Telte Yet Campground

Well, we needed to pick up the Adventurer Camper in Chilliwack.  Laura was up for the adventure.  Madigan was all paws.  A stop at Windsor Plywood served to get some 3/4 inch marine fir to lay in the box.  The ride wasn’t onerous at all. I’d been to Dr. Ready in the morning so we only got away at noon and were loaded up at Chilliwack by 2 pm. We filled up with gas and water at the Esso.  

It was a glorious day with blue sky sunshine and small gaggles of cloud gossiping in the sky.  The mountains were magnificent . The greens so enchanting.  The traffic was surprisingly light. 

A short drive onto Hope and a stop at the grocery.

I wheeled the buggy out with the haul.  Laura stand in the camper as I lifted out the goods

« I don’t know how to shop for a weekend, ». I said.

« I know’, she replied, piling bread and eggs, steak and bacon onto the table. ». « You always get so much. »

« I know, the survivalist kicks in.  It’s related to those periods of poverty in my life , leaving home and after the divorce.  Being hungry left an indelible mark on my psyche even though it was only a few weeks. It must be worse for the refugees and folk who’ve known rationing after a war.  » I said .

« When the children were small and it was hard making ends meet I felt really comforted having food in the cupboards. » she said. 

Here we now were just talking about cholesterol, the American epidemic of obesity, the need we had to lose weight.  

The young native woman at the campground was truly a beauty.  A regular black haired Veronica.  She had a pretty little shy daughter who leaned up against her mommy’s leg.

« Do you have a place for the night. » I asked 

« How many? »

« 2 adults and a little dog. »

« With electricity? »

« Yes , we d love that, ». I didn’t say but Kelvin had just installed air conditioning and I was so excited by this new luxury  The day was really hot  though the winds off the river was cool..  

« I love the wind here. It’s so refreshing , » Laura said, when we chose #5 overlooking the large river meeting.  

« What a glorious place! » I said looking at the river through the trees.  It wasn’t long at all before we had back in hooked up and felt like we were at a home away from home.  

Madigan was glad for a walk.  Every form of camper was here.  Gréât Class A buses hooked to full service, fifth wheels and toy haulers.  Then there were traditional tents and several of the new tents on top of cars.  Converted vans and even a few motorcycle campers.  A Big Foot Camper was next to ours.  While Madigan marks territory every where I enjoy looking at the other camps and campers from everywhere, Asian, European, local.  I still like my truck camper best though younger I know I’d have like the tent that sits on top of the car.  I started camping as a child with family and have camped ever since in tents, and vans and now so enjoy this little home camper van because it can go anywhere with amenities off grid for days or weeks.  

After the walk back in the camper I  made coffee using the handheld Vevok grinder and stove top expresso.   The refriderator was slow to fire up because there was air in the propane lines. Once the stove got going the refridgerator did too.   Laura and I then settled into reading.  Wi Fi wasn’t that good but I plan  next week to have my Star Link with me when I take a week vacation on my own.  

This night it was hard to believe we were here It was a total breakfrom the city.  Another world. 

I pulled the barbecue out and barbecued the corn in the husk. I then did the steak having to watch as the wind blew out the flame at first.  The smells were delicious.  I had potato salad from the Hope grocery as well.  It was a feast. The steaks were succulent and of course Madigan was glad to share with Laura and me.  Laura loved the corn with butter an salt and surprisingly I did too because it didn’t get caught up in my teeth.  The potato salad was perfect and the local bread, Lac La Heche Pioneer bread with spread easy butter was a delicious addition.  We had a butter tarts to finish and Madigan was glad to help.

Another walk with the dog then more reading after a splurge of air conditioning.  I finished Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen.  A wonderful intriguing historical  mystery.  When it came time to sleep I could only cuddle a bit  with Laura before being unable to sleep and reading more of Venice in the quiet night.  So much for late afternoon coffee.  Sitting up with only the screen door and the sound the river was lovely at night. I eventually became sleepy and this time climbed up in to bed and slept till 8 am.  

Laura’s up and we’ve had coffee but I’m going to make bacon and eggs walk the dog and she’s going to shower.  It’s not a mystery or a suspense but rather a magnificent treat after  a week of work in the city.  Thank you Jesus for this adventure and camping.  Thank you Telte Yet natives for letting us share your sacred place . 

 

North to 100 mile house

When Laura, looking pretty, arrived Friday morning at 9 am, Gilbert, the cockapoo went crazy, barking, circling, sniffing.  It was great to see her.  We had a five day weekend together with Gilbert.  I immediately brought my white Ford F-350 around. . I have a motorcycle mount for the front of the truck.  I attached that then loaded the KTM690 enduro.

I’d decided also to take my West Marine inflatable kayak along. I had the Honda 2000 generator too. Bear season was open for rifle and deer season for bow.  I had  Winchester 300 Coyote and the Excalibur crossbow. It was the opening of bow hunting season on Sunday.  We’d planned a travel day going and returning with Sat. Sunday and Monday for outdoor adventure.

Laura travels light with an Eagle Creek carry on luggage and colourful sack.  I have the cammo duffle bag and Harley Davidson bag that together carry gear and clothes.  Gilbert likes to use these to sleep on high up in the back seat as we drive along the highway≥

I keep my Adventurer Camper at the unbreatable Chilliwack RV Storage.  From Burnaby to there it was only a couple of hour drive despite highway construction.  We’d stopped at Abbotsford’s great Canoe and Kayak Store to buy another paddle for the kayak.  

Laura and I are getting better at positioning and loading the Camper. It’s less anxiety provoking and really a good feeling when a second bouse was on the back of the truck as we pulled  away heading north.  

It started a cloudy stormy rainy day but miraculously the sun came out as we drove from Chilliwack to Hope. The corn fields were ripe. The glorious evergreens began to replace the farm lands as we ascended out of the Fraser valley floor.  At Hope we took the #1 highway that splits offf from #3 to Princeton through Manning Park and Coquahalla, the high country freeway.  I stopped at DQ and got us all DQ hamburgers with cheese, Gilbert just likes the paddy.  I’ve taken to having mine without the sauce driving. No need to change shirts. 

Laura and I recalled the spring summer and fall I left my Forest River trailer in Boston Bar coming up weekends.  The road has all the old railway tunnels. Sailor, Alexandra and Hell’s Gate..  We always remember the time riding the Harley together home we’d hit the road fault entering the tunnel, We’d become airborne forever going from light into the dark at 120 km per hour, only able to pray before we hit down in total darkness passing safely on.  The truck and camper are the latest in a series of travel camping arrangements.  We like it the best today.  Every possible camping vehicle combination was on the road north with us, some carrying bikes, quads or pulling trailers or boats. There was a recreational exodus north.

At the rest stop with the fenced off leash dog park blind Gilbert loves I changed from jeans to shorts. We used our own toilet and just loved the high country sunshine and heat.  I’m always ecstatic once we come out of the lowland to the high country sage and tumble weed country.

A herd of goats greeted us in Lytton.  It was 10 years before when we were in a car with tent in the trunk that we passed a similar herd of mountain goats on the highway and walking about the town.  There were young with therm and they all looked healthy and robust.

The views of the river winding through the high country tumble weed hills were spectacular.

At Cache Creek we stopped at the Grubstake Store we’d visited in past years. A lovely oriental couple have really outfitted it well for campers and fishermen. We found everything we wanted and now had a fully stocked camper.  We even had Hagen Dash ice cream bars to enhance our glamping experience.

Lots of nostalgia passing through Clinton.  Laura reminisced about walking here when Faith was still a baby her mommy’s tummy. Now she’s a going concern.  It was here I shot my first moose with Bill Mewhort 30 years before. We hunted mulies in the high hills back in those days,climbing high up the mountain before dawn to meet the game as they left the rivers and lakes. 

