Gratitude Saturday

I’m pleased to be awake.  The day is good. Sunny warm. Madigan is a nutbar.  Jumped on my crotch when he figured I was waking.  Acted like he was innocent.  I did sit cross legged after and pray and meditate. I like peace of mind. The exercise quiets the fears and resentments.  Next I physically exercised.  

My morning crisis was the shortage of ground expresso. I have instant but I had just enough for a cup of coffee. I’m roasting Ethiopian green beans right now.  I attended my zoom meeting of IDAA cyberdocs on one coffee.  Listened and didn’t offer to share.  

I walked the dog. He was jumping up and down making it difficult to attach his leash as usual. Then he was piddling everywhere, A prolific pee mail contributor. I liked the birds though I believe a crow has moved into the tree where I saw the hummingbirds.  

There wasn’t much on social media.  Too often I let it skew my emotional self.  I like it for the models and campfires and dogs and cats.  The advertising is sneaky.  Minor concerns.

I’m really grateful to be alive.  I love the spring and summer.  A light breeze with flower blossoms making it look like pink snow.  I walked with Peter and Lucy and Bella and he commented on them earlier this week. Today we met with Dave and Emory.  

“I’ve got new saddlebag’s, “. I said.

“I just took my bags off to streamline my bike,” said Dave

“I miss the lean and mean look but love the convenience of saddlebags if only to carry bungee cords.”

“Do they come off easily.”  

“I expect so , “ I haven’t tried. I was thinking that I have to test the head set and see if I can interface my iPhone with the motorcycle.  Elon Musk announced a Neuro chip test recently.  I’m happy with computer enhancements.  Loved watching the French Sci Fi Valerian and the world of a thousand planets.  

Emory was glad to see his pal Madigan and they walked together .  Emory is old and can only make it to the office and back.  He has a funny lope gait as he bounces to stay with us.  He doesn’t seem older in intention.  

Terry shared he was 77 and Milton said he was dating a new girl at 78.  “My last partner was beautiful and I had money whereas this one is a PHD and we can’t get off the phone talking.”  He sounded like a teen ager.  Another woman shared she was 61 , that her mother lived to 90 so she was on her back 30.  Nathan had begun it all saying a friend told him he had another decade to go and as that was 2 years ago he figured he had 8 years left.

I find myself thinking of the finiteness of life.  I’m presently preparing for my winter project taking the camper and motorcycle and satellite dish to Arizona to avoid the month of cold and snow. I have dreamed of being a snow bird since I lived in Winnipeg despite spending a year in Mexico and a year in California and years in the Marianas Islands. Last year I had a month in Yuma and loved it but didn’t like returning to the snow and ice. So that’s the project.  I’m year to year I guess. I enjoy working and the virtual possibility makes it even better.  I was at the clinic yesterday and enjoyed the new people serving and contributing.  I was also glad to be earning money as it payed for my saddlebags. Now that they’re on the bike I can look at the rack for the front of the truck which will allow me to carry it with me.  

I booked a weekend in Harrisons for Laura and I. I wanted to be by a lake so I could swim. Garry recommended more of it for my back.  My back is just sore and stiff but doens’t have the sharp pains and the severe weakness as much now, since I’ve been exercising more. Camping and quadding and doing these things on the weekend are really active and I hurt but it’s good hurt when I come back. Too much time on the couch watching tv and snacking.  Good to be getting healthy.  

Thank you God for this life. Thank you for this creation and for my being in this creation. Thank you for friends and Madigan. Thank you for work and colleagues. Thank you Jesus!

First warm and sunny day

‘It’s 13 degrees outside at 5 pm, ‘ she said with astonishment and delight.  

‘I’m going outside then to get some fresh air while the sun is still out.” I answered.

Madigan remained with her, his mommy, his goddess.  She comes and goes .  I remain.  He knows I’ll come back but she might disappear if he isn’t vigilant.  She was seated on the lazy boy with her legs out before her. He was cuddled in at her side. I’d been seated up with my legs across the middle lazy boy and back against pillows. We were both reading.  I was going from a tale of Rome by William Havelock to social media.   Intermittently I’d comment or she would.

I’d shown her the picture of the great nephews Tanya shared.

“they have matching St. Patrick day pyjamas”. I said

‘Too cute” she responded leaning over to see the ipad I was thrusting at her.

A while passed as I read more of shield walls in the fight between Rome and Persia.  Back to the social media.

“I like how your daughter has put the roast on top of the vegetables. Then she shows she separated the roast after a while and cooked it in tin foil while stewing the veggies. “

‘That is a good idea,” she shared looking up from pictures of her grand children on her iPhone.  

For a while we talked of our trip to Ireland.  

“I really loved being there,”. I said,

“The Irish nurse I work with says it’s not as big a big a deal as it is in the US. ‘

“I read a piece where an Irish writer criticized the US St. Paddy Day for it’s ‘plastic paddy’ influence, the green beer and drunkenness. It’s a spiritual time,’ 

‘That’s what she says too, “ she responded.

“Here’s a lovely picture of my colleague celebrating St. Patrick’s day.,  She looks great. She lived and worked in Ireland before coming here.” 

‘She really is beautiful,” Laura said again leaning over to see the ipad image I was reaching over to her.

My arm shakes when I extend it holding something. The traumatic arthritis catching up to me. I can adapt to the limitations but I shame sometimes gets to me. I was getting out of the car stiffly when we took the little guy out to the dog park talking of getting a bigger car which would be easier to get in and out of.  

‘I liked it best when we were younger and nothing was sore,’

Madigan met a beautiful blond spaniel at the park

“There’s your Nicole Kidman, “ Laura said to him as he began to follow her about brain adddled, 

We went to two off leash dog parks. The first was the Hume Dog Park.  A couple were talking about how the isolation and lockdowns had affected the socialization of their kids and the dogs. 

“My guys more anxious ,” I shared with the mother of the retriever.  

Later Laura told me that a woman had told her that they’d had to be masked and gloved to drop off their dogs at the doggie day care with ‘no touching’ throughout covid.  

“That’s just silliness, “ I said. “But I love the imaged”

I made a chilli last night and when she arrived and I’d hung up her coat and let Madigan bounce all about her I’d asked if she wanted a bowl for lunch.

“Sure , ‘ She said.

I used to make lots of chilli, and curries and stews when I’d shot a a deer or moose but the last few years I’d only used the crock pot a few times.  I like my own spicing and cooking.  

“You can’t get any stew as good as this at a restaurant,” she said,

I know I liked this girl for her looks. She’s still stunning and alway will be but the intelligence is brimming over.  Love my dog, love my cooking.  Smart girl. Not just good looking.  

“You know I just feel lonely at times. When you’re here I feel calmer more content.”

“I feel lonely too, you know.  I loved when you visitted me last weekend.  “

I’ve put out the pork loins and have taken the rice maker out of the cupboard.  It’s especially nice to have someone to share meals with.  Madigan is good company but Madigan and Laura are especially so, 

Coastal Ford and Starbucks, sitting outside with Madigan Jan .28, 2023

I am so pleased to be sitting outside in winter writing in my journal.  Journaling or blogging is one of my joys outdoors , coupled with coffee and people watching, along with my dog who likes this almost as much as I do.

Coastal Ford is my favourite dealer and service department. I actually bought my Ford F350 over the competitors because the Coastal Ford Service Department has been so excellent.  I’ve been buying vehicles from Coastal Ford now for a couple of decades and having my service done there.  

Now I’m just waiting for them to reseat my spare tire . I ‘d had the great incident hunting last fall where I got a flat and was on the side of the road working with the manual to get the spare off only to have a group of veritable angels from Langley stop, take over and complete the changing of the tire. I was so grateful and so impressed.  What would have taken me all afternoon to do if I could have solved a couple of problems (the tire stuck on the wheel and the guys knew to kick the shit out of it to free it up - I doubt I’d have known to do that or had as powerful a kick) .  So in probably less than an hour the group of them did the best Good Samaritan and the old guy continued on his way.  

