May 18, 2026
Victoria Day. I’m reading Dando - a series on the 60th rifle soldier, first in the Sepoy Mutiny cerca 1857 Meerkut and Delhi India and now I’m on the gunboat diplomacy attack at Tien-Tsin south of Beijing with the English French, Americans and Russia.I’ve read a lot of the British Empire’ wars probably because I like horse and bolt action rifles. War does seem terrible so it’s a fascination with horror and adventure. I like Westerns too. I’d begun a book of Cortes invasion of Mexico and Evelyn Underhill on the Mystics.
I’ve been kind of depressed in a peculiar way. I’ve all I desire right now but am this week having the Jeep received the blue ox hitch with H&E Hitch in Langley. With that done my motorhome and I will be complete and ready to go. I’m selling my motorcycles though might keep one. The thing is I have no ‘plan’ or ‘purpose’, no trip, no adventure, no cherry on the cake of work, just more of the same. I spent a lot of money getting to this point and don’t want to be spending more this year. I’ll go south in the fall. But I’ll be streamlined. No more vehicles in storage or dispersed. No more increased costs. I’m moving towards where I might be retired or reduced work and have less coming in and want to be losing less. I have all I want. I imagine fishing. I don’t even know if I’ll be hunting. I feel estrogen increasing with aging and no desire to fight or compete or achieve. Maybe I’m resting on my laurels. I’d like to write books and sit in libraries. I want to swim in the lakes and ocean,.
I like walking the dog.
I’m very grateful but I haven’t that ‘edge’. My chronic back pain bears me down, I imagine camping this summer by a hotsprings, maybe Nakusp, Halcyon or Ainsworth. I’ m phoning about the July long weekend in Harrison if I can get a drive through spot.
Laura is walking Madigan. It’s been a delight having her here for the long weekend, Cozy. We walked Madigan twice around the park. Sunny days. I barbecued steak and then pork chops. We had the salads from Choices Delli., Eating reading and watching tv, A spin off Dutton Ranch was really good. Now we’re waiting for next installment of that a the Marshalls. We went to church yesterday but there was no priest so no Eucharist. Madigan was naughty most of the services wanting attention from Laura or me. I was in a down mood but felt much better after breakfast of turkey sausage and eggs at the Quay. We then walked the length enjoying the sea and the flowers, Rhodededrums and roses with pansies. Lots of colours and lots of others enjoying the walk in the May sun,
Now we have another holiday so more reading and tv.
I have to check to see if I can carry the Harley on the back of the jeep though I think I may just pay the $70 uber ride to come back from Langley after I drop off the Jeep for the week. Friday I drive Thor out to pick up the Jeep and come back here.
There’s a steady inflow of holidaying campers now that that season has begun. I see them with their families coming and going with different rigs. Peter and Larry are off to Cochrane Alberta for the summer
I enjoyed being paid yesterday so I had the money for the hitch and installation. I’d also put some more money in tax free savings. The plan is to do more of that this year as well as sell motorcycles to pay off the Jeep debt. I have the money in the bank to pay the debt and am still working.
I’ve been unsettled and realize that I am this way in May and June every years given it’s when I stopped drinking and divorced, It was a rough time and I’ve come back but this is the anniversary of leaving my practice and the depth of betrayal again. Ironically she wouldn’t give up drugs or go into treatment but lied and I couldn’t manage a practice and her erratic behaviour.. She stole too and her lawyer was a sociopath and it was so evil and at least I thought I need ‘all my wits’ about me. She really had tried to kill me intentionally or in exacerbation because she just wanted to party and again just lied. I always think back to her lying about moving ny shot gun from the back cupboard by the door and chasing away the bear with the broom to stop the Shinto from being mauled. Going off of the bow wave of the freighter under the Golden Gate Bridge in the fog because she’d adjusted the radar at night. Dozens of near death experiences . Driving the car full speed into the wall with me in the passenger seat on my side. Building the clinic she never used. Buying booze for a hundred people and she never invited 75 people who were supposed to come but instead had the people she had her grow op with . I think the worst was when she blew the transmission on my truck and continued to drive on it till it was wholly destroyed.. All night she’d be up screaming and I’d be at another motel trying to check in with a dog. I do not like to look back at the person I became with her lies and my response to her lies and promises and broken promises.