It was temping to stop there. But I was in exploring mode.  I’d bow hunted Hundred Mile House with Tom seeing lots of deer though not shooting any. Laura and I loved Hundred Mile House  having stayed here several years before and even considered it as a possible place to live. 

Now here we are in the municipal campground. The 100 mile House RV Motel and Park were full.  Not needing hook up it was just nice to park after a long scenic day of driving. Sandwiches sufficed for dinner.  Gilbert loved the new dog sniffs and walks.

On my iPad I read a kindle western before falling asleep a little after Laura who’d been reading about a woman pilot in the war. Gilbert cried in the night to be let up on the bed but settled when I shhhhd him.  He’s jealous I get to sleep with his favourite person and he’s left down on the floor in his own dog  bed.  Life isn’t fair.

There was promise of aurora borealis but the sky was cloudy so we didn’t see the night display.  The fresh cool air was a delight.

Waking this morning in the pine smelling outdoors by a running stream  was heaven.  

Ottawa, Kanata, Andrew and Tanya’s Place

Love their new home. Andrew and Tanya are expecting. Young professionals.  The new generation. With all the crap on FB and main stream media these are the young people I know I’ve been hanging out with my nephews. The world is in good hands. The future is bright.  They are really exceptional people. I’m covered up in shame and guilt and struggling with injuries and scars and failure.  An old soldier in a struggle against myself and the house always wins. They’re young and full of hope.

The greatest evidence of faith and hope is the ‘bump’ .  Tanya’s showing and last night showed me the US picture of the new baby to come. But their new home is so organized. None of the clutter and waste that I seem plagued with. There’s no bodies in the corners of rooms. No skeleton. No carcasses. No carion smells. Vultures aren’t circling.  

A couple of squirrels ran across the deck outside. Last night a rabbit visited.  There’s a beautiful Christmas tree in the living room. It’s a smaller version of the one my sister in law Adell cut down  in their yard and decorated with her cousin Melvine.  I’m amazed at people whose lives are sufficiently together to be in the season. I’m still storing hunting gear in storage lockers, have to get the cammo gear back to storage. 

Outside it’s snowing.  Big fluffy flakes. The stuff of Its a wonderful life. 

My nephew was making robots and talking with NASA. Now he’s working government computer programs.  I discussed the merits of plasma, nuclear and chemical solutions with my other nephew driving here. His engineering degree was chemical engineering but he’s more interested in plasma and back at University of Toronto studying plasma application and doing research.  

 They’re really good bright people.  Like Adell, Andrew and Tanya are cleaning up as they go.  

My nephew Allan, with his fiancé Meagan,  are heading back to England where they live. I wanted to visit them and go north to Aberdeen.  I told Laura we needed to return to Ireland and explore the south coast.  I want to sail there. Liked the harbours I saw when I was there. Imagined my sailboat in the harbour and me dingying ashore to an Irish coffee shop which served Irish stew.  I’ve looking into jobs. There are so many jobs for psychiatrists around the world, hundred and our government hates psychiatrists. Since we’ve got the stoner PM it seems all the government has gone low brow. Maybe it’s just everyone in power smoking dope now. They used to drink. Now cocaine is coming in. The problem is the sprinkling of fentanyl that’s killing the innoscents. .

Gilbert has been well cared for by everyone without me ever asking.  Tanya fed him and Graeme walked him and Andrew slipped him a bit of ham this morning  under the table. He feels as welcome as I do. Everyone has been caring for me. I’m the white hair. 

The two brothers are discussing light waves and audio systems.  Earlier Tanya was commenting on the sun damage on the hard wood floor versus wear and tear.  She’d mapped out the area of discolouration and was sure it was a chemical reaction with the wax.  I was amused at how many people would simply not know or take wear and tear for granted.  Really curious minds.  Andrew is talking about the varnish on the floor and the dining room table. He’s been installing lights in the bathroom.  Thanks to my father all the Hay boys are handy.  The brothers are talking about building a deck together this summer.  There’s all this incredibly advanced cooperative behaviour and sharing and discussing that others take for granted.

I work with drug addicts.  Every one of these natural flowing human relationship transitions and communications happening around me here  would have been ratcheted with attitude.  Conversations would be derailed. Everyone would be on guard.  There’d been that forever sense of walking on broken glass.  People in glass houses would be throwing stones at everyone. The rageaholics and the always offended looking for a peg to hang their anger on would be preying on your every word.  The bullies would be looking for respect. Did you respect me. All the inferiority complexes would be marching and demanding attention.  I’m going back to the war this coming week.  Being in this rest area back from the lines I’m relaxing.  The men had walked in and shown me their knives and revolvers.  The women have their complaints in quick draw holders on their chests.  The blood levels of drugs fluctuated personalities week to week. The professional police are like the Mexican city police. If you report a theft they arrive to take what wasn’t taken by the perpetrator and blame you for working with the dangerously insane. They have locks on their doors and guards in their high rises.  I’m on the street.  I sometimes dream of the jar of bed bugs thrown at me by the person who couldn’t get the government to address his infestation problem. The government isn’t ever near. So they hit us. We’re near. The government blames us for riling up the natives. They don’t even know the language and are too afraid themselves to be of any help to anyone.  That’s why they got their jobs. Bunker duty.

It’s not emotionally loud here though. I can shake off the work.  I can forget for a while the bullies and the toxicity.   I loved being with Adell and watching the family Christmas repeat like all those childhood Christmases with my father and mother, grandparents, uncles and aunts.  I loved when my grandfather and uncle came down from up north and Dad visibly changed to more himself. When we rode horses together with his cowboy and cowgirl friends he was like he was with his rancher logger brothers. Then my mother’s sisters would come and she’d relax safe in the uptown Toronto feeling. I love still sharing on FB with the friends in Fort Garry. Recently we all reminisced about climbing out of windows to shovel the snow from the doors to get them open after the snowstorm. I loved the pictures shared. I remembered snowmobiling through the city streets to man the emergency.  It wasn’t the only time I snow mobiles to work. I remember the 50 miles tundra ride and going throug the ice and walking frozen the last half hour to the nursing station where the aboriginal man had had a stroke and there was question of dates on the late stage pregnant lady.  I like snowmobiles but have no real justification for one in Vancouver where the snow is at most a sprinkling.  I just like vehicles. Have been missing my Mini Cooper here..

I’m relaxed. Family have certain traits. Here it’s assumed that you don’t hurt others.  Here people don’t lie. It’s just a Hay thing. I never knew that telling the truth and not hurting others were ‘optional’ family traits many but they are. I’ve spent too much time on the edge.  It’s comforting to be among this ‘normality’ despite the eccentric set of the lot. 

Last night they all watched a cooking show , the worst chefs, where the people were given a recipe and judged on their product. It was a variation of the singing one but really much more earthy and bad. Graeme and Andrew laughed hysterically at the misshapen baked goods guys and girls made who’d never baked before.  Just for the record, I’ve never watched such a show before.  Peculiar people.  Each with his or her own traits but all kind. All sensitive to each other.  All thoughtful.  

Tanya is like the elf princess in Lord of the Rings.  Sensitive in a gentle way.  Great sense of humor.  Now pregnant, a part of her tuned inward. Preparing for the child.

Gilbert feels at home here. He’s sleeping now.  

All week people have been doing their individual things, gathering to cook a meal together, making a puzzle together, then going off alone or in pairs to read or talk.  I’ve watched tv and joined in or read.