A gorgeous woman walked by and smiled at me. She was young and so sexy in a mini skirt dress with talk black biker boots.  If I was younger I wouldn’t have had the smile.  Indeed it might well have been my gorgeous wing man dog, Madigan that elicited the smile.  But really, I’m glad I’m outside just to see that.  I’m near Simon Fraser so expect she’s one of the students or teachers. That’s how my mind works.  People walk by who are distinctive and I’ve got them as a character in a novel. I really need to get on to writing novels. That’s my goal

I just read Apollo Murders by Colonel Hatfield and almost gave up writing all together.  I could go back to journalism I suppose or poetry but the thoughts of a novel was stymied by the Ennius of Apollo Murders.  It was so good. I simply can’t imagine how I’ll ever write a novel.  Now I’ve had poetry books and a work related book but a novel. That’s the goal. I love the Tannis Laidlaw, English Mysteries. She used to make up plays for the neighbourhood kids. After a career of psychology and psychiatry in New Zealand she’s writing these fabulous mystery novels. Laura’s reading them.

I’m good at journaling.  I’ve learned the skill of free association of thought to written word. I didn’t know how to do that when I was a teen , not very well anyway. Now i’ts second nature.

But the crafting of a plot and development of characters and placing them in a contex.  That’s all a challenge for me.

Another distraction.  Another beautiful girl went into Starbucks. This one had thigh high white boots but what was so special was the beautiful blue, pink and cream jacket dress made of the material kimonos are made of. She had a faux fur jacket long black hair and the mysterious almost Egyptian features. Likely Iranian in this neighbourhood. We are truly blessed in Vancouver with the most beautiful of Iranian women which makes the troubles in that country so beautiful.  The young women are being shot in the streets, killed by the police for uncovering their faces.  So sad, the cowardice of the barbaric regime.  

I just responded to a FB meme in which a person compared the non threat of Drag Queen shows to the risk of being shot by a Christian.  I get weary of the LGBT left wing community with it’s ignorance of history. I posted that I hadn’t heard of any drag queen shows in Muslim countries or for that matter in aetheist Communist vcountries.  The Catholic Church celebrated women and family. The Muslims celebrate family.  Aetheists , communism is the religion of aetheism, is against family.  Marx and Engles saw the family as the greatest threat to their totalitarian state.

Meanwhile I’m only seeing the drag queen shows and the conflict as further evidence of the erosion of the parent versus the state. I remember my own family disheartened that for us to get an education we had to get the inferior propaganda serviced up as flavor of the month when I was a child and Cold War was on.  So here I am happy as an adult to werear a dress in public but feeling Parents Rights outweighs states rights in this regard.  I don’t have children.  

The Christian take home message is government and religion killed God or the perfect humble man.  What ever you think , the state falsely accused and persecuted and crucified a nice guy.  God’s son.  Sure but the message is ‘beware’ of the rulers of this world.

Meanwhile Trudeau is stealing billions and running all manner of propaganda lies.  Distractions with racism while his father was the one who hurt the aboriginals.  

Oh well above my pay grade.

It’s a glorious clear sky sunny day and I can sit outside and type with bare hands and happy dog who just visitted with a young woman who gave him an excuse to draw back and bark with wagging tail. He’s such a fool.  So brave and so skitterish.  I can’t wait till he gets groomed and then another thing is back on track. I’ve had a series of events occur since the water line froze and they’re slowly being resolved.  I know it’s progress but slow going.

I coined the term ‘kedging’ last year for this time of the year, likening the slow progress of Jan and Feb with all he bad weather and financial demands to trying to get my boat off a shoal stuck by falling tide.  I’m spiritually depleted at this time of the year.  Yet days like this alleviate. Another beautiful girl in high boots , red head with knee high kind. You

Meanwhile I’m wearing canoe shoes and long to go camping .  Any day I’ll learn my camper is ready.  Laura reminded me of the good times we have had in spring with the camper and I’m beginning to consider where best to go. I know the river camping spots but I so liked the lake places. Spring though I’m not swimming so it will be easy to find a place by a river. Our Similkameen camp spots by Princeton have always been so peaceful

I’m going to return and see if my truck is ready. What a wonderful break.

Thank you Jesus!

May

May is the month of sunshine and warmth.  April showers are past.  I want to go camping. I think Sun Dresses.  Seeing them even wearing them. Most I  enjoy the young bouncing and flouncing. The winter clothing challenges the aging body.  I’m longing for the lightness of being. My spirit is gay and my ideas range to all manner of activities. I dream activity. But I wake and my body aches. Not so much as to limit the age appropriate things.  But there is no way I’m going to wear a sun dress or twerk.  Im not going to climb a mountain today. I’m not going to be a soldier either.  I’m divided into lover and fighter and fear the fighter is gone.  There’s still some energy left for lover. I divide these into gender as well.  I look back on a life of fighting for good against evil.  Saving and protecting women and children.

I could be bear hunting but why. I once wanted to shoot big game and eat wild meat. I’ve done my share. Now I think I need to eat more fish and vegetable.  That’s aging.  

I’m thinking of trading in my big electroglide Harley for a Street Bob. The latter is lighter and has more versatility. I bought the big bike to drive to Sturges. I did that 5000 km roundabout trip and loved it. I did some more long distance camping trips and loved it. I have a vespa and I like that. It’s simply functional and  gets me where I’m going.  I’ve a truck and camper.  Even though I think I’d like a truck without the long box , the truck and camper are better camping than the motorcycle and pup tent. Older I like comfort and even  luxury.  

I’ve always been with beautiful women who liked bubble baths lotions, and scents.  They’ve spent hours each day give or take pampering. My psychoanalytic instructor called that  preening female masturbation.  Self love. A world of wankers.  I was always au hombre functional mode. I don’t even relax for long on a beach. If I’m not deep in meditation or reading I’m caring for someone. Not so much anymore. My marriage was drone bee and queen.  Always I sexually served the mostly passive judgmental complaining orgasmic woman. I was the classic top.  I wanted her to be pleased. I wanted to please her. I wanted her not to be angry or moody or depressed. I’d lived so long in the world of attitudes and passive aggression and manipulations and rolled eyes. .  I just did whatever to get the knives out of my heart. When she was sated sexually she could go back to sleep and I could get back to the garage. I loved the garage as much as I was criticized by her for spending my time there. I loved making things. I loved later writing.  So I bought her things and threw money at her and tried to keep her happy because she was always unhappy like their mothers, always critical of me. Their mothers were the same.  Now I think it’s identification with the agressor.

I’d rather go to the nail salon that hike about the woods with a rifle looking to kill a bear. I killed bear . I ate bear. I really enjoyed climbing mountains and hauling game back to the truck.  Now I’m happy to sit in the hot tub. I love jacuzzis.  I love healing hot springs.  At some level I’ve nothing to prove. I’m good with God. God is good all of the time. Now I say I work to give my dog a good life.

I’m thinking of trading my heavy sniper 300 winmag rifle and long distance  in. I gave away my American RugerMini 11 because Testicless Trudeau outlawed that rifle but allowed the Canadian and Israeli semi autos. I miss the rifle and load. I liked target practicing and shooting rabbits with that rifle. I don’t plan to shoot game long range any more. I’ve no need of a rifle that shoots 800 yards. I’d be exhausted walking to the kill, let alone getting it back to the truck. I’ve my deer rifle. It’s shot 90 % of my big game and will do. I like the 300 win mag as back up but a 223 as back up will do.  The irony is the American rifle Testicless Trudeau outlawed took 223.  The other rifles all take NATO 5.56 load which is not really for hunting but Testicless Trudeau doesn’t outlaw those rifle. It’s just money.  I don’t really need to do that. I can target practice with a 22.   But that’s where my mind goes on default, the resentment and how to get a lighter rifle I might use more than the back up.  I also considered an over under 306 or 3030 and 20 gauge. I’m always looking for the one stop shopping, the bird and deer gun the city and country bike,etc.

I think about a lighter smaller RV. I think about a lighter smaller Boat. My mind is on minimalization and lightening up. I took things to the storage locker where I see I could easily downsize but I don’t want to be indoors going through a locker. I did that a couple of years ago and went from two lockers to one. Most of the locker is office related and seasonal clothing and such.  I miss Mexico where I had shorts and a sarong and t shirts and only spear fished. I loved spear fishing though worried about sharks. I should fish more. ‘I’Ve been saying that for the last three or four years having bought several little inflatable fishing boats over the years with the idea of trolling in mind.  I loved ocean fishing but lack thepatience for floating about on a lake or even casting now.

I like partridge hunting with the 20 gauge riding about on the Honda ATV.

I actually liked ocean fishing because I could travel from island to island at 3 knots trolling and catch salmon and ling cod while going from anchorage to anchorage. I loved the autopilot , drinking coffee, tanning, sightseeing  and reading while I was travelling and fishing. I’d like to drag a line behind the motorcycle or car and catch something equivalent , maybe rabbits and have food when I stopped.

