura, joined us for these evening classes. Later my Anglican engineer and pilot, sailing buddy Tom would join when we started attending Dr. James Houston’s series of lectures at Regent College on Christian mysticism and spirituality.

The first night we were at the Protestant Regent's College, I asked John, the staunch catholic, ' Arent you afraid God will  strike you dead  with a lightning bolt to be a Catholic in a protestant college?'

 "I’m not taking any chances,'he said, 'I'm wearing titanium underwear.!'  

That began John’s friendship with Dr. James Houston, an Oxford geology professor who came to UBC, was the co founder of Regent College and later Chancellor.  More dinners at John’s with free reigning discussions and profound insights into what James would describe so deeply as ‘person hood’.  

“The Trinity is the three persons of God’, Dr. Houston would say, “ït’s all about our personhood .  

He’d been a friend of C.S.Lewis at Oxford and would tell stories of the great man over dinner.  Dr. Houston’s book, the Transforming Power of Prayer,   remains the deepest  prayer book of all time as far as I’m concerned .  

John and I talked a lot about prayer and spirituality.  I’d say, ‘Religion is for those who don’t want to hell and spirituality is for those who have been and don’t want to go back.' Then I ‘d argue I needed to pray more than he did. We’d laugh. His chronic pain was increasing with the years.  He spoke so comfortably of his relationship with Jesus. I’d enjoy the lamb.   James and John talked of Jesus.  James wife was alive in the early years.  It was heaven to know her.  John’s friend, Helen Miller who’d go on to be a missionary in Africa wrote  of her Christian work amongst the children orphaned by the wars of the Sudan. We’d share our books, hot off the presses and discuss ideas. 

John always had the most incredible bad luck with care givers. He had this Russian doctor arrive and pass right through in a day using his job offer as a conduit for entrance to America. I would joke that through his care givers he created a conduit for the terrorist cells in Canada. They literally would arrive after months of arranging visa’s and such, only to disappear. “I am a doctor. I don’t cook.”was the first thing this Russian Amazon had said before she left the weekend she arrived. 

John was wholly dependent on these care givers, quadriplegic, unable to get out of bed, needing catheterization.  We all loved some who were literally saints. They lasted years and I loved them especially for the care they gave John, but also the incredible meals they’d make for us.  But as the years progressed ‘getting good help’became a problem. I was so sad when one, I was concerned was a drunk and addict, crossed the line, not showing up for work, too impaired to call for back up leaving John bed ridden without catheterization for a morning till his son could be reached to rescue him. It was increasingly a tragedy to see the decline in Canadian home care up front, the problems with senior care, eventually exposed by Covid when whole nursing homes of seniors would be abandoned in Canada and the military would have to go in to care for the invalid.  

When John turned 65 his sons and family arranged for a grand birthday celebration at a Kerrisdale restaurant the family had so enjoyed.  It was great to be there seeing so many colleagues, like his esteemed and wonderful colleague,Dr. Keith Marriage, theadolescent psychiatry head and a slew of other bright lights, dignataries, and just  plain family and friends who John had known for so many years.  A thing I loved about John was his friendship network included neighbours, colleagues, deans and celebrities but when I’d visit his home to sit in the sun on his back veranda and talk often there’d be a gardener or mechanic he’d met or someone from his parish, visiting as well. John didn’t have a pretentious bone in his body and was the most approachable humblest kindest man.  Gracious is the word that best described him.  

John’s pain was so bad in latter years that it interfered with his work, his outings and our attending courses together. One of the last we attended was the  Pain and Suffering course at Regent College with the esteemed Dr. Edwin Hui, Christian Theologican, scientist and physician. It was one of my most extraordinary experiences.  The class was small and mostly Dr. Hui encouraged discussion. It included John, who obviously knew pain more than any one and despite his best efforts struggled with the notion of the ‘glad gethesmane’. The others attending were an older still beautiful combat nurse from several tours and wars, a young ICU nurse and a young academic who’d been exposed to the terrors of communism in China. I was so moved as Dr. Hui brought out the deeply emotional personal stories of suffering each shared.  Each class we'd pray together. The message coming home that we were not alone.  