I was reading about Ethiopia, planning a trip,  and learning of all the bugs, malaria, rats, cobra, then dreaming of slow death by bugs eating one.  It was a Stephen King things but lucid dreaming so I was trying to escape.  I must be careful what I read before falling asleep. Most nights I’ve been dreaming of deceased family,visiting those who have passed, walking with my brother, talking with my aunt, eating a meal with my parents.  I keep seeing my father’s face and my grandfather’s face.  They’re happy and quizzical. They’ve all go so much wiser the older I’ve got.   

A new year is dawning. I’m not sure what I’m going to do differently.  This trip immediately and a medical conference late fall next year are the only destinations fixed in the journey of another year. I’ll motorcycle and drive and work and walk the dog. I’ll read and watch Netflix and enjoy my couch and swim and lie in the hot tub. I think that’s likely I’ve tickets to a Canucks game , the ballet, and a couple of concerts . I look forward to camping.  I really want to unload the excess in the storage locker and reduce the files.  Surely I can get rid of business files to begin and scan some clinical ones.  I’ve boxes of books that can go and old furniture and clothing that really needs to move along.  I’m heavy with stuff. I want so much to lighten up.

I’ve been in this place before. Never could sustain it.  Relationships wrecked by my restlessness.  I have to remember expectations are ‘preformed resentments’.  Another person my age I knew in college years died.  

It’s strange this dying bit. I remember when the divorces were infectious. I remember when the going to college was infectious. I remember when certain sports took hold in the yuppie world. I remember the standard travel plans and me being outside out of the norm and not fitting as my interests deviated so far from the safe and narrow of the politically correct, that place of utter mediocrity.

When I meet other solo sailors we’re in sync. When I meet other psychiatrists who have devoted their life to clinical practice we agree. I relate to people my age usually more than those of a different generation.  I’m always feeling adolescent with respect to the ‘fit’.  There’s a collection of traits which are supposed to go as a group, my dancing ballet and big game hunting are ‘abnormal’ .  I can relate to my nephews interest in virtual reality and my other nephews interest in energy production.  My sister in law loves education. She’s a gifted interior designer in retirement.   She’s so appreciative of music that took centuries to develop.  

I like to write. Steinbeck used to write letters to his editor before writing a passage in his books to come. I ‘blog’. It’s it’s own end. I like to write. My work is channeling the tales of people’s lives by the highlights of their successes and failures.  I’m wearying of typing all day. I’m having memories of when I was an executive copy typist.  Channeling. I like this nonsense better. The squeezing the puss out of my head journaling.  Superficial thoughts.  Now I’ll go back to reading Evelyn Waugh.  Amazing writing. Truly gifted for the use of English.  1930’s writer. Conversation with the dog or with God. It doesn’t seem to matter much.  

I’m flying west later today. I remember my father always starting an argument with me or my brother the last day of our visit. Ron and I discussed it. Only when we were older did we realize how sad he was to see us leave. It’s was nails on a chalk board to his heart.  He was such a strong man that he couldn’t cry easily.  Only my mother’s death brought torrential tears.  It was easier for him to get angry.  It took us years to understand. My brother and I in his last years talked a lot about our parents and our childhood.  

Adell gave me pictures of the grandparents this visit. She’s been going through old boxes.  

The Irish is turning up.

I remember my drunken Irish friend insisting only Catholics were Irish.  We’re the protestants and Fay for sure. 

Today the FB controversy was whether First generation Somalis should be Canadian Cabinet ministers.  Meanwhile Trudeau has set out to destroy Canada and is allied to the communist globalist rule by beurocratic elite. Brussels a  snake pit.  Somali was communist.  It attacked Ethiopia over Ogaden.  Communist Canada is devolving.  Death by tax. 

It concerns me.  Aetheist communists killed hundreds of millions in a matter of decades and most Canadians are ignorant of this history. I feel politically like an outsider.  It’s been so often like I’m walking about on an Invasion of the Body Snatchers remake  set. 

Enough.  I’m going to go back to reading Evelyn Waugh. 

September Long Weekend Camping BC

September Long Weekend.  I love the fall.  The chill has been in the air a few days.  With the rain the worst forest fire year smoke cleared some.  I’ve had the camper at home with Eric of Starfleet RV Repairs  fixing the seam in   the Palomino Maverick camper.

“I saw Eric siliconed the seam,” Dave said.

Mack responded, “Bill’s got Eric on speed dial.”

Well I didn’t expect to hit a tree backing into a spot.  Who looks up to see if there’s enough clearance.  When I got my sailboat I hit everything for few years too.  Then I stopped hitting things. I expect it will be the same  with this camper.  When I started sailing I thought everyone was standing on their boats to greet me when I came into docks. Up closer I realized they all had spears and were waiting to fend me off.  So far  though 

,the tourists in RV parks haven’t surrounded their rigs with big tires when they see me coming. In fact my  RV was hit no doubt by some blind octogenarian.  Meridian RV thanks to my insurance with Rand and Fowler is fixing that ding next week. 

 Just before I hit the tree limb, Dave had offered to watch, but I said I could do it myself. (Wrong).  

Eric replaced the the water pump too.  

 The trouble with a second hand camper is lots of initial repairs, but well worth it.  I wouldn’t have paid for what a new one cost so these minor repairs are well worth it.  It doesn’t leak. All the systems are working.  

The KTM 690 motorcycle is loaded on the front rack. The Motorino Electric Bicycle is loaded on a  back bike rack.  I loaded the Excalibur Cross bow and bolts and the  Winchester Coyote 300 short win mag rifle.  September 1,  bow season opens for bucks and rifle for Black Bear.  I plan to ride around on the electric bike early morning with the cross bow and in the after noon ride about with the rife.  Mostly I want to ride around on country roads and say I’m hunting.  I will likely do some hiking but I’m not really that keen on hunting like I once was.  I hope to shoot something for the pot  but mostly I’m looking forward to the outdoors, exercise, dirt biking, and the exquisite company of my two favourite person’s, Laura and Gilbert

“It’s Laura’s tent, “ Dave told Mack pointing at my camper. “I know, ‘  said Mack 

I’d woken early and gone to Better Health Clinic only to remember that Kayla the MOA had reminded me I’d booked off this Friday. Gilbert and I are creatures of habit.  We were now up and had done the dance of the 3 S’s in record time. Back home I got out of the dress shirt and slacks and donned my work shorts and Hawaii t shirt.  

I’d bought some  Walmart silicone spray to touch up a crack on my white RV.  It said it’s as ‘advertised on tv’.  What could go wrong?.  Well, for one I learned that the black cap means black spray.  My dad taught me to test paint on something before applying it to the object you were painting.  I should have followed his advise.  I don’t know why I was sure the spray was ‘clear’ except that I wanted it to be. I worry I’ve been listenign too much CBC and CNN news. 

He didn’t tell me that the pray on the advertsized on tv stuff is turbo charged and didn’t appear to  distinguish between camper and white truck.  I cleaned it up mostly.  There was a surprising amount on the windshield which would have interfered with driving.  I went back and got some white spray , as advertised on tv, not that I’d seen it on the shows that I watch.  The advertisers for silicone spray don’t seem to focus on us NCIS or Bing Bang Theory folk.    I also like to watch Mom. 

When Laura arrived in her little red Smart car with her Eagle Creek rolling carry on flight bag I was  ready to go. She did change George’s litter and put out his food, hugging him good bye. For a rescue cat who used to hide from everyone he now looks so forlorn when Laura, I and Gilbert leave him. Gilbert’s his best friend.  Why else would they lick each other’s butts? 