I imagine the western days with riding horses and shooting a deer from the saddle with the 30:30 rifle and then roasting steak by the campfire. Today I’d rather be served steak in a fine restaurant. 

I missed church.  I walked the dog and put on sweats to go outside. Dressing is a challenge. When I got back home I dropped the sweats and got comfortable in underwear and tshirt.  Boyshorts the girls call them. Stanfields is what guys call them.  I wouldn’t walk outside in underwear but if there was a delivery I wouldn’t necessarily pull on the sweats. Mostly I would but I haven’t cared to get the pizza in underwear.  Mom always wanted us to have clean underwear.  That’s why I liked Mexico. The sailing shorts and t shirt or sarong an t. Shorts or sarong  covered every occasion, being on the boat, dock, beach or even dining out at night. I never had to worry about covering my ass but rather I had to remember the tshirt and sandals because of the no shirt no shoes no service beach establishment signs.  No signs for no bottoms.

I was raised on stoicism.  I’m now more epicurean. I did a few intermittent years of hedonism, after a couple of divorces , descending into weekends of partying but mostly I still climbed hills, did kayaking and lots of time alone with the dog and a tent and a rifle or fishing rod.  I worked with people all week and weekends I liked to get away and admittedly I liked female company so I skied and danced and did all those things that led to a wonderful night in bed . Sex was great. Mostly  I liked one person.I had had a best friend.  Dog and girl.  

I don’t have any desire for winter. I don’t like going out . I don’t want to encounter crisis and danger. Even yesterday I almost caused an accident letting my mind wander on a motorcycle.  If I’m not concentrating I’m dead.  I liked Covid.  Delivery and pick up food. I got into a habit of staying home.  Dressing the way I liked. Casual. Working on the computer, meeting neighbours causally.  Retirement age and the world around it is like high school summer breaks.  There’s not a sense of upward mobility or competition. Most are trying to get by with what they are.

I never thought I’d live long enough to retire.  I did all the dangerous assignments.  I lived a full life.

I’m okay now.  If I had a garage I’d be building again.  I might have to get back into more little projects. Or take another course. I have books to complete but procrastinate. I could go swimming.  I think I’ll make another coffee and lie down and read.

Thank you God for this all, the mundane, rather effete, no work Sunday. A day of rest.  It is that. Last night watching tv and eating pizza.  I expect I’ll have an inspiration again. Theses doldrums pass.  I would be glad for sun and I could lie outside and read. It’s still sort of drizzly.  

Meanwhile Elon Musk Bought Twitter.  Russia wars with Ukraine making billions for arms dealers and innovation. Nothing like coming up with better ways to kill each other gets the creative juices going.  More erotic romance novels are being sold The pressure on men is seen in the viagra sales.  I had a yoghurt and Cliff protein bar for breakfast.  An identity change would give new purpose. I’m coasting now.  Covid took the wind out of the sales.  Meaning and purpose need to be explored.

 Yes to know God, to love God and love my neighbour as myself.  It’s okay. I’m doing okay.  Travel and writing is fun.  I’m looking forward to that.  Swimming in a lake is fun. I haven’t got down to the beach in years and might consider that.  I have lots to explore locally. Even dog parks.  My puppy likes riding on the back of motorcycle and motorscooters.  

Time to read. 

Chickendinner last week

  

He got his vaccination and tick and flea meds yesterday

Snowdrops and Crocuses

I love snowdrops and crocuses, the signs of spring and harbingers of summer to come. .  The days grow longer with increasing light. I hear more bird songs as returning species join in the morning choirs. .  I love most the buds and sprouts, poking up from the soil with snow still on the ground. They’re as mpatient as me to lap up the new rays of sunshine.

I long for my T-shirts, shorts and sandals. I love to see the  lady butterflies divest  their  winter clothings cocoons,  leggings and nylons,  shed like old snake skins. 

Everyone smiles more. Steps are lighter. Sensual. 

I believe.I have hope.  My  faith grows stronger.  I relax.  I struggle less. It’s all just coming along.  Each day a little more light. A little more spring.  Life is all so much more appealing.   Even now, in the morning I see the sky lighten  sooner. More  days there’s  blue sky, no snow,  less  rain.

The Bagpipes of Robbie Burns Dinner have heralded the new spring.   Next we’ll have Valentine’s Day. The great spring love fest, kisses and skin to skin contact. That long awaited precurser to the autumn baby boom.  The songs of birds returning, the rumble of street motorcycles.  The  Tulip Festival.  Frazer Valley. Skagit Valley.   The explosion of colour that wakens the mind.  Finally the Cherry blossoms that turn the universe a forgiving pink. 

Hiking,  camping, all the outdoor summer activities begin again. Fireworks. Fishing. Lake and ocean swimming, beach bathing,  lawn chairs and summer books, read in the late day sun. Kool aid.  It all begins with snowdrops and crocuses.

  

Molar Root Abscess and the Toxic Workplace

It’s not easy to admit to being a whimp.  I had an appointment to have a crown put on by Dr. Douglas Lovely, my amazing dentist New Westminster.  I admit I’ve loved going to him for 20 years because he’s literally painless. As a child our dentist didn’t believe children felt pain. It left as lasting aversion to dentists.  Doug’s work is the best.  It helps he’s a sailor and that all my doctor friends see him too.

The day before the crown my face flared up. A horrible night of sleeplessness and pain.  I was so glad to have the appointment.  My face was slowed and Doug did the xray showing the tooth was cracked and a “pea size“ abscess at the base of the second root.  The crown wasn’t anything but it was on a cracked tooth as well.  My gnashing my teeth in my sleep at night was catching up on me.  Doug gave me antibiotics and recommended high dose ibuprofen.  He had to bring the swelling down to extract the tooth.  Extraction was set for a week later.  

Tha night was awful. I don‘t do sleepless nights well anymore. Too many years of call.  First surgery and deliveries and later suicidal calls and drunken calls.  It’s been years though that I’ve had to go to a hospital. Still it’s hard to get back to sleep.  And a tooth ache didn’t help.  Doug warned me it might get worse before it would get better.  But I’m a whimp.  My face swelled out like a chipmunk with nuts.

I had to take the afternoon off work because I was just simply too fatigue. Fortunately the last morning of work was slow.  Doug had contacted me when I sent a picture of my lopsided face and expressed my abject misery. ‘It’s almost as bad as a man flu’ summed it out.  A lot of cowering and shaking by men all round.  Drum roll in the back ground. Images of the grim reaper. Women thoroughly insensitive.  ‘Tooth ache. ‘. ‘Man flu’.  Really? 

No one God has them deliver babies. I’d never do it.  I also concluded yet again I’d never make a spy. The first mention of torture and I’d give up anything to stop the pain. I was beyond Motrin and Alleve and ASA. I was on a cocktail of all three at three times the recommended dose.  I was a toxic waste dump of NSAD’s.  I understand and always have why people who aren’t treated sufficintly for pain by doctors turn to the street vigilantes services for pain defence.  Pain is thoroughly underestimated by bureaucrats and anyone who has not known it’s bite.  

I couldn’t bite either. Soft foods and soups and embarrassing drool out the side of my face.

Bleak.  Suicidal. Rethinking euthanasia.  Paranoid moments. Wondering who might have caused the toothache. Was it the Russians. Was it radioactive.Did Trudeau do this. All else evil in Canada today can be placed at his stupid feet. Why not my tooth ache.  3 and 4 am arre ripe times for vivid imagination.  Was the chip some government lab had placed in my tooth finally needing a battery change. I’ve heard all the best ideas from schizophrenic patients. Even Freud concluded they might be right.  Doug would tell me if I had a chip in my tooth and the battery needed replacement. He said he’d take it out and then do an implant.   I don’t have dental care.  Only illegal immigrants get that in Canada.  Who cares what the cost is when your eyes are bulging out. I even thought of going to the hospital emergency for morphine but remembered this was Canada and I’d wait for 10 or 20 hours in the waitroom for a shot of morphine exposed to all the latest virus bacteria and the hell of Canadian ER’s.   Light would come soon.

Doug was in Whistler but called my pharmacist who gave me Dexamethasone and Flagyl to add to the Clindamycin.  Dougs voice is reassuring.  He calls after all his work.  He still cares. Doctors are punished today for caring.  The administration is swaggering and arrogant, the worst in the civilized world, 20 times what is needed, doctors hated by government here, the fewest in the civilized world, longest wait lists.  