As I’ve said John himself wrote the story of his accident and being touched by God. It’s so deeply moving, I can’t add to it here.  His Christian Catholic transformative experience was awe inspiring.  He would always say he was thankful for his injury because it allowed him to become the man he was today and know the depth of love that he did now for his wife and his children, and his fellow man. He didn’t like the man he’d been before. 

John and I, both psychiatrists had found the church more fulfilling for us in our times of greatest need. We’d both felt we needed God. We shared our love of Victor Frankl and Ernst Becker. 

‘I was too selfish. Too self centred. I didn’t love my wife as much as she loved me. I wasn’t capable of that kind of love. I needed to have God show me the love he had for me before I could experience the love that Pru and others gave me. I feel like I was given this second life so I could love my family and learn to love my friends in a way I could never have before.”

When asked if they’d like to die so many who became quadriplegic by accident in the first year thought of it but amazingly when the researchers followed up a year later it was extraordinary the desire for life that they almost all shared. John felt he had been given a second chance.

The pain though was beyond anything I’d ever known myself or as as a clinician.  He had the best pain clinician and was dependent on methadone in the last years with many episodes of his medications and bladder infections leading to frank delirium and psychosis.  I responded to his call once when he was psychotic with pain, wanting to crush himself below to distract himself from the unbearable pain at the base of the spine. I’d treated countless pain patients and many quadriplegics so knew too well by report that tailbone pain John described as a cross between 'burning and a knife twisting in his tailbone.’  His dog or his cat would come close to him when he’d be at his worst and need to be taken into bed. The last couple of years he rarely got through the dinner and I’d help with getting him into bed. He was a very modest man and though I was a doctor he hated to ask for help.  

In the last year before Covid when he was finally hospitalized he was unable to stand the pain beyond 7 pm , the nurse using the hospital lift , a much more robust affair than the former home model, to get him lying down .  His struggle was that the amount of pain medication he needed for any kind of relief began in later year to make him drunk and drugged, He fought for lucidity.  I knew this struggle so well with my cancer patients who wanted to have their minds functioning but their bodies were at war with them. The amount of opiate their bodies needed resulted in their being unable to think.  Being with John through these latter years was like knowing a Christian stoic of the early years.  He so wanted to participate in conversation and would so love to listen to Helen talking of the children she was saving in the Sudan. He was so upset to hear she was caught up in gun fights, ricochets,with the Ak47 gangs shooting at her as she struggled to help find a solution for all the war orphaned children.  Then he’d be slurring his words as we helped him to bed.

I didn’t see him the last six month after covid.  He always said he’d love my visits, hearing my Harley motorcycle engine,  pulling up outside his Kitsilano home or the St. Vincent’s LangaraHospital. He’d worked as a young man on the sheep farms in Australia riding his motorcycle between stations.

 “We didnt’t wear helmet back then, mate.”he’d tell me. 

He ‘d use a ham radio to communicate and was interested in my Hamm radio experience offshore sailing.  

“That was the only communication we had in the outback then.”he’d say. I loved listening to his tales of the sheep and ‘roos’. 

His wife Pru developed cancer the last couple of years and they struggled together till the end. “She’s my best friend,’he’d say. ‘I just wish I could do more to ease her pain.’ 

I only learned from his son that Pru had died.  Straight shooting Luke, who’d I’d gone moose hunting with years before  , phoned me to say his mother had died.  John wasn’t doing well after that. I tried phoning but couldn’t get through.  Only family were allowed to visit in Covid.  Then Luke called to say John had died and the date the Celebration for Life was..    It’s often like that.  Great loves dying shortly after one another, only slightly staggered in time.  Pru months before, then John. I was sad for the boys.