At Holeshot I had service booked to mount the Touratek Aluminum panniers and the windshield.  I got the Motorcycle off the rack without any damage to vehicles, self or planet.  While service was doing it’s thing I walked over to Moxies and ordered Laura and I a couple of their fabulous burgers and fries.  

“The waitresses were all models, Laura.  I don’t get out much I know but we’re talking drop dead gorgeous.”, I told her.  “ Of course they’re young and I’m just another dirty  old man ogling them. I actually resisted staring because I am Canadian and it’s know the world over Canadian men can actually rape women with their eyes.”   

Laura said she was glad I contained the Canadian male gaze.   “Remember the girls at Earl’s and Cactus club,  when  you asked your beautiful friend  Lisa how they got away with such discrimination against ugly girls and the feminists not doing anything.  You told me, she said, “I don’t know. I always get the job and they simply don’t hire ugly girls.”

“Exactly,” I responded, ‘ The feminists never fight fair. All this shit about racism when in fact it’s the ugly and the beautiful.”

“Did you see the Facebook thing  on Airline stewardesses, “ she responded. 

“Yes” I said, “ I hate the fat old  flight attendants.  I can’t imagine them helping me physically if the plane goes down.” 

“And they’re always so ornery and grumpy. “ Laura said, “ I feel sorry for them. I wouldn’t want to be having hot flashes at 50,000 feet either.” 

The KTM 690 looked beautiful and the boxes were huge.  Such an improvement. This weekend I’d be carrying ammunition and now with the boxes and their tie down spots I could add a net.  Grouse season opens in a week or two and now I’ll have a way to carry back game and also a place I can carry my break down 22 rifle to shoot the grouse.  I’ve a scabbard for the KTM I had from years back on my Honda. I don’t know quite how I’ll attach it.

We filled up with gas in Abbotsford and got propane in Chilliwack.  Now we’re in our favourite river side Telte-Yet Camp Site in Hope.  It just took minutes to get set up.  Laura shook out the bed while I locked up the bike and motorcycle.  Gilbert had another walk and we didn’t even bother with water or power because we’re going to leave first thing in the morning.  Heading up #1. I’m happy to be going in the day light. Maybe we’ll see game but mostly I don’t like night driving with critics waiting to jump in front of my new motorcycle and relatively new truck and new to me camper. I”ve seen pictures of guys who hit moose and with all I’m carrying I imagine it would be really messy. 

Laura is really pleased that we stopped.

“I like going to bed at 8:30 to read,” she said. 

The truth be told so do I. But bed time is more like 930 to 10 and I can read too.  We love reading.  I let Gilbert up on the bed. It’s so cute in the morning to see him lying on Laura’s pillow. If she doesn’t share he just lies on her face.  

I have learned

I have learned again that I have a great group of colleagues and friends from around the world and that I can call them at any time and know that they will listen and help me with any problems I might be encountering.  In retrospect I’d be wiser to reach out sooner rather than stew and worry and jury rig solutions on my own.  I know I have friends close to home but these friends I’ve known and shared with for 20 years have insights into similar problems and concerns. In one case what I thought was a local insane administrative problem reflects some ideological move which is happening far and wide and causing untold suffering for patients and doctors. Yet it’s an idea that has infiltrated the wee pee sized brains of the stupid and taken root like the holy words of Marx.  Some as yet unidentified health administration ‘prophet’ has infected these folk causing sickness in middle management, a kind of arrogant brain fever.  I am not alone. I felt so alone.  Yet British doctors and Australian doctors and doctors all across America and Canada are seeing the same insanity and the victims of the mental aberration don’t even perceive themselves as having this idiocy.  They collectively lack insight and react aggressively to anyone who tries to point out their derangement. They are definitely not willing to change and in the precontemplation phase regarding any willingness or motivation to change. So we do best to detach with love. Most of us can’t leave or don’t want to.  All of us seem most to love helping patients and serving our fellows so its a bit of a muddle right now for a wide variety of reasons, mostly the lack of education of management, their faulty models, aging populations, chronic disease and unfunded political promises. The tendency to ‘blame’ the individual doctor for systemic flaws simply reflects their own fear and aggressiveness.  It is best to stay safe.
I have learned that there are new medications that are indeed curative despite their side effect profiles and well worth a trial where all else has not been working. The costs of the new research are high but the cures are indeed amazing. There is hope for much with modern medicine. In the field of addiction where the reward site of the nucleus accumbens and dopamine tone are identified genetic studies and new medications are coming along. Some 10% of the population, maybe as high as 20% are affected severely by isolation and shaming. The existing legal approaches to the disease are wholly counter productive and politically there is a need to educate politicians, judges, and various others to appreciate the effects of shaming and isolation.  Primitive administrative models which rely on shaming and isolation, focusing on making individuals feel less than, are indeed the social mechanism that fuels addiction.  The monkey models of the effects of isolation and making one feel less than are amazing. The animals have no desire for cocaine before the mistreatment but after exposure to such regressive management become rapidly addicted.  The cost of addiction is simply widespread and misrepresented because of the tendency to see different organ or illnesses as separate when they have the same underlying abnormality of the reward mechanism.
I have learned that there is much benefit in exercise and that mobility should be more the focus than being free of pain.  Mobility is central to the human condition and once mobility is loss a wide range of illness follow.  Addiction is tied to loss of mobility so work with pain must emphasize mobility foremost.
I have learned that street fentanyl is a misnomer compared to the pure fentanyl used by anesthetists. The nature of the ‘fentanyl’ or ‘down’ used by patients is more akin to animal tranquillizer than opiate. I feel remiss in not being on top of the chemistry of these agents and will when I am home research this more as there may be insights to be had regarding addiction and substance.
I have learned more about the models of health care delivery and that there is a political buzz word ‘universal health coverage’ which doesn’t mean anything like people think it means. I have learned that Americans in general have no idea what the Canadian health care system functions like. It is apparent that the various health care systems around the world including the American handle emergencies and acute illness well but the problems arise in chronic care and rarer diseases.  It was truly fascinating talking with front line workers like myself about what would actually be done for individual cases and how similar the deficits were for the homeless and that access to medical care varied dramatically especially for the rural folk,  It was a wholly different discussion than the political disinformation and misinformation ideologically driven by media.
I have learned that I really like having discussions with colleagues about religion, politics and health care, and all manner of matters because not one of them belittled or abused me for an opinion different from theirs.  It was interesting that there were so many differing political opinions regarding the present President, those who clearly hated him and those who loved him but no one became violent or offensive but instead stated simply how the regime change was affecting them personally.  I was fascinated by how down to earth the people were and how gracious, more than me by a lot, those were who had been exposed to the 12 step. I found the parents and grandparents even more gracious and just a true joy to be around.
I have learned that the vast majority had benefitted from 3 to 5 year monitoring and that a restrained approach consistent with other socially affected models which didn’t demonize patients was truly effective.  Given that many diseases affect performance it was enlightening to see alcoholism and addiction compared with other illness and the kinds of monitoring which were appropriate for these.
I have learned once again that I learn more talking to colleagues with similar experience and training in a hallway than I do in a lecture theatre at my level of experience and age.  I am so thankful for the many conversations I had with senior colleagues, most now retired, two of my favourite psychiatrists sharing about their retirement this year, what they are missing, why they left, what their plans are.  I also learned that several enjoyed cutting back their practices and continue to work. I noted that most had moved away from the soul sucking models of management and were less driven by monetary concerns as by respect. I laughed at a colleague describing reducing his day because he realized he was too old to live long after treating more than one ‘death star’ patient a day whereas in his previous model of care he was treating a half dozen of these unmotivated chronically angry and demanding patients which he aptly named ‘death stars’.  I liked that together we could talk honestly and that political correctness was eschewed because we all were in the front lines and our compassion wasn’t just the matter of fancy word, virtue signalling and sound bites but reflected years of compassionate care and service.  Among ourselves no one derailed the conversation with the stuff that duels dealt with in the past but rather we discussed better what to do with ‘death starts’ and how best to survive and manage the experiences.  Interesting to me they were not limited to psychiatry but a common concern of specialists, if not more so than generalists.
I have learned that my colleagues are accepting care from their colleagues and many have had really good medical care, knee surgeries and heart surgeries and investigations and are alive today because of the success of medicine today.  That gives me hope as I age and fear the politics of health care and am afraid of dependency.
I have learned that I have been short and inconsiderate at times, allowed myself to be over extended and been insensitive to others. I have learned that I must review my own behaviour and responses daily and that I must apologize for my omissions and errors more quickly. I am aware that the deaths of my brother, my best friend and another close friend plus the severe illness and insanity of two close friends, the surgical removal of my dogs eyes has all caused me to be less attentive to those around me but that while I feel I'm running on 6 cylinders rather than 8 I'm not alone. Those others around me are normally equally stressed though differently. I have examples around me and an idea of the person I would most like to be and while the demands have escalated exponentially, and the number of angry and threatening and entitled people is disproportionate there is much I can do about my response. Daily review is something I have let slip and I need to be more proactive about this self reflection. My greatest mentors have died or are sick themselves so I must do more about shoring up my defences. Meditating more and praying more are showing benefit but I must exercise and surround myself with more positive relief from work given the death and disease where I am.  I must if I am to continue say no to the outrageous demands of the needy and co dependent and accept the adage physician heal thyself and be proactive and say no more not less. I have to put a premium on my spiritual well being and on my life because the truth is there are too many today who have not been socialized and they exist in low and high places.
I have gained so much hope and appreciated most the examples of my superiors and the laughter.  I loved learning all the personal challenges friends had and that they carried on. I am left wanting to emulate these men and women who have so often as indivduals and doctors set the example that has helped me carry on when I’ve been overworked, stressed, lonely and afraid.  I have learned that if they can carry on, so can I so I’m near the end of this conference looking forward to return.

