Sexy Birthday

Another day. An arbitrary break in the year. The tedium of lockdown broken by an uncelebrated event of monumentous personal relevance. I never expected to live past 30. I’ve died a hundred deaths in car crashes, truck crashes, motorcycle crashes, plane crashes, shot at, stabbed, taken hostage, threatened, in hurricanes and charged by bear and moose. It’s a miracle I’m alive. There really are no aetheists at sea. Only liars.

I was reminded of a celebration at Joe Fortes, a grand feast five years ago. I look forward to the listing of the Covid Lockdown restrictions so we can gather for another. I’ve asked, Laura who wished me happy birthday this morning with a kiss to remind me this summer.  Lockdowns are being dropped in Texas and Mississippi.  Business flights are being restored in Taiwan.  Germany is opening the economy. Trudeau dropped the ball again and the vaccination roll out is 6 months and billions of dollars of waste behind schedule.  Ask that man to take a poo and he couldn’t find his ass. I suspect that if we could get his urine and filter his pea we would have a new drug supply that would compete with the already famous BC Bud. Call it Trudeau Blanto.  Dementia where natural or drug induced seems to be the favoured political fashion today.  

I’m thankful for Madigan.  He took Laura’s morning kiss as indication for a dog pile. We instantly had squirmy puppy body and dog tongue all over our heads and faces. If we hug he’s right in the middle.  Nice being part of a puppy’s family.

I am humbled by the kindness of friends wishing me happy birthday, Cards from family.  A very thoughtful card from the Cappadoecia folk , Kharlik Evi family, I toured with when I pilgrimaged alone to visit the underground churches and see the magnificent ancient land of central Turkey.  Extraordinary trip that makes me so wanting to travel again. I would love to take Laura to Ethiopia or Turkey to see the wonders I saw. She’d like to go back to Ireland and New York with me, destinations made memorable by her company.  I have a boat in Ontario I must make a decision about. I don’t imagine I’ll sail solo across the Atlantic as I’d planned. Maybe I should. I have aches and pains on land that make me feel the gravity of aging whereas in the constant dynamic world of sailing I might have less pain. A smaller sailboat perhaps. I can’t imagine having the strength and speed to raise and lower sails in the blows that I encountered solo sailing in the past.  I much prefer my camper. I’m so looking forward to our planned quad camping adventure in the Okanagan this spring. BC is God’s country and I love every time I leave the city and enter the glory of this province.

Thank you God for this year. We were in India last year and I enjoyed seeing the family in Hay Bay. I was so sick with the flu, that now we think may have been Covid, as I couldn’t breathe and thought I’d die, a week off work and slow recovery. Unlike any flue I’d had. Then the March birthday a year ago in the midst of Covid. My returning home to a virtual practice. Rolling Stone song, Living in a Ghost Town. Walks with old blind cockapoo, Gilbert. The Nikon Coolpix P1000 for bird pictures. Discussion with my cinematography astronomer nephew Graeme.  Andrew and Tanya’s Finn. Another on the way. Great conversations with Adell.  So Thankful that Alan and Meagan returned hom.e The increasing epidemic of mental health. Calls to police to prevent my patients from killing themselves. The heroic and kind service of the New Westminister and Burnaby police. Laura and I apart for weeks at a time. My enjoyment of cross dressing and buying shifts and kaftans on Amazon.  Dress up and barbecues. My neighbours non pluses.  Late night photographs with the night vision SiOnyx of the moon and stars.  Writing and reading. I read endless westerns, detective novels and thrillers watching whole series on Netflix and revisiting all the old Star Trek.  After work looking forward to Captain Kirk. Then Madigan came along. What a blessing. I didn’t do well after Gilbert died in his sleep, his valvular heart disease catching up on him. A good life , hunting, sailing, camping, riding on motorcycles and quads. The great trip to California in the racing green Mini I traded the Mazda in for so he and Laura would have room for the trip. He stretched out on the seat folded down. Now Madigan, a blessing from the land of chinooks when all the breeders were sold out for a year, Van Dekker from Southern Alberta. What a lovely young woman!. What a great little pup. He’s destroyed blankets, shoes, computer cable and chewed the corners of my camel hair carpet but remains alive despite my desire to kill the little monster when I find another piddle place or step on poop. We walked this morning and he peed and pooped outside. 95% good now. And more cuddles than destruction and a source of entertainment and a walker. I’ve barely resisted the widening known as Covid. Horizontal rather than vertical growth. Madigan’s walking me has taken over from the personal training of Gilbert. Life goes on.

There’s a Tedium. Now music≥ No church. No concerts. No ballet. No symphony.  TV. Walks. I’ve the guitar out to play but I am exhausted by virtual work.  Now I’ve a vaccine and the world is wakening with spring and the end of lockdown. The Trump election loss was sad given the rise of communist china and the megalomania of the Davos 2030 and UN Agenda 21 tyranny and communism. I’d so hoped Trump with the initiation of anti trust laws again big tech and big social media and standing up to Communism would stop the descent into the godless darkness that comes with the murderous psychopaths that rule these countries. Democracy and freedom are such hot house plants. Very little remains and Canada under the evil Trudeau stupidity has descended into Communist hell.  Such sadness politically, watching freedom go as the Criminal gangs of Quebec and Islam and Communism rule.  Alberta is attacked. Western Canada is a colony. Taxes, taxes, more taxes and now inflation. All for gender clinics in Pakistan and money Trudeau gives to other countries illegal aliens and terrorists. 10 million dollars to a terrorist who kill an American soldier who saved children’s lives. We are so far from the days of Canada the good.  