 I watch a video of the Ontario doctors speaking out against the Liberal government there. I think of all the patients who are so desperate and angry and how little we have to give them anymore now that all our health care resources are devoted to government administration and doctors are condemned for unprofessionalism because they won’t kill themselves fast enough. The paper work and the endless rules and committee ivory tower bullshit destroying us as the patients cry and come in angrier and more and more in despair. Everyone has gone without to pay the outrageous taxes and all the money goes to debt and administration. It’s so depressing on the frontlines.

I’m thankful that dentists are still free of the scourge of Space Station administration arrogant in their ignorance of the death they cause from distance and negligence.  

I’m unhappy.  A Christian biker died.  He was a friend as much as anything.  He loved his gal. He loved Jesus.  I’ve not adjusted to the dying these last couple of years.  Family, friends and the epidemic of fentanyl. It was bad enough working front lines through the AIDS epidemic. This is worse.

The government blamed the doctors for the opiate crisis.  I read last week they were totally off. Their calculations all wrong. Their false accusations like all the other fake news right out there.  It turns out that the fentanyl is just another Chinese attack and part of the drug wars. ‘Whatever minor factor ‘overprescribing’ is ,is the least concern. But there goes our government demonizing doctors and our dying patients .  They’re in the business of marijuana and euthanasia now.  

My pain had dropped with the sleep and hope the added anti biotic brought.  I had homework to do.  I just lay in bed.  I had all this stuff that was to be done but another weekend devoted to getting ready to go back to the wars.  Any female patient can lie and falsely accuse a male doctor if he doesn’t agree with breaking the law and lying for her and a committee will destroy the doctor because that’s their agenda.  It’s not paranoia. They do the same to female doctors.  All the doctors realize now that any patient , especially the psychopaths,  have the power of complaints, any of which cause the doctor to lose $10,000 with no cost to the patient.  There’s a totally skewed power dynamic and it’s all a lie.  There’s no cost in Canada for perjury.   

Indeed multiculturalism denies the value of truth or knowledge.  It’s no longer about anything but feelings and power and men are all wrong and white men are all racists.  Every doctor I know, male and female, in the front lines tries to do the least now. No one wants to take on an unknown patient.  We’re working like our administration which is collectively destroying the practice of medicine. I’m entering an age when I may need medical care. I’m afraid of hospitals because the workplace is utterly toxic because of the administration and the anti doctor government. The nurses are being reduced too so we can have more politically correct administration.

I don’t have the reserve for a tooth ache.  I don’t have the reserve for sleepless nights.  My friends are all struggling with normal life and the workplace is killing them. The demands on doctors have skyrocketted while the fat cat administration is swaggering with self praise, making the rules for their dream jobs and constant vacations and giving themselves raises upon raises but never visiting the front lines. It’s WWI all over again and we’re the machine gun fodder.

The patients get less. We’re all condemned by a cruel and perfect government judgmental to the core Everyone is ‘offended’ all the time and the standards of perfections and political correctness are beyond the pale. You can kill with negligence but don’t dare swear or raise your voice or object to lacks of beds or deadly wait lists.  And then you hear they’re going to give more ‘free health care’ to immigrant families as more doctors suicide under the strain and in response to the cruelty and insensitivity of the administration.

Another night of sleep. More ibuprofen, more antibiotics.  The swelling’sdown. I can eat. I think of my colleagues working after having babies and having surgery.  I know so many stoics. I admire so many I know facing the deluge of demands one on one face to face in the front lines and those far from the front are shooting them in the back and fearing that they might ever have to go back out there .  They ‘ve played it smart, got the cushion jobs, moved to the back, played politics, not kept up with medicine, medicine just a stepping stone to power and control.  They never really cared for patients. They’ve seen so few and risen so fast. 

I’m feeling better. I get to church.  I’m humbled by Jesus.  Laura and I watched Monty Python reruns. Laughter therapy.  Communion was good.  The god kids were like herding cats.No one can afford to live in Vancouver.  The criminals and government have turned the city into an unliveable place except for jet setters.  I’m just the ‘Help’’.  Laura laughed to read the book about the ‘help’ and what the help said about the masters.  The destruction of the middle class is taking place. Only the elite are well here. The Mayor actually said something like it being reasonable to pay $3500 rent a month while a miserable shack costs a million anywhere.  The television constantly shows pictures of the rest of the world and the refugees are so happy as scab labour but given the benefits don’t seem to want to work.    

Those of us native Canadians who worked all our lives are leaving major gaps in services as we retire and no one is foolish enough to work in Canada. The whole work ethic is a farce when you see the leadership off on vacation and never working seriously before getting the best leadership job on who his name is.  Work doesn’t pay is the Canadian idea. Entitlement and social justic warriors and activists are all the rage. No one wants to do physics and chemistry or cut lumber or take risky jobs with axes and such.  It’s a talk world.

I type more today than I did as a secretary.  But I get paid for all that I know of biochemistry and psychopharmacology and diagnostics though naming things is quickly going out of fashion. Everything is fashion

I am comforted by the words of the priest. I’m thankful for the sweet sounds of Barry’s music.  I am thankful for all the friendliness of the people we meet here. Downstairs having coffee in the church I remember my mother and father. Dad helped put a new roof on the old church.  Mom always helped make meals and coffee.  We all did the dishes.  The coffee is fine. I’m thankful I don’t drool out of the side of my mouth.  I’m looking forward to camping.  

After everyone is gone. I walk Gilbert along the river and watch a green headed mallard land on the stream.  The  trees are all budding. There a bunting today.  A robin is in a bush with fresh green buds.  Lots of tulips and daffodils. I must focus on the good things. I’ve been depressed with sleepleness and death and a toothache.  I’m a whimp.  I think I once was more.  I sailed solo across an ocean. Faced charging bear.  White water canoed. Walked frozen across tundra after our skidoo went through the ice.  I saved a few children. A woman thanked me for saving her eye.  A few people told me that I convinced them not to kill themselves.  Thousands are sober. Thousands didn’t kill themselves on my watch.  I’ve done a bit of good in my time but it’s all unfashionable today.

I talked to my female colleague and she’s being punished like me for working with the people Jesus used to hang with.  We’re silly not to have been the doctors for the wealthiest. I turned down the job and so did she. We’re working with the really sick, the end of the road, and the feral.  It’s a single party insurance scheme and we’re not supposed to keep these people alive. More and more we’re co opted by insurance companies to write reports to courts and to keep people out of their toxic workplaces and to give them a chance at the legal lottery.  ICBC , our auto insurance plan thanks to government mismanagement is on the brink of bankruptcy. Wherever government gets involved there is horrendous waste and mismanagement in Canada. Rapidly a third world country. Not the meritocracy it once was.  But you know you’re getting old when you talk about the good old days.

I’m insignificantly significant and significantly insignificant.  75% of my colleagues wouldn’t recommend medicine in Canada.  It’s still a beautiful spring.  Today’s sunshine was miraculous.  My face no longer hurts.  I laughed to watch Monty Python’s absurdity, « Always look on the Bright Side of life.’  

It really is funny.  You must stop taking yourself seriously.  It was just a tooth ache. Not nearly as bad as a man flu.

Spring has Sprung

I am so thankful that spring has sprung.  Of little faith I worry I might die before the sun returns or rather earth gets over it’s pout and returns to the sun.  It’s the blossoms that most move me.  After the dark and dreary the colour begins to return. Shoots come up. Bits of green appear.  I took Gilbert for a long walk today.  It was so beautiful. Thank you.

Wednesday Morning Meditation

I woke up with my dog licking my face. He lies watching me until he thinks I’m awake and then helps the process. I dressed and walked him outside this balmy spring morning.  Pink dawn colours were still painting the clouds.  Bird song had begun.  He pooped. I picked it up.  I carry a roll of doggie bags in pockets of my jackets. Back home I sat for morning meditation and prayers.  I feel closer at time to God and then far away, the constant hide and seek of the great romance.  Attending to my breathing, bring my attention back from the myriad of distractions.  Feeling for God, like reaching out in darkness for a pair of glasses. Knowing it’s the journey and the doing, not the arriving.  Then coffee.  

I opened my iPhone and reviewed my Facebook.  Too much politics.  Clear evidence of mutual hysteria.  The people who like me thought the world would end with the election of Justin Trudeau in Canada are decidedly wrong.  Canada is a much poorer place.  But despite his best efforts Canada as a country has survived.  Similar in America there were riots of the violent angry outraged and terrified when President Trump took office. Yet here we are some time later and the world has not ended.  Yet the same level of lucrative shrill political marketing fills the airways.  