Hope and the Palomino Maverick Truck Camper

The guys call the camper, “Laura’s Tent”.  I can’t argue I really do appreciate the security and luxury of the camper. It’s still a steep learning curve.  Together for the first time we tried to back it into the slot.  The battery had run down because I’d obviously left something on.  That meant the electric struts had to be manually cranked up.  This took time and significant muscle power.

“I said I needed exercise, so here’s God’s gift.” I told Laura who stood by holding onto Gilbert.  She can’t even reach the switch let alone man the handcrank.

Once I had it up, with a wind blowing, I was sure the camper was going to nose dive into the back of the truck.  It didn’t.

With the help of the black line Mac had told me his Dad had used, and I’d painted on a couple of weeks before I actually had it almost aligned first time but we hadn’t accounted for the cable which needed to be under the camper to reach. This resulted in a half dozen more tries and one bang that had both Laura and I convinced that was it, both Camper and truck were toast.

Ron, who John the kind owner of Chilliwack RV had called in to help with my refrigerator problem, was still in the park working on another RV.  I asked him if he’d mind helping.

“Sure, no problem”.

“Line her up. Crank this way. All the way over this way, Now hard left,  a bit right. A couple of inches backwards. No, too far, an inch forward.  There that’s good.” The camper was perfectly seated in the back of the truck.  We’d bumped the camper lightly and whereas Laura and I had died with the bump, Ron was nonplussed. The camper’s obviously were built tougher than we imagined not that I plan to test their tolerance.

I then remember the chains for tie down.  Wow! It would have been easy to forget those.  With the bike and the generator loaded, we were off.  We’d left Burnaby at 230 pm , a slow traffic drive and an hour in the lot, we were on our way east at 6 pm.  Not bad. It felt good.  Road trip.  

Ron had also taught me how to light the propane on the refrigerator though it still didn’t work because it didn’t ‘whoosh’ to power and because the battery had died and the slide was in covering the battery box, he’d not been able to test it.  With the truck idling while I was cranking the struts I’d been able to get enough power to move the slide in and out to get the bike in. 

We were on the road, the same rolling motion of the boat, but barrelling down the highway. I’d been hankering after more wilderness camping but with the battery needing charging and Laura wanting luxury we reverted to our ‘original’ plan to go to Hope where we’d looked at a lovely river site, Telte Yet Campsite,right beside the big Frazer river. We’d have town water, electricity and charge the battery to full and even have a chance to dump the waste at the end of the weekend.  Luxury.

The people were really pleasant and helpful There was 30 amp service sites available. People tent there too. Right beside the town so I didn’t worry about not having everything.  Laura guided me out back,tentatively. 

“I was terrified when you were backing under the camper.I thought the whole thing was going to fall over and crush Gilbert and me.”  

Now I just needed binoculars to see her in the mirror. But it really wasn’t a challenge. When we’d back up the first RV in Boston Bar when I couldn’t find a ‘drive through’ ,now that had been a trial. This was just backing up a truck. Two tries and I was positioned in the site by the picnic table and hand’t driven over the pup tent in the site beside us.

Either side were retirement age folk or people who’d lived really hard and looked retirement age but were still in their youth.  The man had three women with him. One was elegant and friendly asking us where we came from. They actually turned out to be from White Rock and like us just enjoying a different view and less city.

We’d brought more ‘stuff’ to stow and had the carpet and chairs out, water and electricity and Gilbert watered and fed in about a half hour.

Leaving Laura and Gilbert I rode my Torino electric rad bicycle with a Harley Davidson chain lock to Fields.  I have the Harley Davidson state of the art lock because more people would try to steal this bicycle than they would my Harley. At Fields I bought a $24 camo back pack.  Then at the country store I proceeded to buy more supplies than I could load in the pack sack and on the bike.  I’m
surprised at my capacity for overestimating the load but still somehow managing to carry it. This is always a conversation matter when I take the motorcycle to Costco and return with a truck load of stuff ,when I just planned to get a chicken,

I had the Little Caesars for Gilbert, a bone, cold ginger ale for us, chips, Hagen daz Vanilla ice cream, the specially made ice cream for roughing it in the wild, chocolate bars, and perrier.  I normally pedal on the bike to look athletic but with the load on I just road back on the electric bike getting waves from the Harley riders passing through town.  I manage 30 km.

Laura and Gilbert were settled in when I returned, having had more exercise. 

After I remembered where I stowed the barbecue I had it going and Laura gave me the beef whiners from Costco I’d brought. She had wiener buns from Cob’s and gourmet mustard.  The fellow next door was barbecuing steaks and commented, “You’re the chef of your outfit too, I see.” There’s as a certain whimsical cynical turn of phrase as we’d both obviously done the heavy lifting bits while the ladies all looked lovely.  Laura was sporting a new purple and white sun dress and the bracelet her friend Melody had brought from the north. 

Soon enough we were sitting in the camper with hot dogs and chips looking out the window at the passing river.

“I love the quiet.  In the city in the summer, there’s just so much noise, shouting, music, cars, banging...sometimes I like it a bit but mostly I just long to be out here in the quiet. “ she said, her apartment in Vancouver’s Westend epicentre.

I have this theory of consciousness with cities being dense nodes and the further out the more our consciousness can loosely expand. I love the lightness of being feeling sailing solo and sometimes in the wilderness I’m almost there. It’s so relaxaing.  