  I’ve missed John this year.  We could have talked about the spiritual war wagering now in the world,  the persecution of Christians, the closing of churches while sex shops, pot shops, liquor stores and gambling sales remained open all in the name of science and pseudoscience. He’d have something wise and reassuring to say. We’d end up laughing and talking about Judas,Martha and Mary or the Prodigal Son. I liked that the priest today quoted Nouwen.  John and I loved Nouwen’s book, Prodigal Son.  We loved the Rembrandt painting he’d chosen for the cover. I told John how I’d seen the original in St. Petersburg.  We prayed together. I’ll miss that most: praying together with John.  

    

 

February

I was kind of shocked to survive November.But holidays  came and I managed December. January was looking kind of sketchy. Now it’s February. Who would have guessed?

The planet is alive. The climate hasn’t changed much if you look at the big picture. Why ever did men with education take temperatures inland and ignore so many variables?  I never could plan for living with all their trillions of dollars of doom saying. Good gig if you can get it. 

Now theirs Covid, the Wuhan Frankenstein Chimera and the Liberals are still blaming creation on Harper. Meanwhile, in the US, BLM insists Lincoln was black. The Transexual coalition of Rabbis and Imans have chosen a Christ Buddhist president.  But everyone now knows Trump was Inuit. The last giraffe was seen on Wall Street. Clowns are demanding pay equity. Women in power have made laws saying women don’t  lie. Only men lie. God the Father was castrated long ago. So how can Jesus be the son of God when Mary was a virgin. Stay tuned it’s all written in the good book for bad boys and girls.

The media which never lies said Xi Jinping is God.  Dr. Fauci is yet to show his tax returns. 

It was finally concluded without a shadow of doubt that Putin is a cyborg.  Zeus begat Hillary.  This was sometime in the future which required her returning to the past. Epstein’s Island wasn’t about children but dwarves in drag black mailed  politicians with elf festishes there. There was only one rhinoceros. 

The Communist Chinese now use ‘all we need is love’ as their theme song. Elon Musk escaped. Justin Trudeau sued Canadians collectively for ridiculing him despite his wearing pretty socks. Another hurricane struck somewhere. More people died of some disease. Huffington Post reported discovering a new gender. People have returned to reading cereal boxes,Archeologist uncovered another city they’d been saving for a rainy day. More people are buying silver. Mass inflation is promised but Canadians have been reassured Venezuela will buy loonies. The music which had taken the last train to the coast, given the vacuum,that had developed. Aetheists continue to kill themselves and everyone else at predictable rates. Persecution prevails.

Now, you can free the virgins. They are no longer needed. The sun is definitely on the mend. We humans collectively saved it with our belief in hope and knowledge of astronomy and weather. Given the greater knowledge of immunity after decades of the dark history of women’s magazines, kids are being encouraged to eat dirt. Billy is alive today thanks to the mud pies the girls gave him when they were all five and six. Snot is no longer disgusting. Bad ass women are called that on account of their farts. A symphony of twerkers has been featured mooning on the cover of Time magazine. A month has been added to the calendar to celebrate bush man girls denied modell careers or jobs as restaurant hostesses. Bank managers are no longer allowed to wear three piece suits to work but must wear pirates costumes. Children are encouraged to play. Everything is going to be alright. 

This is the day the Lord has made.

Dream of Biden

I dreamed I met Joe Biden. I was in hotel conference room talking to an older wiser friend now dead.  The food at the banquet wasn’t particularly good. We had paper plates and were hungry and trying to eat holding the plates on our knees.  Joe Biden and two of his muscular escorts came into the room. There was a security issue. They hardly noticed us. Joe had sat down across from me and was talking to another fellow.  His men were at the doors.  Waiting for the all clear.