It’s spring. A new day is dawning. I’m weary of Facebook and social media.  The humour is less and the family is less and more a more the feed is filled with uninvited commercials for businesses I have no interests in and ideologies that frankly bore me.  I flip through dozens of feeds now in search of an increasingly rare sharing of family or astute humour of friends. it’s disappointing. Too much of this and I forget the pink colour on the morning clouds.  

I am going to work today.  I commute and daily see the evidence of poor driving and random chaos.  We lemming to the city where no one who works can afford to live as the urban madness and tyranny increases with incompetence and dependence.  All the government serves the parking lots. Landlords are the deities.  And I am just one of the millions of acolytes who worship there.  Regulations and restrictions exponentially increase to protect the turfs of entrenched corruption and I will leave this place where trees grow free to go to that cement prison where the inmates pay their lives away to be on the inside.  I worry about my dwindling time.  

The ugliness of bureaucracy and callous minions of corporate and government hegemony obstruct my vision and strangle all but a few new ideas.  The old prevails re worked over and over again. I don’t know if this is right or wrong.  

I have a general malaise. I have tasted the nectar of God’s love and wonder as I move through my day how this is bringing me once again closer. I know if I sit still it will circle round me but I miss the wide open seas or the deep dark forests.  Each day I think of camping and canoeing and wait for the weather to warm  as arts students reduce the science of weather to politics.  Everywhere it’s I and them, the tribalism of todays colleges and universities speaking to the rise of stupidity among the teachers terrified of students whose ignorance is increased by their drugs and delusions.

I wait for death.  My family has gone before me, mother, father, brother, aunts and uncles.  I know them as memories and guardian angels. I feel them close at times. I dream of them.  

Life is good.  I liked the coffee and yoghurt today. I’m looking forward to driving with the top down on my convertible. It’s a short week. If the sun stays out I may lie outside on a lawn chair and read a book with Gilbert tied to the leg of the chair.  My motorcycle is calling to me.  Showering and shaving and dressing is a challenge.  All day I see people who don’t work and ask them if they can at least get up and out of their apartments before 9 and know they can’t. The city is full of foreign wealth and social housing.  I have to accept that I’m a suburbanite. No longer living in the insanity of the city I am losing tolerance for the mass institution of ghetto living.  My eyes look out to the towns and rural spaces where the new genius arises.  I am caught between.  I am ever straddling fences.  I long to head out on the highway. I am instead going to a little box and frankly I like it most of the time.  The idea of it is scary. The warren. 

But here the sun is coming in the window and shining now on the cactus I hung in a pot there.  I live in a rain forest and long for Arizona.  But I like the surplus water too and am forever ambivalent.

I’m grateful for my breath. I’m grateful for the sights and sounds. I’m grateful for my dog and the vehicles that entertain me as I fool myself out of the house and into the work place. I’m grateful for coffee which lures me from one place to the next. I liked the hamburger I ate at the Heatley yesterday. Shannon’s smile as she served me coffee was uplifting. I liked the chef with his 18th century beard.  This generation of castrated male Canadians act out their loss by manly beards while women every where abort their babies. 

There’s always chocolate. And tv.  One can get lost in NCIS.  An alternative reality where the man leads in the field while the woman leads in the politics or the black man leads in the politics.  These higher paid jobs are mysterious in their way while the sherif rides off to slay the dragons and get the bad guy and protect the navy. it’s silly really.  But there’s a pattern to it like all westerns and we want the good guy to win and the bad guy to lose because we go to work and there seems so much more uncertain.

But the Bible says the good guys win.  Lust is good but love is better.  Smart is good but wisdom is better. And all day long I look at materialism and hedonism and talk to addicts who just want money and a fix but have come out of the pleasure chase to be cared for by me , not willing to give up but wanting a breather before they again chaise the elusive ‘pleasure principle’.  They’re all Marxists and socialists and the government celebrates their existence and tries to give them more stuff like negligent parents. They don’t know it but they really want love but won’t go to the places where people will gather and give them relationships.  But they’ve bought hollywood and want something for nothing. And it’s easier to steal and I struggle to remain positive in the daily grind of their sales pitch.  And behind me their are fat rich eurocrats wanting to punish me for imperfection but desperate to keep me between them and them, this buffer against the rise of grief and anxiety.  They are the control freaks. They left the chaos of reality and escaped to the constant committee classroom meetings with countless little napoleons and proper servitude. There are no Gibbs in this world.  The Gibbs are strangled and shot in the back.  These people have killed to escape reality and now pass razor sharp memos and build more and more walls all the while denying they like walls with their boundaries and police and their guns in the security forces.  Layers and layers of security to protect them.  

I am terrified of lying women.

I am going out to face another day where sometimes the shouting scares me.

There is a sensitivity that you can only have like a second wind on the front.  Soldiers who returned again and again told me of this.  I like the others like me who have seen thousands and stayed face to face.  Now I must shower. I like the shower.  Shaving is less attractive but I’ve had my share of beards and today like the soft baby face.  

I am saddened that my friend has a sore throat.  

My dog’s eye is hurt. There is illness in the world and dying.  I am here praying.  I’d ride my motorcycle to work but the dog doesn’t care so much for that.  And I don’t like the rain and grease on the road this year and am more scared of injury as less and less funding goes to the hospital front lines and more and more to the smoke filled backrooms

Thank you God for this day.  Lift up my spirit and guide me in all my actions and words. Please Lord let me not offend another person who is looking for offence and please save me from those who are seeking accidents on the road. Help protect me from this whole new rash of victim predators.  Guide me and keep me safe that I might do your work and serve you.  Thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed on me. 

 