I didn’t sleep that well, it was hot, I could have put on the air conditioner but liked the breeze. Still I woke a few times missing my CPAP. I wondered too if it was the a bit of the notorious ‘smog’ air that sometimes settles in Hope. Still I was restless for a couple of hours, my mind not settling, worrying about patients, trying to push away the frustrations of work, falling back to sleep, only to wake at 6 am to Gilbert harrumphing at the bottom of the bed. He can’t get up on his own. I let him up and he did the squirmy licky thing. Thanks to Laura being there I only got half the attention.

A little while later I got up and walked him about the camp. It was 630 am. Only one other fellow was awake.  Peaceful. Even the town wasn’t awake.  Gilbert loved the walk and blessed the ground with 4 big offerings which I duly picked up and placed in the proper cans. It really disappoints him that I don’t appreciate the effort he places in the spot he chooses and the cultural significance this all has for his canine species.

Back in the camper I lifted him up to get his morning massage from Laura while I promptly fell back to sleep.

 I woke again at 930 am and see my neighbours leisurely coming out of their trailers to sit at picnic tables or or lawn chairs cups in hand.

I’ve got a cup of Kona coffee. I loved that islands coffee when I’d anchored my sailboat there. I ground the beans. That’s probably not something I should mention in a story about roughing it.  I Think I’ll grind another cup,though.. Laura has got up. She has a cup of the Nestle’s instant she prefers.  It’s a touch demanding schedule I can envision today.  Reading and lawn chairs. The sun is wonderful with the breeze off the river.  

Dentistry, St. George and Salvation

Dr. Doug Lovely extracted my molar on an emergency basis. He’s a kind and caring man, a gifted dentist and my personal Mensch.  He commented about the suddenness of the white van jihadi attack in Toronto this week, “Life is fragile. I doubt any of those people who got up that morning thought they’d be mowed down and killed on the street.”

As he was extracting my tooth he commented on the copious pus escaping.  “It must be 200 cc. No wonder your jaw and cheek were all swollen. Most people respond to antibiotics but you didn’t."
He went on to say, "Before antibiotics people died all the time from these abscesses.  When I read history I'm always  amazed at how many people died of infections, consumption, TB, pneumonia.  Then there were the flu epidemics. We take it for granted but antibiotics changed the course of history.” 

I listened as the suction took the pus. Then there was intense tugging and a cracking sound.  “It’s a boy!” Doug laughingly exclaimed.  His bright and beautiful assistant laughed too. There was obvious relief.  Anyone who lives in the real world, especially that of surgery, knows things can take very scary turns.  That moment though it was as if the war had paused.  The  words ‘cease fire’ were being shouted down the battlefield.

I laughed too, a little, as best one can, in a dental chair, another's fists in your mouth. My eyes teared with the relief.  God , the relief.  In the night I'd felt I couldn't go on.    I am so ashamed at how weak I am alone. I so don't like to be dependent, to ask for help, to need help.
The evil was now gone.  The thought of the pus though left me feeling dirty. The sickly smell of anaerobes in the room. The scent of contagion.  The shame. I'd been defiled and not even known it. I felt apologetic for kissing her days before.  I felt betrayed by my body. Smaller. Human.
The nightmare was all but over now.  I felt I was no longer on the down elevator, not moving up yet, but no longer descending.
There followed  a tense moment as Doug moved along to get out the back root. He heaved and pulled, a muscular activity, with steady gentle persuasion.  

 “You don’t want to break the root off in the socket.” He said.
I thought of thousands of years and millions of toothaches.  The sheer misery in the world untold, before the advent of modern dentistry, precision tools, anitibiotics,  anesthesia, guild and professional training.   A toothache can be so humbling.   We are an ungrateful species. I'm the worst, so utterly self absorbed till life literally slaps me in the face. 

When that second root came out it was a bit of an aftermath.  A last tug and more relief.  Both Doug and his assistant relaxed. The tension left the room. Almost immediately it was like the Post Modern Jukebox began playing a coccabana song.   Tropical breezes wafted through the room.  Water lapping on beach in the distance.  Sunrise over sand.  Sweet relief.
The offending tooth and all it’s parts were gone. The whole body strained.  Doug had been asking me how I was doing through out the procedure.  I'd only grunted.  Now I felt good. It's  been a long time since  I felt good.  

I’d not been breathing there for a bit. My chest  felt heavy. Bacteremia. Septicemia.  The whole process was a work out, a physical ordeal.  I’m not as young and athletic as I once was. I felt tired,  worn, battered.  The Travelling Willbury Song, “Handle me with care.”comes to mind too often these days.

The briefest exquisite pain occurred then, like an electric shock.   Doug pulled out the last of the abscess sack.   A tiny price to pay.  “I added more freezing but it leaks out so quickly at the end when everything is so inflamed.” he said.   It gave me a glimpse of what dental and surgical care had been like before the advent of anaesthesia.   What else do we take for granted, I thought. 

 Every second that passed from the removal of that offending tooth,  gospel band Third Day's song, "There's a Light at the End the Tunnel" now  played in my mind. Hillsong, Mercy,  Grace and Salvation all came to mind. Timeless themes.

I’d been crying in the night in pain and despair, waiting till 6 am to email Doug that morning. Sleeplessness makes everything worse. I remember  being alone at sea, at night, at the end of a hurricane , waiting for either my boat to break up, pitchpole in the high seas, or dawn to come. Dawn had come with all it's glory that day.  Dawn came this day.  Again.  "Ye of little faith."
I'd just read that Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, gave birth to her royal baby boy, serendipitously, on St. George's Day.   A great time of celebration.
I had a fleeting thought of  Dr. Doug Lovely as St. George, white shining dental armour, great dental lance,  the evil dragon tooth putrid tooth stabbed dead through the middle.  

I don’t know how long the pustulence had been there.  Abscesses are sneaky that way.  Like liars and false allegations. I’ve not felt well for some time.  Low grade fever. Lethargy. Disappointment with putrid politics.  Negativity.  I just couldn’t shake the foreboding. Too many family and friends dying. Patients dying.  Another great one died last week. He'd turned his life around and was a veritable success story in so many ways before his cirrhotic liver dragged him home.  Maybe only the good die young. I'm around for a long time.
My own mortality has been ever present. It’s been a  bad winter of sad blues tinged with poor rockabilly. The tooth flaring last week moved the whole universe symphonically.  It became a regular Tchaikovsky then crescendoed seriously Richard Straus at the end.  Now there’s hope again. I'd loved a little Bach, maybe some Handel's, Water Music.  I’d give anything for Strauss but that’s reaching in these shallow godless bureaucratic times.

I slept last night. I’m still on antibiotics. My mind is clearer. I woke to  sunshine and spring. I feel like Steven Segal punched me in the jaw in my sleep.  Otherwise the swelling is down.  I actually feel hope.  I’d lost it there. I'm pretty much a wimp.
Hope's like peace of mind.  And faith. They’re so utterly precious.  They colour the universe. Without them life would be just black and white and grey. I didn't  quite see them slip away.  Somewhere in the night. That 19th version of Dark Night of the Soul,the comic strip despair.
We'd  watched Monty Python last week,  the  Crucifixion Scene,  the men hanging from nails,  whistling and singing, "Always look on the bright side of life."  It's hard not to be cynical.
All those people who survived the jihadi van attack.  A new born baby boy..  A Royal couple pleased as any commoner.  The cycles of life. The blessing of spring.
There's a certain absurdity to a molar abscess. The dentist as St. George. I take life too much for granted these days.  I need to be more thankful for small mercies. The cracks that Leonard Cohen  described are the places where the Light shone in.  The gentle touch of the sacred can still be felt beneath the burden of the mundane.  
I heard the  bird songs today.  The scent of cherry blossoms was in the breeze.   Salvation  and Modern Dentistry.  Hooray for St. George.