That was all my perceptioon but I was coming back from Mexico to take a job away from her dealers out east, away from the insanity. A new start., I had the job but she didn’t and she didn’t want to leave. Her friend who called her ‘Hoover’ said she’d never leave there. I’d never wanted to be there. I’d liked the country but she couldn’t work and never was there. I liked raising chickens and turkeys . We were good at it. There were mostly good times but always this war, undermining everything till one day she said “I never wanted this to work I was just doing it till you got it out of your system and we could return to the city where you belonged”
I’m supposed to forgive. I’ve prayed endlessly for forgiveness. I said all I wanted was for her to go to AA and stop doing drugs and alcohol . But the College psychiatrist said ‘women don’t go to AA’. She was the greatest chauvinist and said to that women only had addictions because their partner did. It was like the other College doctor who said ‘women don’t like amount sex’. The lies in authority were everywhere and I was naive and it’s was my ‘fault’ because I drank wine and smoked dope and cigarettes. I was glad when I asked my spiritual friend about AA and he said it was a good thing, ‘They talk of God.”.
I had felt so removed from God and knew this was not what I wanted or intended to be when I prayed beside my bed on my knee with my mother. I was no example to her and she was trying to escape with me if only I’d been a better person. My own chauvinism. She really was good as I when we weren’t drinking like Bonny and Clyde. Whatever faults she had I had as many and was just wanting a family. I wanted to be a father and took us to the country where all the women had children and the community was rich in fertility but she’d not wanted to leave the city and the gap between what she said ad what she meant was greater than a politicians. I was crazy and didn’t listen looking for what I wanted to hear.
She said she wanted children. But in a theoretical sense. We both were a tragedy and yet had so many good days. She was beautiful hiking and sailing., A wonder at the helm and such fun skiing with. We had such good times but the death changed everything and the grief never gave up and the anger just got worse but the lies were impossible. And those were the times. I was so wrong looking back.
I clung to God at this time, I was afraid I’d gone outside his love but how arrogant can one be. The betrayals and the lies and the institutions and in the midst of all that trying to make sense of when it had gone wrong. The rape a decade before, the wet reserves, the residency, another family death, the stress, the incredible demands and expectations and the drinking increased and I didn’t see it. California wine. She had the black dealer and I liked that we could have pot. Years before it was legal we could get pot more regularly not every few mobnths as before. No longer the binge. Drinking wine regulars and smoking pot. She said she like that and we were bonny and clued. She liked coke, I didn’t though. I assumed so much back then, I assumed what she said was what she meant and I assumed she told the truth but we were running on vapor back then, She’d never leave the bed. Her mother called her all manner of names. Then she was dead.
I heading home when I stopped at his place and we prayed. I went to church and cried and prayed and remembered the dreams and the person I’d been. I was going to be a missionary doctor and yet another marriage was a failure and I didn’t understand feminists and their aetheism and their hatred. I was one of the good guys, a nice guy, but they just saw that as weak. I failed.
Ironically when I stopped drinking and smoking and went to AA it was all steadily better. I was among good people and clouds cleared. The stealing stopped and I was left with a bicycle and a dog. I built back again. It was in this season May and June. I first went to AA and stopped alcohol and smoke. I began hiking with the dog every day and cycling every day and going to church and going to AA.
Now decades later I know I failed her . I prayed she did well and stopped drugs and alcohol too. She did well. I lost track of her after the divorce went through and my lawyer had my sailboat returned to me and that’s all I wanted not the millions and millions I was told was my right. Just the boat because I needed it to sail across an ocean. I’d given up the homestead for the boat and it was the boat for sailing across an ocean. I liked to finished what I set out to do. We’d dreamed together I thought. I loved the sailing doctor couple I met in Marin. Now it’s May and June is coming,
I was so judge mental back then so self centered and i had unkind words. I’ve learned with age and prayer that I was ‘unkind’ in the words I used. I haven’t aimed to hurt with my words in decades but I really did like Dr. Housse and didn’t understand why others didn’t. It only mattered to me to be ‘right’ and now to be ‘kind’. Today I thrive for truth and kindness. She was a beautiful soul and drugs are so harmful for the soul. They put up a wall. I’m thankful to day to be sober. I’ve been sober longer in my adult life than that relatively brief period of decline, Alchol is fun and fun adn trouble and then trouble. I regret that I didn’t stop drinking a decade before but then I would never have met her because I was only attracted to women and friends back then who drank and drug. Today I don’t know any that drink and drug. I avoid people who are impaired but then I liked only those like me. Birds of a feather flock together. I remember hearing that ‘you’ve been running with the turkeys and not the cheetahs’ and it really did make sense. Now I’m grateful there were mentors like him who showed me the way up. You don’t have to take the elevator to the subbasdsement ,. You can get off at any floor and take the up elevator. I think I’ve done that. I’m praying and meditating and seeking guidance and struggling to go forward. I loved the book ‘drop the rock’ and continue to hope that my character defects innprove
Thank you Jesus. The other is ‘God’. Love your enemy. God comes to you anonymously. Let go of resentments. Expectations are preformed resentments. Let go of fear. God is good all of the time. Be grateful. Count your blessessings. Love. Thank you Jesus.
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