Gratitude derailed

Thank you for the light in the morning when I walk the dog. This morning the sky was blue and the crocuses have returned. I’ve seen daffodils and now the neighbours tulip stalks are up.  I’m so looking forward to the tulip days to come.  It’s like somehow this year I lost faith in the fall and winter coming to an end.  My brother’s diagnosis has brought me face to face with aging.  I’m seeing illness all about me in a way that I’ve not for so many years.  There’s always been the itching sensations after treating the scabies patients.  The germophobias that assail me somedays.  I know that I can’t go out from fear now some weekends.  The attacks come back. There’s this lack of faith that I’ve had.
My decision to stop marijuana smoking as occasional as it was still remains an issue too because even though I drank and that was little compared to the mainstream today I felt I was wrong to be ‘breaking the law’ by smoking marijuana. As a professional it didn’t matter that I did this on holidays or weekends. It didn’t matter that I bought my marijuana from doctors or that I smoked marijuana with doctors , psychiatrists, psychologists, nurses and lawyers. It didn’t even matter that I had seen a psychiatrist who recommended that I smoke marijuana given my wife’s illness.  All that didn’t sit well with me.  Spiritually I’d felt that I wasn’t right. I’d made a promise to God to change my life. And I felt that smoking marijuana was breaking the law and I didn’t consciously break the law.
I was and am and always was a law abiding citizen for the most part even though in Canada today the legal system and bureaucrats and parliamentarians think people who are law abiding so called good citizens are fools, that’s what I was.  I’d speed in my car occasionally but these were lapses of judgement.  The marijauana smoking was conscious. I truly believed that the State was wrong, not just in it’s views of individual behaviour with respect to drugs but with its views towards sex and a variety of ’social laws’.   As I got older I saw that Canada wasn’t a ‘free society’ in a lot of ways and when I smoked marijuana I was ‘rebelling’.
Yet here I was riding on roads made by the collective.  I was enjoying the clean water and food that came from the collective.  I was thankful for the courts and parliament for the jails and laws that fought murderers and thieves  I enjoyed so much of what our ancestors had given us in our buildings schools and churches.  I was being paid as a physician through the organization of health care. I was taught as a physician.  These were all ‘lawful’.  So what was I do ‘breaking the law’.  Why was I smoking dope.  I drank wine and that wasn’t an issue.  I was a wine connoisseur. Yet when I drank wine I smoked cigarettes and marijuana. I’d concluded as a physician that smoking cigarettes was stupid, evil, extraordinarily unhealthy and that the tobacco boards were organized crime. I further thought that our government was corrupt to arrest marijuana smokers but allow tobacco producers to be rich and major influences on the supreme court and parliament.
When I drank legal alcohol I’d smoke again though I’d quit and when I was smoking cigarettes I’d prefer a joint so I’d break the law and get some marijuana as well. I’d even tried cocaine but was glad it didn’t agree with me.  My pleasure seemed to be red wine and smoking a mix of low strength marijuana and tobaco.  I thought I was ‘cool’ when I was a little buzzed.  Like I was James Bond and Sherlock Holmes and that I could write and play guitar better. I was wrong . I also thought I was a better lover. I was slower but I don’t think I was a better lover. I know too I didn’t think about work and I didn’t worry and I was just happy to sit and let the world go round and round as compared to my normal state where I’m trying to help and work and concerned about what I could do next.  I certainly never worried I wasn’t fulfilling my destiny or doing all I could be or achieving my potential or what others thought when I smoked a joint. I was utterly narcissistic and definitely purely pleasure oriented. A hedonist. Canada is a country of hedonism today or some might call it "shedonism'.
But I was breaking the law.
So when I stopped I sought help from the Physician Assistance program.  I couldn't get my wife to address her illness so I felt the best way was for me to admit my problem, and that this would lead to her getting help.  I was a politically outspoken person who had represented a lot of cases against the totalitarian corrupt authorities.  I’d been an outspoken critic against communists and fascists and Canada breeds both in abundance in high places.  I had integrity and told the truth and defended patients from abuses from above as much as I fought the diseases which plagued them from within.  It made me a lot of enemies.  Reporting a pedophie means that he’s caught but the ring survives.  Reporting a doctor doing unauthorized experiments on patients for profits catching him but not the nest. Always the very authorities whose job it was to protect patients were collecting their pay and not doing their job.  I was a vigilante good samaritan, doing the right thing.  But of course, when the criminal was caught, it was naturally asked why the beurocrats who are paid millions to protect patients didn't get these 'big fish'.  They naturally looked bad and they hated people like me.  I think too that they're there to 'protect' those 'special  doctors who aren't like the rest.
I had to do it .  It was a thing I had with this ingrained integrity and ethics and morality that said that doctors shouldn't be killing and that eurocrats shouldnt be colluding.  Of course everyone wondered who was getting kickbacks.  Why  were these doctors getting away with murder.  The elite protects its own.  It’s disgusting but true.  To get ahead they have to have protection within the courts and high places and especially within the bureaucracy. I exposed this.  If you do good in Canada you will be burnt. I was a whistleblower and whistleblowers are all collectively condemned in Canada.  The State thrives on 'informants' and encourages 'confidential informants' and administrators carry little black books like all good communists do but 'whistleblowers' are another thing.  They disrupt the common business of corruption and undermine the whole 'institution baksheesh' industry.  The Reformer is the enemy of anyone who benefits from the status quo.  The whole job of the elite, the bureaucracy and the courts is to resist change.  Change  threatens  the powerful.   The lie is they are always 'promoting change' deceitfully.  Lie, lie, lie!  Deny. Deny Deny!  It's the halcyon cry of the courts and bureaucracy.  Fuddle Duck!!!
I cause change.  My generation was a ‘change catalyst.’
My question at the time is what do I do with my drug addicted wife and how can we get help with our marriage.  I’d been divorced and concluded that I  was facing another divorce and the common ingredient in my divorces was that my wives and I drank and smoked marijuana.  Of course given feminism in it’s day and the radical feminists in beaurocracy they had long concluded that all divorce was the cause of men, another common ingredient in marriage,  so drugs were irrelevant.  This was before lesbian marriage with its similar rate of divorce so the idea that men were the cause of divorce went out the window but too late for my marriage.  I divorced.  I was punished as men are in divorce .  It's a sexist society, i.e. men are sexist.  I was also punished as marijuana smokers were in the day.  Marijuana smoking wasn't actually punished but rather being truthful about marijuana smoking.  The same as homosexuality. For the longest time homosexuality wasn't punished as long as you were not truthful about it.  Society is that kind of lie.  I was punished because while the bureaucracy paid lip service to the idea of ‘disease’ the individuals involved in the programs were holier than thou and claimed that they were the guardians of the public good.
Yet they didn’t care that the prime minister was smoking dope as a teacher and that the prime minister was smoking dope as an MP.  They didn't about the irreparable damage he did as a teacher and the irreparable damage his example has had on children.  Baseball players and hockey players are condemned for smoking marijuana because they are an 'example' to children but Justin Trudeau was smoking marijuana when he was an Member of Parliament so what kind of example does that set for children.
They justified all that they did to me and others by the idea that we were a threat to society. I was never a threat to society and never made a bad decision. I loved the movie with Denzil Washington as the pilot because that’s what I saw in my case and for those around me.  This horrible ‘war on drugs’ world was coupled with beaurocratic pomposity and deceit.
So my marriage ended.
The friends of the men whose friends I’d caught stealing, killing and raping, suddenly gloatingly became my superiors holding my freedom in their hands.  I was terrorized by a little hitler and his little eva brawn.  And today I’m afraid of drugs because I believe seriously that too many people in Canada are on drugs and that the only way we have been able to get another lying Trudeau in leadership is because Canada is a nation of stoned drunks.  I would have voted Trudeau when I was smoking dope.
So I’ve not handled the election well. I’ve not handled watching 18 billion candian dollars go to the PARTY.  I’ve not handled the lies well and the idea that others don’t ‘get’ it.  I’ve also wanted desperately to smoke dope again so I can join the stupidity and not be aware of what’s happening.  I’d like to smoke dope and believe that there isn’t illness and everything is an illusion and that if I just have my dope mind I’ll get by.  When I smoked dope it was like I was one of the batteries in the  movie Matrix. I thought the Matrix was the best movies about the drugged and the awake.
I’m awake today.It's hard to be awake.  I think of the millions who were not caught up in the Hitlermania of their day or the Lenninmania of their day.  There's this 'mania', an orgy that I could get myself caught up in when I was smoking dope and drinking. I liked the group grope and hedonistic throb of the club scene when I was a little high and in denial of reality.  I loved the escape to adolescence, the disregard and animal like awareness that drugs brought.  I smoked a joint and drank some wine and I was blatto.  My IQ dropped and I had trouble following conversations or walking to the bathroom. I was demented.  Usually I was actually more aware than the thousand or so others in the club since I was only a light user in public and at home I used to just go to bed early.  I was a happy drunk, if drunk is the right word.  Rarely was I angry but like all couples drinking we had our shouting matches.  She was always a public ranter screaming at me when I wanted to get her home public scenes worked well for women.  I remember trying to get drunk women into taxis to get them home with even drunker men trying to keep them at parties and me caught between these two drunken nightmares.  Sometimes I went home alone and worried all night if she'd get home somehow.  When I went to Al Anon I was the 'wife' and my stories were the norm for that group. I fit right in.  They'd all been their with their drunks and addicts.  And yes, some of them had joined in but the fact was we'd always been the 'adults'.  We'd been the ones who had to 'get the other home' or take care of the 'adult' business the next day. I was always 'papa'.  I am seriously tired of being the 'man' .  I always knew I could take care of myself and I could take care of others but that if there was trouble I really couldn't rely on the wife to take care of me. She was hardly able to take care of herself.  It wasn't just out in the wilderness but in the city. I've watched the new rage of girls in high heels beating up guys in tv movies and it's more of the lie.  I've known too many situations where there's three or four men and I'm defending myself and a woman and the woman is usually drunk and stoned and often caused this scenario but probably won't remember what happened the next day.  Or she'll rewrite the script to be something like a Supergirl scenario and ultimately she'd find a way to blame me for her drunkeness or being stoned legless.
I’m thankful fortmy sobriety. I’m thankful I’m not stoned. I’m grateful for the relationship i have with family and true friends and the journey I’ve been on if only because it helps me related to the horrendous abuse that so many Canadians have had who when they smoked dope at their jobs were subjected to forced treatment for the benefit of society. I am thankful that Justin Trudeau driving his car stoned didn’t kill anyone and I didn’t kill anyone even though I now know that people who smoke dope are ‘impaired’ for 36 hours though they feel the effects of marijuana for only a few of those hours. I’m thankful I didn’t hurt anyone except my beautiful ex wife with my unkind words because her drug addiction was so much worse than anything I experienced and I never was understanding of her it mpairment because I was totally caught up in the narcissism that drugs does to self and relationships.  I know today that relationships are the first thing harmed by drugs and that we can’t really know each other when we’re in a parallel play only because our only intimacy is with the ‘drug’.
I suspect there’s a ‘dose ‘ factor. I think there’s a ‘steady state’.  Certainly pharmaceutical medications don’t ‘impair’ like ‘self administered pleasure’ drugs. I don’t suspect there is a ‘low dose’ that can be helpful but that this isn’t like the aspirin where we know the dosage by years of study.  With marijuana it was always ‘good’ weed’ , bad’ weed’ and effects over time. I truly don’t think ‘maui wow’ was ever strong enough to do more than what a beer did but BC Bud is “killer weed’ far more potent than possibly cocaine or tequila.  A regular hallucinogen.  I hope one day that agents like SATIVEX will make dope safe.
But I’m struggling with this right now.  When I hear Truedau speak I could swear he’s had a joint especially when he smirks to himself.
I loath that the Trudeau household was a Maggie filled dope house of second hand smoke when my friends were being put in jail for one joint. I hate the double standard and I’m really struggling with getting old and thinking I may be dependent on institutions like my parents were and have to trust again. Because I stopped trusting 17 years ago when I divorced and I witnessed the worst medical care I’d ever believed possible and saw first hand abuses of power that I never in my life would have thought could occur in Canada and yet were done to me.  I’m lucky to be alive.  God had other plans. I put my living down to the intervention of an unknown female Irish psychiatrist and some Christian doctors who believed in truth and love more than profit and power.
But I’m struggling. A whole PTSD time coming back to me and questions between me and God about prayer and faith and gratitude.  And rumours of war and end days and Freud saying ‘maybe the paranoids are right’ and me thinking really ‘don’t sweat the small stuff’.  And everyone seeming to be smiling their joint like smiles, while  I’m standing on the street during “Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ scene.  The smell of marijuana reeks. I can’t get away from it in Vancouver.  It’s worse than the smell of second hand smoke or stale beer.
I'm hoping for tulips and that this too will pass. I'm hoping that with spring I'll snap out of this and find gratitude. I know I'm needing to deal with resentments and fears and that I have to get my head into the same room as my head. I've got to be thankful. I've got to find a way of seeing this present situation in a way that spiritually makes me a better person. I always remember Dr. Ney, the great anti abortion physician saying, the world is full of bitter people. You have choice.  He'd cry when he heard of more babies being killed.  I see the light going out in the eyes of people when they're on drugs and alcohol. He saw the light going out in the world when a baby was killed because there was no hope and no one cared for life.  Death stalks the earth.  But there is gratitude.  And with an attitude of gratitude there is no room for the darkness, fear and resentment.  That's what Hal Morley told me and Hal was a light in the darkness.
So again I must find gratitude.  Thank you God that I'm alive. The daffodils are out.  Soon the tulips will return.