Winter and Spring Fight to the Death, Hear all about it! Place your bets!

The snow came just after I called Trev Deely motorcycle to ask them to have my Harley ready a month early.  Dave had ridden his Softail past me with that smug look I’d seen on all the motorcyclists for days.  Spring was here.  Ha ha ha. Looking at you still riding in a cage.  I fear I jinxed it.  As we say among friends, “I may not be much but I’m all I think about.”
That’s when my furnace died.  I called Eric at Starfleet and had faith he’d have it fixed in a day or two. He’s the best there is and has solved every problem I’ve thrown at him over the years.  I just turned out the furnace lacked the normal access and each day he’d fix one thing and it would work better but crap out in the night. I love my electric blanket.
I fear I’d been thinking about returning to the prairies but this taste of winter cold and equipment break downs was a personal reminder of the struggle with the environment that was part of day to day existence out east.  Here I had mosquito people and horsefly authorities and wasp drivers but there were no real bugs in the lower mainland.  And winter didn’t last all year. The climate here is more hospitable. Even if the creepy people demand carbon taxes and punish people for heating their homes so LA people won’t have to use their air conditioners more.
Winter here lasted only a couple of months at most .  I’d just taken pictures of pretty blue crocus and tulips and posted them on Face book.  I called them Hope and Faith.  Would they survive.
Thank God for Canadian Tire. They had an indoor propane heater to attach to propane bottles. They are imostly used in construction sites.  The temperature had dropped and my electric heater limited by the available power on my cable wouldn’t do more than keep the temperature above 60. Since living in the tropics I will only wear shorts and t shirt in the home.  I was now wearing sweats and sweaters and slippers. I may as well be in Winnipeg.
When the weekend came I escaped with Laura to Harrison Hotsprings. The Harrison Lake Hotel was luxurious with heat and I sat for hours in the public hot spring pool dreaming of the Mariana Islands.  My dreams all week week were of my sailboat and fair winds and following seas. Darlene’s incredible Facebook  pictures of Australia beaches have certainly stoked the dreams. Laura began talking about her love of Saipan once the snowstorm hit.
This week Eric became pretzel man and got into the inner workings of the furnace to scratch the right spot that had made the beast ornery.  A tiny burnt out part that somehow not responded to the computer command to ignite.  Eric set it straight. Heat, glorious, heat was now mine.
I sat on the couch in shorts and T-shirt watching NCIS and Big Bang Theory in shock.  I went to work each day.  I love my F350 truck with new snow tires. I smugly watched cars fish tailing in the ice and snow.  I talked to a motorcyclist who said it was ‘awfully’ cold, the year’s best understatement.
All over the news the Justin Trudeau and family reality show desperate to out compete their role models the Kardashian’s and Jenners were in India dressed funny doing photo ops in front of impressive old buildings. I laughed at the quotes from Indiannews about how ridiculous they looked in their Indian “costume”. Anyway now I expect him to break into the song “It’s fun to live at the YMCA” Even when I visited Mumbai it was as sophisticated as New York so I’m not surprised Trudeau’s antics are perceived as “mocking”. When he visited us in the DTES he certainly didn’t get dressed in layers of rags carry and carry a sleeping bag.
  The India government was further disgusted with him as he was only meetings with terrorists, the same modus operadi he used in Canada. But even that didn’t help his plummeting ratings so he went back to his winning strategy of giving millions and billions to strangers. 10’s of millions to terrorists in Canada. Billions to overseas tyrannies. And now he says he’s got a million dollar ‘trade deal’ but it turns out he knows as little about a good trade deal as he knows about economy, environmen or community. He’s given $750 million to chucling gleeful Indian billionaires, he really likes to hob nob with billionaires at our expense,, and they have said they’ll give him $250 billion in return.  It’s like stealing candy from a baby. But the media is all over it and every one is smoking dope and drinking and no doubt some are trying opium because ‘why not’.
My patients are homeless and the news says the shelters turned away 50 people or more.  I’m writing prescriptions for antibiotics. The flu is killing old people.  There’s a sense the government wants to save money by killing off the citizens .  The death rate from the fentanyl epidemic I’m in the middle of is over a thousand and now they’re shooting each other near the clinic I’m working. But there’s another picture of Justin and Sophie cavorting in front of religious monuments in the hot weather having abandoned Canada to the cold for his weekly family vacation.
I snarl by myself at times.  My eye less dog comforts me.  He’s been in a world of pain and now we’re relatively okay. We have heat to return to.
Then the pipes freeze. It’s a diagnostic dilemma in the dark in the snow in the below zero windchill last night in the dark but I find some idiot (me) has unplug the heat wire for the hoses so he could plug in his electric bicycle falsely believeing spring had sprung.  I plug in the cord.  In the morning the shower is running full blast, the pipe unfroze in thee night,but there’s puddles mist and spray throughout the bathroom.  I towel everything  down.  I really have to pee.
I go to my refrigerator to get milk for the coffee I’m making and the fridge is off, the freezer meat is soft. Sometime in the night the water pump and new plug and electric heater have blown the circuit.  I re set it.  I now have heat and electricity and my refrigerator is working. My water heater I hope is back on line.  It’s taken me about a half hour to get this all back in order. I’m having my first sip of coffee.
I’m running a bit late. I didn’t do the sit ups I promised myself I’d do. I’ve not meditated but I’ve not suicided.  I’ve not shot up with a needle. I ‘ve not gone looking for a bomb to blow up some government office. I’ve not become a rapper. I’ve not voted Liberal. I’ve just plodded through a not atypical Canadian winter day knowing that as I’m in Vancouver this is likely my karma for all the ‘smug’ remarks I’ve made about Winnipeg when my friend Wes sends pictures of the magic driveways and walkways there that fill up with snow minutes after they’ve been plowed or shoveled.  Here the snow will be gone in a week or so. I hope the bulbs are deep enough to withstand the cold. I love the flowers of spring.  Soon I’ll be visiting the tulips in the valley for the annual glorious tulip festival.
I just have to remember that Spring does come.  Even in Winnipeg, Toronto and Montreal Spring eventually returns with warmth and joy for all.  I expect the media will have triumphal selfies of Justin Trudeau in Canada at last, maybe even at work in parliament.  It might just be once like the sighting of the ground hogs but even the French work here eventually.  The biker gangs and mafia will soon take to the streets. The corruption will heat up. It’s Canada , we’re resilient.
Another old friend died. He was spiritual. We know he’s in heaven.  That alternative appears more attractive in Canadian winters.
  My back hurts getting out of bed.  The chiropractor is helping.  I’ve been chewing aspirin and my lovely doctor gave me a stool sample kit for Occult Blood testing. I am surely bleeding in my aching gut with all this aspirin I’m taking to just be mobile so the last thing I want is a ‘false positive’ test. They threaten everyone over 50 with the long snake. As kids we were scared of them under our beds but these ones are real and despite the humor of Connolly’s description of a colonoscopy I really feel I could go to my grave happily having avoided medically induced explosive diarrhea.
It really isn’t that bad.  I have to look on the positive. Snow tires, clothing, healthy cat and dog, heat again, running water again, light and aspirin.
 There’s just this little bit about going outside. Too many car crashes. The other drivers scare me.
 I see people who can’t bring themselves to leave their apartments. I’m seeing more and more people afraid and paranoid.  The heart patients are having trouble breathing in the cold.
I have a picture of two malaria’s and a cholera up on my wall to remind me we’re just helping each other, one a little more along the road or a little less sick.
 My mother would say, “lord love a duck”.
. I’ve got to see if the water has had enough time to heat so I can shave. I need the inspiration of a hot shower especially to ease my back.
 I’ve got clean clothes.  And snow tires. Don’t forget the snow tires.
Thank God for spring and please get rid of this snow so I can ride my motorcycle.  Really I don’t want a pickle I just want to ride on my motorcycle.
 I trust you spring. You will beat winter . You always do.