I said hello and we talked about fishing and such. The conversation reminded me of the day I spent with PM Turner.  Turner was a good man. A moderate.  He loved his family. Biden said he was concerned about extremists. I explained to him as if he didn’t know, ‘you can never please extremists, whether they’re on your side or on the other side.’  Extremists are more in agreement with each other than they are with moderates.  Politics is a circle with the outer fringes meeting in Ribbentrop.  “I went on to say that I admired his position. I also saluted the rank.  However, I said , “I think you are the bravest man alive.”  He was sad hearing that and nodded. Then his security guard took him away and my friend and I were left with the poor food from the banquet. I actually took a sip of juice from another’s unfinished glass.

“What do you think of that,” my dead friend asked?

“If I had children or grandchildren I would have said I’d love to tell how I met the President of the US. It’s was an honour. He was such a nice guy too. I just fear he’s weak. “

‘Did you mean what you said about him being the bravest man, you’d ever met.” My dead friend asked, smiling.

“I did.  I thought they’d kill Trump but he was a strong man.  Now I fear that Biden will be assasinated like Kennedy.  He seemed like a nice man.  Nice men finish last in the politic game. Like Chamberlain and countless others who were good and nice as politicians but became targets.  I really do think he is the bravest man I’ve met. I don’t want him to be assasinated anymore than I wanted it for Trump who had several attempts. I wouldn’t want the job of a Secret Service man either. Those two guys looked like they already had ulcers and hypertension.’

My friend laughed.

I had a sense it was a special dream.  I like visits from my old friends who have passed to the other side. The best visits are family and dogs.  Still I have a friend who is a Democratic Congressman and though I might disagree with his policies at times I truly do admire him as a man who is doing the best for his family and his job.  I think the message was that I shouldn’t demonize politicians. They’re other humans. Kids we would have played with in the kindergarten, met on the train, or in some banquet hall side room in times of trouble.  They were guys who did their jobs but liked picnics and family.  Media tends to make everything into comic books with 2 dimensional good and evil characters.  Politics is always partisan and those who say they’re not partisan are the most deluded. Both the right and left wing are attached to the bird and without either the bird wouldn’t fly. The bird is mostly belly and wings too.  It’s not really thinking of me or you. That’s the nature of the political bird. Ironically the socialists and the capitalists always delude folk into believing they care for you. But nothing is more selfish or self centred than politics.  Everyone might be well intentioned but in the end they’re humans.  Human’s got where they were through war and deviousness. We wouldn’t be here today if we’d outright told the big animals of old that we had a hankering for eating them. Our big brains developed devious ways of getting what we wanted.  Meanwhile the women were dressing up and acting like fishhooks to capture the strongest man.  The strong man was talking with the elders to keep his position. Politics goes right back to hunting and gathering or perhaps herding and agriculture.  It’s not something that large groups can do without.  

Even Moses had his discussion with God in the back rooms before bringing the law to the people.  The Media lies when it says they know.  It’s always about caves and dark places. The daylight and open are best left for children with the men and women on the outside guarding them like the Secret Service.  Those guys are the original warriors.  They’ve all read the Golden Bough. 

I do hope Biden does well. The Democrats have been pigs politically for four years. They deserve no quarter. Their looting and destruction and all the lawyer games and constant perpetual campaigning with their lies and fake news and destruction of freedom of speech and dirty deals with Sharia and Communism make them all complicit in bringing totalitarianism and ruin. Yet that was then. This is now. Maybe God wants to use Biden. Politics is never about idealism. It’s always just the best of a bad lot.  Sad that it is, Biden is probably the best America has to offer.  I salute the rank and pray that he isn’t assasinated.  Trump and he are braver men than I’ll ever be. They are both hated by all the extremists in the world whether the extremists are left or right or up or down. There’s no extremist who wouldn’t like Lenin’s murder an opponent. To them the ends justify the means.  I really did think Biden would like fishing.  Hitler never would. He’d throw a bomb in the lake and take the fish.  True psychopaths shoot the guy they’re playing golf with and say they won the game. That’s how XiJinping and other dictators get ahead.  Biden simply isn’t that sort of guy.  I don’t think Trump was either. That’s the beauty of America. Even their elite are mostly human.