Journal Feb. 3, 2016

There was more light this morning as I walked the dog.  The alarm is a fixed reference.  I felt it was warmer too.  There probably are crocuses out but I’ve yet to see them. I’m thinking about the colours of the tulips I’ll see in coming weeks.  The reign of darkness has passed. The shadow has moved on.
I’ve lived another wet and gloomy season.. There has been no war. I have not killed myself.  My dog’s back heels.  My own back and hip pain me more.  My concern is more that I won’t be able  to carry a haversack far. I haven’t the strength to lug ammunition to safety. I can’t carry food and water.  I don’t know how many arrows I can pack.  These are things to concern oneself with in times of trouble.  Electioneering.  Threats and rage.
I’ve watched the never new news.  I’ve been listening to audio courses from the Texas Mideast Lecture Series about Desert Storm.  Time and again the people have risen against the tyrants and been beaten down.  One revolution after another in Teheran.  Here we think of it as ‘over there’.  “Somebody else’s problem”.  A Muslim thing. “Muslim fighting Muslims”.  Like the gangs of Surrey.  Still the revolutions have taken on three characters - anti colonial - fighting the Corporations left over from the imperial invaders of the 19th century.  The leftover of WWII where the Ottoman Empire and Persian Empire were cut up by the ruling west into pieces of nation states that really didn’t have much in common.  Shii and Sunni combinations like an experiment, in one country a minority, in another a majority.  The Sufi’s sidelined.  So there’s that.  This ‘us against them’ at the global level.  East versus west.
But then there’s nation against nation.  Saudi versus Iran.  Good old fashioned politics and war.  Some of it just ‘proxy war’.  I called it the Desert Storm Arms bazaar.  The competition between Wal Mart and Target.  Western capitalist arms manufactures competing with Communist arms manufacturers and the west won. The fall of the USSR because no one wanted to buy their weapons after the awe of Desert Storm. Tough competition from the Chinese.  Everyone selling guns and tobacco.  We’re not saints.
I had a checkoslovakian pistol.  The left loves the Scandinavian countries now. Not least because of their tall and naked women. But the ex Nazi Swedish Socialism lives off the arms trade and dirty coal.  I can not afford the finest Finnish shotgun.  The precision machinists of those countries make bigger and better weapons.  Canada made armoured cars.
But the Desert Spring uprisings had an older twist.  Fighting off the foreigner, then fighting one against another politically and also the old religious fight between fanatics. The muslem brotherhood and Hamas and Hizbollah.  Extremist radical jihadists and the rest of the population that would rather just move forward. Most people want internet with free libraries and better food. They don’t want a war. But there are those that want to overthrow. they want to return to when the Mosque was in charge.  Before even the Ottoman’s if truth be told.  The dictatorships of the land have been like the Ottoman but these rebels want the divinity of the holy warrior.  They want the jihad. They want the Divine Nero. They would watch Rome and the world burn for their ego. They are actually believing god tells them to fuck little girls and kill the other guy.
And always there are criminals taking advantage of the disorder. Selling cigarettes and sex slaves.

I woke this morning disgruntled.  I had bitter thoughts of past wars in my own life.  Resentments that came on wakening.  I prayed for family friends and enemies and wanted to crawl back into bed like a Government Worker or Union member. I have made it through Monday and Tuesday.  I threw out an anchor to the weekend to kedge my way their. We’re staying in a hotel for long showers and HBO tv.  A changes is as good as a rest. I want to be somewhere I can let the dog off leash without other bigger dogs to bully him, healing as he is. I want a trail or field where he can run and play and believe that life did not hurt him. I want to be beyond my own guilt that if I’d done more I might be a better person or more secure.
I talk to God and the atheists are ending their lives as my is just beginning. I can not believe the loving God would force an afterlife on those who don’t want it.  I might gloat or despair at this never ending whining pitifest. I am lost in the uncertainty of my activity.  The cloud of unknowing.  I ask is this really what I’m supposed to be doing. I have social suicidal tendencies, the desire to run away to the north or south. I would flee government look for wilderness , go anywhere there are no bullies.
I know that in the breakdown of societies the judges and lawyers are first to be killed.  I know that Lenin was a lawyer and they have long held sway so that jokes abound about them as much as politicians. In the French Revolution they got the politicians.  This time round they’re get the lawyers but thats sad because they’re indiscriminate. The good guys and gals I know will go like the soldiers and police who just wanted a good job and didn’t mean to kill the citizens and support sociopaths.  Every revolutions the bankers are at risk.  The clergy took it hard in the French Revolution. The teachers went down hard when the Pol Pot took control They’re always killing Christians.  One religion or ethnic group against another.
Trudeau has been spreading racism.
I think the leadership would welcome rebellion. They’re like ‘let them eat cake’ while everywhere the drug addicts and homeless and ex convicts are angrier than I’ve ever known them.  The baby boomers aren’t going ‘quiet into that still night’.  Their houses are going, their cars are being taken with licenses and eyesight. There’s an edge of despair. No one is prepared for a ‘good death’ and there’s not enough botox for the alternative.
The old bridges are falling and the work on the Lion’s Gate shows the shoddy engineering and the corruption in the City and the trades. No better evidence of graft and corruption than roads that were built for 50 years falling apart in 10.
But I’m just an observer.  Frightened, lost.  I convinced so many to live and stop drugs and now my government wants them to suicide and take drugs.  Decades we struggled against the Tobacco Lobby wasting all our free time and energy fighting to save a lung, begging the government to shut down the psychopaths that sell cigarettes and they kept taking their kick backs and protecting the mass killers, worse than nazis really, in sheer numbers.  Here among us.  And we finally felt we were going forward but then the Liberals bought in to marijuana smoke
And Nero played his violin as Rome burnt.  There’s so much lust in destruction.  Give them cake.  Smoke.  Have a smoke.  Cancer of the lungs and throat.
I gave it up. Smoking.
I’d smoke whatever.
It was the smoking.
Now I don’t smoke.
I have a CPAP machine to sleep through the night and go to face another day, fight another day for ‘public health’.  Save another life.  Get paid a pittance what the killers get. Listen to more lies.
Bow down to Justin Trudeau, the new Nero. Emperor.  Wife Sophie.  Cute kids like the Queen’s kids.  That whole layer is like a cast of gods and superhero.  I don’t even know they’re real.  Acts.
All the world’s a stage, said Shakespeare.
My problem is I’m a critic.
I should be applause.  Bravo. Hooray. Hallelujah.  Be with me today Lord Jesus.  Help me in all my actions.  Be my mouth and words and hands.  Let me do thy will because frankly my will sucks.  The winter is still on us.  The death of the winter world still lingers. I must believe in spring. The ground hog spoke. There is easter and resurrection to come.  This is lent.  Days from now.  Ashes.  A milestone in the year like a coffee break in the day.
I must go to work. The coffee is finished and there’s drugs to be sold and hope to be sown.  My government tells me to offer pot and physician assisted suicide.  That’s all they have. Their casino parliaments have taken the money for health care and turned it to death and empty words. It’s all about hot air.  Save the planet in 2500. Let th people die this week. Give them cake.
Shake it off Bill.  You must ‘sell hope’ .  You’re in the business of ‘life’.  Let the politicians deal in death but you must remain a healer.  Get on with it and stop your bloody whining.  The world doesn’t need another bitter old man of any religion or colour.  We need laughter.  So fucking laugh you wanker or I’ll …..what…..what will you do.
I don’t know.
Have a shower.  Get dressed.  Do the drill.  Routine. Discloline.  The light is out.  Winter is passing. The groundhog said spring is here.  Soon Jesus will be risen.  Come on. You can do it. It’s Wednesday. You can do another wednessday. Forget about the mountain of wednesdays you’ve already done.  I know the government people, the bosses say you’re never good enough. They’re trying to shut down the old guys and girls.  I see them turned out in the fields. Useless.  Their souls sucked and bones picked, Meanwhile the wealthy from around the world are streaming into the country after killing off their own, after their lives of wealth and slave labour fearing uprisings. They’ve stolen all the countries moneys and run off. Canada is a haven for them.  They’re criminals in their countries but here they’re rich and smug.
I couldn’t become rich like they did. I didn’t have slave labour and I couldn’t use gangster connections. I couldn’t bribe a judge or policemen. I couldn’t get away with murder.  They did.  There’s blood on their hands and they scare me. I’ve no blood on mine . the police and military here are only for the protection of the rich. I have to hope they won’t want to kill the doctors when the end comes.  It’s not going to come here. Everyone is going to be smoking dope and hanging around and no one is going to revolt especially with all the criminals from other countries coming here to avoid having the children treated like they treated others children. Tribalism is here to stay.
The glass is half full, ass hole.
Stop your belly aching. Look to the half full glass. Be optimistic.  There’s enough fear mongering and begging blaming self pitying on the CBC.  You don’t have to join the collective moan.
Get in the shower. Get out of your head.  Go now. Thank you Jesus.