Climate Change Catastrophes, Christmas Hope and God Incarnate

It’s amazing to be alive. I surprise myself in a random moment when I reflect on past darkness, near death experiences, illness, fears of the impossible and yet here I am today, still alive. I thought that everyone over thirty was impossibly old when I was 20.  I thought them wrong too.
I read recently that the last commune from the sixties still exists but that everyone guards their property from the takers and public works get no support.  We were so idealistic when we were young. We didn’t need history. The old had nothing to teach us.  We had each other.  There were so many of us too. I walked through San Francisco with flowers in my hair and finger painting on my face.
The drugs came and took so many of us.  The satanic drug dealers akin to the boards of tobacco factories, acid dealers, pot dealers and later coke and heroin hustlers.  Money. The basest materialists moved among us like bed bugs and lice, the lowest of lizards.  Our friends fell. I remember the first to go, the prettiest girl from my high school. We heard she’d been hospitalized.  A few years later she was in the safety of a born again church.  She’d seen the Abyss and didn’t want to return.  Surrounded by protectors her beauty was still translucent but looking closer one could see the opaque in her eyes.  The young and the beautiful were always too soft for the old and ugly.  Alone they perished. She survived, somehow.
I remember in the early 70’s the missing girls pictures all over Morocco and the blood stain of the murdered American on our rented penthouse floor.  I later  laughed that Maggie Trudeau wrote it was so safe for her there like all women who overlook the companionship of the Australian rugby team.  The ruling class depends on the strong but doesn’t wish to acknowledge them fearing they will one day usurp their fragile rule.
Heady days.  Such youth.  I will never forget dancing all night to London jazz with the eternally beautiful.
I thought that love would never end.  This glorious love between man and woman so rewarded with sanctified lust was the answer to everything until divorce upon divorce. A trinity of divorce.  And each divorce leaving scars on the heart like stab wounds mostly self inflicted until the abortions cut the soul.
Projection.  Always they blamed you even when you were not there. Miles away the blame was always on you especially when you were never even there.  Hearing gossip later.  The redactions and rewriting of history.
But tragedy was real and thankfully the comedy.
Now I am still alive.  I was so wrong. I thought I’d be dead by 30.  If I had died then I’d have been a hero. I was so impressive when I was young, athletic, handsome, intelligent, rebellious in an era of rebellion, surrounded by rebels.  Hip slick and cool.
Now I am old. Body parts don’t work as they once did. I have left behind the drunken all night parties and the orgies of all night studies.  I’m still doing all night call duties but I ‘ve not been called out of bed in years, the telephone sufficient for the external world. I’m there to reassure and guide. I don’t need to lead. I’ve spent decades ahead of the crowds looking back over my shoulder at the masses and revelling in my sacred loneliness. Now I’m overtaken by others, my skill only in hanging on.  I’m congratulated not by my great accomplishment but merely for living.
“Good to see you still alive ”. Friends congratulate each other.   Once I was congratulated on my awards and pieces of wall paper.
Today living is the award.
I am thankful to see the young but wonder how they can seem so very very young. When I was their age I thought I was an old man but now looking at them I cannot believe my youthful arrogance. My father’s advice and my mother’s advice and their lives seem so much more as I pass each of the milestones they passed. I read history and so little changes. I read the Bible and it’s words are wise today.  I thought everything I thought once was new to me. It was but it’s all part of an amazing interconnected tapestry. I see the relationships today where once I only saw the objects.
It is another Christmas too.  It’s coming up fast.  I am astounded at the nearing year end.  With all the doomsaying and dire predictions of the earth ending and great ostentatious Paris Summit and global warming and rising water I’m convinced I got caught up in the herd fear like I did when the number 1999 changed to 2000 and I thought my computer implode.   Mass terror is marketed by the media who sells fear and disease and death like dirty pornographic pictures.  Suburbanites and academics love to be voyeurs. Those who have known the horrors steer clear.  A sunny day and a picnic are enough.
I love to walk with my dog. His back was nearly broken in a fall.  I am so aware of individual fragility.  Each injury of mine with flying vehicles hurts on certain days of climate change, the real one, not the propaganda one.  I know the climate changes in a joint that today is reminding me of a particularly ignominious motorcycle crash.
I met another shooter and lamented our decreased hearing in our right ears thinking it would have been good if we’d used hearing protection earlier or moved further away from the speakers at the concerts.
Now I thank God I am alive.  I am so thankful for light and live to see the days lengthening. I rejoice for my friends that ski this season but helplessly think back to how much I enjoyed flying south to scuba dive, jumping the winter ship of Canada like so many others do. But there was a time when I snow shoed, ice fished and built quizzies and igloos.  Winter camping was so much fun when I was young. Now I realize youth is foolish and I’m trying unsuccessfully to appear sane as so many of my friends are being carted off with dementia and the government is threatening us all with physician assisted suicide.
Here I am glad to be alive and thankful there was no physician assisted suicide when I was younger and begged to die to relieve myself of the pain that eventually left me better and stronger and wiser.
Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you God for incarnating in your creation so you can see what a muck up it is and suffer with us.  I feel sorry for others with religions where the God is high on top , the mighty landlord who doesn’t actually live in his kingdom so never knows how his people survive. Jesus is my guy. He’s one of us.  As Neitze the lover of the superman, complained, Jesus is a god for slaves.  I am enslaved in this body and life. I long for moksha. I want resurrection. I wake up pissed some mornings and I’m sure it’s sufficiently because the Aliens didn’t abduct me.
Now Star wars is on and I’m hoping to get to the theatre regretting missing Mel Gibson’s Crucifixion at the movie theatre and experiencing it only later when it was in the second or third wave of DVD release.  I want to be at the head of a cultural moment. I want to crawl over the fat ass body of a Kardashiansand be the first to see Star Wars. But my friends have always been there. When I was young I was early to Rocky Horror Picture Show but here I am wondering if I want to dress and get to the line ups that are the crowds that I revelled in when I was young but now abhor.
A man was knifed beside me at a bar and bled out while no one noticed. I fear the very crowds I was drawn to when I was young.
Jesus was born.  Hallelujah!
Jesus , God, lived and died.
The very people who attended the Paris Summit, the UN leaders, the Putin, Obama, House Said, China’s Communist Committee, France’s President, England’s Prime Minister and Justin Trudeau would be the ones who killed Jesus today. He’d not be crucified but rather put in a psychiatric ward to be silenced.  He’d be electrocuted perhaps.  As Christians we’d all wear little electrocution chairs about our necks instead of crosses. He’d be a God who was killed before he could end the war.  Trillions spent on weapons and myths would not be given to medicine and education because he was killed and silenced again and again.   Jesus the healer and teacher would be killed by all those who profit from war.
I would be there stabbing too.  Everyone on earth who is not a child would have the blood of Jesus on his hands.  This is a planet of war and killing. All the adults are equally responsible. There is no us and them.  Except perhaps the children or the very old and the sick and dying.  And the old and sick and dying had their turns.  But the children under 8 , maybe 6, those young enough that no one trusts them with a gun or a bomb even though their parents might use them as sex trades and suicide bombers and human shields, they are the only innocents.  Not the women ,not the men, not the boys , not the girls, perhaps only the infants.
Like Jesus whose birth in innocence is celebrated at Christmas.  God thank you for joining us.  Infant Jesus. Hallelujah!

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.