I pray more and meditate. The routine each morning.  Walking the dog, prayer and meditation then a day in front of the screen or on the phone and exhausted a t night ready for food and tv. The event is a drive through MacDonald’s meal. Madigan likes that.  Now Laura’s over and we get White Spots or have a pizza. There’s been fine roasts and barbecue.

It’s another year. I’m still in my 60’s.  I paid off my truck. I liked that. I’d thought it would take till 70 but last year I paid it off.  I’m thankful for work and the monthly ability to pay the mortgage payment. We’re all indentured servants. Costs of houses beyond the middle class in Vancouver. I now understand my father ‘s pride in owning his home. Canadians lease everything from the government who owns everything.  There’s such insecurity compared to the world of my youth.  A few elite own and control the world. 

The middle class is being squished down.  

I’m okay. I think and feel like all the aging people before me. Never one to be concerned about security I find myself ‘worrying’ about the future in a way I remember my parents and uncles and aunts did and patient s in the 70’s and 80’s. The seniors were devastated by the TRudeau government. Covid exposed the abuses and terrible conditions in the old folk homes.  We’d seen them working in the field but people didn’t know how Trudeau ‘s MAID euthanasia program showed the coal of the government heart. Now all years we’ve heard of seniors deaths . Thank God our local Government, Mr. Horgan and Mr Dix with the early wisdom of Dr. Bonny Henry mitigated against the errors of Trudeau and Tam and Fauci. Thank God we didn’t have the Gov. Cuomo , the nursing home killer. Instead Dr. Henry did as Taiwan did, caring for the elderly as best we can despite the failure of national government to fund the health care system but instead abusing it. 

Now I’m looking forward to being social again.  90%  success with first Pfizer vaccine.  Another due next month but the psychosomatic response is enough.

I’m another year old. I’ve survived the year of Covid. Trump kept the world from war. Now we have Biden bombing the Middle East and Xi Jinping muscling in to take over a third of the world’s shipping lanes in the China sea. So far the American and British Navy had stood strong against the Hitler like communists.  India is standing strong too. Thailand and Australia and Japan have all stood up to the offences of China and it’s release or loss of the Wuhan Virus that caused so much world suffering.  The country owes a trillion in reparations for their irresponsible handling of a world crisis. We make companies pay for oil spills.  

I’m thankful for the year. I’m thankful to have been with Gilbert his final months. I’m so thankful to have Madigan as a company and friends like Laura and others. I was so sad to lose John, a Christian saint who was persecuted to the end by the demonic who will go to hell for their false allegations and great lucrative offence. It was a scene out of Zorba the Greek. Disgusting uncivilized people who don’t know who to wipe their own butts and eat where they pee. The greatest man, a hero , who in a better age and country would be celebrated for his genius and contributions to the world is crucified by pigs.  I cried.  I have lost George and John and friends like that don’t happen over night. My friend Tom disappeared in his mind too , older friends wandering off.  I’m thankful that I have friends. Relationships are the colour in the world.  I am blessed.  It’s been hard this isolation but there’s definitely a Howard Hughes element in my soul. I spend so much time solo sailing and wilderness camping hunting and fishing alone. I’m not the social butterfly I was when I was young. The trauma of the last years in Winnipeg destroyed that joie de vivie in company. I’m more likely to sit with my back to the wall today. I’m sad that betrayal is done by friends and the government has repeatedly failed the good. Siding with the criminals time and again.  Drunken drug addicted bosses. 21 years clean and sober I’ve loved being a member of the Anonymous group. I’m blessed and thankful. Life on life’s terms. As CS Lewis said, Stop looking for the architect in the wall. I’ve had the experience of being surprised by joy.  It’s different. I don’t wear the uniform of the religious or worldly. I’m different and peculiar. I don’t march in goose step and yet I’m like the scout in the militia. One step a head of the crowd, you’re a leader. Two steps a head of the crowd you’re a martyr. I’m somewhere in between. What Gadwell calls the ‘outlier’.  Now I’m older I’m finding the other seniors, survivors and retired often share in the insaneity of perspective.  There’s less to lose when one is old. 

I’m thankful. Thank you Jesus. Thank you God. Thank you family and friends. Thank you animals and birds and plants. Thanks for the air and the colours. Thank you for NASA and Space X . Thank you Canada. Thank you for my native friends. Thanks for the Urban Aboriginal Society. Thank you Royal College. Thank you Guild.  Thank you all for this day,.  Thank you.  

Picture of a wood duck taken quickly this morning walking Madigan. I love that the bird are returning after so many leaving over winter. I love the buds on the tree and look forward to the crocus and tulips that will soon appear. Spring has sprung.  March is when I can get the Harley out but right now I’m still enjoying the Vespa I’ve ridden all year around the city,.  

Old blind Gilbert weeks before he died in his sleep

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5 month old Madigan.