Brunette River and Springtime Walk

I love the walk along the Brunette River.   I don’t think I really appreciated spring was here to stay until Laura, Gilbert and I walked along the Brunnette River. There’s the Cherry Blossoms in Vancouver and the crocuses.  Then we loved the Mount Vernon Tulip Festival. But walking along the Brunette River seeing all the spring buds and blossoms I finally felt spring was in full swing.  It was a lovely day.  I heard the Kingfishers, but didn’t see them.  Hearing them I know they’re back for another year.   Gilbert loves the walk.

Civilian Seal Visit and Decapitated Groundhog

I enjoyed waking on the boat this morning. Looking out my window I first had a troop of Canadian geese go by. That was followed by a dashing flock of young grey sea gulls competing for the mouldy bread I’d found in the freezer and threw out to them. The sea gull ruckus then attracted  a couple of young seals.  What a great visitation for the morning.
The temperature in Vancouver is steadily warming up.  There are crocuses showing all over the city.  I found myself already thinking of the Mount Vernon spring Tulip festival. We’ve been to Harrison Hot Springs and probably will be back sometime in March. That always seems to heal the ravages winter does to the aging bodies.  But the Mount Vernon Tulip Festival just blows the mind. The bright colours wake up the year.  
Laura’s sister has texted her asking if she’ll open her Maine Island Art Studio  April 19th. That's the first day of the Gulf Island Bird Festival.  Caroline annually puts down her paintbrush and picks up her running shoes to come to  the Vancouver Sun Run.  My Winnipeg friend Wes is right now doing his annual pilgrimage to the Mexican beaches. My Vancouver friend Richard has just returned from Puerta Vallata. Richard’s return  really must mean the worst of the Vancouver winter is over here.  Doug’s still fishing off the Mexican coast but Doug’s migrations are as much influenced  by fish movement as weather change.  He’s posting tuna catches on Facebook to the envy of all. Yet Bill just caught a monster trout here and put the picture of that 13 lb beauty up on Facebook.   That means more snowbirds will start their migration north.  I doubt Johnny off in Thailand will be affected by these local movements. He’s more affected by the elephants playing in the ocean off his beaches.  He was putting up pictures of that last month when insane Canadians were participating in the annual polar bear swims.  
I know there’s a ground hog out there somewhere doing computer projections of Climate Change.  I saw on Facebook that an eastern wolf ate it when it gave depressing news before their latest blizzards hit.   I’ve grown suspicious of the United Nations Climate Change predictors because their political hot air about Palestine and Israel seems to throw off all their instruments.  For all I know Islamic Nation beheaded the ground hog.
Personally I rely on evidence of Facebook friends. Laura posted the  pictures of crocuses.   In my office the wave of suicidal complaints that begin in November is cresting now that we’re at the end of January.  My accountant friends are becoming frenzied in the rush to meet the annual taxation jihad by our government.  Gilbert’s hair was so matted with winter growth that I’ve had him shorn last night so he’s half the dog he used to be.
Around me on the dock one or two other skippers are getting their boats ready for spring sailing.  There’s notices out of the spring Motorcycle Runs. It’s hard to believe that February begins tomorrow and the book launch for my book, Psychiatry and Addiction, Personal Perspectives is just a month off, March 1st, Sunday, at the Alano Club 6 to 9 pm.  When Bernice was helping me get that project completed it was fall and a spring launch seemed an eternity away.  Where did Christmas and New Years go
I spent the first couple of weeks of January in Turkey so the build of work that I returned to has had me run off my feet. Time just seems to fly with age. Looking in the mirror I ask who’s the guy with the white santa claus beard.  But I remember December when the ice was on the boat and water pipes on the dock were frozen I wondered if the winter would ever end.  Now I feel sorry for my friends out east.  This week I had the top down on my Miata sports car and lots of motorcycles were back on the streets of Vancouver.  In the rest of Canada people are envying their neighbours who traded their cars in for snow plows. Soon the ice from sleet and frozen rain  will have families  wondering how much their cars will get for a trade in on a Zamborni machine.
I’m so thankful in Vancouver that spring comes a couple of months before the rest of Canada. There has to be some advantages to living in a city where the average house price is a million dollars for a hundred square feet, you can’t park your car anywhere for the bike lanes, and free empty syringes of drug addicts litter the streets.  Thankfully the spring rains will wash the roaches away.
Of course, when I skied at Whistler each weekend I never noticed how sullen Vancouver was in winter.  I might well talk about that as yesterday but it’s been a decade now since I skied at Whistler.  Somethings just seemed silly as I got sober with age. One of them was putting boards on my feet and flying down hill only to wait in lines and do it all over again.  I remember I loved that for decades but today what I miss most is the cross country skiing I fell in love with years ago in Winnipeg.  I last did that a few years back only because there’s no ‘dog friendly’ ski trails hereabout.  So much of my activity depends on  dog friendliness.  Gilbert and I would rather walk on the sea wall than go up the glorious Grouse Mountain where he’d face all the existing predjudice dogs encounter here in this city that prides itself on tolerance.
It really is paradise here.  Every day above ground is a good day.  I must focus more on gratitude because I’ve become a little snarky with winter hibernation.  Fears,resentments and self centeredness are really such an easy ‘default mode’.  As my Christian psychiatrist friend  is fond of saying, the world doesn’t have much need for any more bitter old people.  
Just as spring is coming again this year after winter seemed like it might not end, so each day is a new day.  I loved most the cartoon posted this week on Facebook with twins in the womb arguing about life after delivery.  One insisted there was no life after delivery and everything would be just darkness while the other had hope that there’d be more light and they’d meet their Mother.  That was awesome.
I think in Vancouver the seals know more than the ground hogs.