Winter Storm

I awoke at 4 am this morning.  I got up to pee.  There was no water when I flushed the toilet.  I checked the taps. No water. I went out in the cold in my pyjamas in clogs still wet from yesterday. I checked the plug for the water hose heat tape.  I believe it was well secured.

I prayed. I hoped.  I couldn’t sleep.  There is no scarcity.

Yesterday I used my last propane tank,  Delivery isn’t till Friday.  I am anxious about the propane and heat,  I do have the barbecue small propane,

I’ve been using the electric heaters to reduce the propane since yesterday.  

It seems drafty in my home.  I’ve put on underwear and tights under my night shirt.  My flannel pyjamas are in the storage locker along with my fur hat.  I have warm comfortable slippers but should find socks. I have hiking boots that would help.  

I woke from some bad dream. I read yesterday that trauma was infectious, an article on ptsd. I’ve had enough of my own trauma and I’m reliving the trauma of vets and victims.  

I remember the winters on the sailboat, the hose on the dock freezing, depending on the water in my tank, rationing, no showers.  Showering at work. I’d ride my motorcycle in the slush and sleet. I’d smell of diesel and not realizing sitting in the luxury of my comfortable appealing office,  I was thankful when Tom brought me a large tank we filled with water during the day and it lasted the cold spell. I ran a hose to the tanks and managed for those weeks of terrible cold, the dock iced and the dogs and cats sliding despite their claws as we struggled to make it up to the car in the parking lot.

Yesterday the roads were closed.  There’s a few feet of snow on my Ford Truck and Mini Cooper.  When Mack with the grater cleared the road I walked out to see my vehicles.  I’d not gone into work at the clinic.  The news said that the roads were dangerous. I have an F350 with winter tires and chains but Vancouver drivers don’t know how to drive in Canadian winter. They have electric cars with summer tires.  A film of an Aston Martin fish tailing all over the road went viral. It confirmed my suspicion. I was glad to work from home.  

I’m barely managing. My back hurts and I feel fragile.  Aging isn’t for the young. I do all the exercises, swam last night and used the hot tub.  The inversion table I ordered through Amazon, came and I have it in the garage still in the packing. It needs to be assembled. I don’t seem to find time. Yet I can watch the new Halo Sci Fi alien series on Paramount plus for 3 hours in the evening.  My sidewalk needs shovelling but I can’t find my shovel. It’s may be under the snow. I could borrow one but then I’m hesitant to subject my back to the strain.

I’m in defensive mode against the universe. I know the best defence is offence.  Go face them and fight them be savage again says Rudyard Kipling in my brain. Younger I was made of sterner stuff.   

I installed my new Starlink satellite and it was going well but then it wasn’t so I unplugged it and started all again It might well have been a temporary outages but I thought it was overheated only to find once I ‘d disconnected it that it was normally warm. So I put it all back together and forgot the password. I didn’t watch tv those evenings, After a 9 hour day of work I spent 4 hours a couple of nights dealing with tech issues.  I have the Mac equipment all working and have continued work with ipad and MacBook, newer, but the older PC isn’t working and I think it’s a PW thing.  I couldn’’t get the security cameras back on line either except the Blink . I want them all working before I go away after Christmas for a few days.  The Blink is fine but my mind says I need a full array. 

In Arizona last month I watched the cat and a raccoon pass through the yard at night.

I have a full array of fears and 2 years of constant fear bombardment by the government I’m worn down. I had a sore throat on Monday and it’s gone. Belinda said the staff had been having these come and go. My powerful psychosomatic defences responded to that little reassurance. I was in a struggle to the death internally fighting off images of dying in ICU’s unable to breathe.  I was crying for my friend who died. There’s never been enough time to grieve.  Every day and every year there are more sick and the party of clowns continues non stop in the capital cities.

I would wallow in self pity but I realize women are being killed weekly in Iran and Chinese are locked and immobilized by storm troop police. All over the world there are riots against the NWO regime and it’s lies of dire climate change and hysterical control measures to viruses.  The war continues in Ukraine and China now has 400 intercontinental nuclear warheads aimed at me, here, us.  I remember growing up in Winnipeg on the flight path to the Russian nuclear missiles targeting the American silos just south of us,  

I know safety is an illusion and perception,

I’m chilly today despite the electric heaters and propane furnace warm clothing and my second cup of coffee. I was so glad that the water reservoir was full from last night. I know that if I take action each of these challenges and fears is reduced. It’s the curling up in the fetal position that makes things worse. I could bring in the frozen 5 gallon container and it would be thawed out by the time I needed it , if I needed it

The water may not be frozen just in my hose but may be at the pump. A few years back this whole sector lost it’s water when the main froze,  I remember my friend coming from Winnipeg and enjoying the shower because he was still running a hose from the neighbours to shower after the suburb lost it’s water to a deep frozen main beneath the streets  It was weeks or months before they could solve the problem. Water needed to be trucked in.

I remember with tears my elderly neice living in the freezing cold of the old family house with no one knowing that the furnace had broken and she didn’t have any money for repair.  My brother said you could see your breath inside,  She never wanted to bother anyone and just didh’t know what to do.

I know what to do. I’ve been doing it all my life. I’m very handy and was raised by an engineer father who was constantly maintaining the house and cars while we took it all for granted.  

I’m a survivalist. I have all these skills. I have most of the equipment to thrive though my chain saw and pumps are in the storage locker.  I imagine later today I’ll get the broom out and sweep off the truck, hope it starts, so many times I’ve charged or changed batteries, with frozen fingers and ears.  

I just got back from Arizona and Mexico missing the November gloom and rain so that winter hasn’t seemed so never ending as yet.  Since Covid I’ve felt in Vancouver like I did in Winnipeg when spring seeemed never to come and the SAD lite didn’t bring the happiness promised. I don’t like darkness in morning and early night.  The short days were in Arizona too but the sun was bright and warm in the day.

Not like the wan sun in the sub arctic where I worked for years,  I don’t know many who can recall the bush pilot having to use a blow torch to warm the oil pan so he could start the plane and get us out of the reserve where we landed .I remember that and the fear I had taking off uncertain, The same holds true for being in the DC3 when the runway was black ice so we had barely hit the tarmac before we were bouncing into the ditch. The plane flipped onto the wing which crushed with a god awful noise but we were stopped and the pilot and stewardess helped me out of the side exit which was now on top.  

It’s my mind that’s the problem. No one better to know that than me. I need to have gratitude. An attitude of gratitude will always dispell fear and sorrow,  But I don’t want another. AFGE - another ducking growth experience,  I prayed, I sat in meditation but I wassn’t at peace,  I feel I have to cancel some of my day, to make a trip to Canadian tire for a scraper and shovel and more propane,  I hadn’t counted on one of my tanks being ‘expired’,  The fellow wouldn’t fill it,  It’s hard to keep up with all the tasks and binge watch tv at night when I am so exhausted that seems all I can do though when I swim and I’ve done that 2-3 nights a week I feel i have more stamina. I walk the dog at least an hour a day in spurts buth during the week it’s hard to get a half hour in morning and a half hour at lunch and a half hour in the evening. I’ve been short changing him. I’m always short of perfection .  I try to pace myself but the problems don’t seem to slow. The printer is down because the satelite was down and I’m uncertain of the password,  I was so thankful I could deposit the cheque at the bank because Nova Scotia on line banking is such a bitch to re install with their silly password security questions that only an accountant could solve and yet for now reason the cheque photograph function has failed I’m afraid to re install it because last tine it took a week and 2 bank managers and hours of my time going to the bank and on the phone to get it restarted.

I couldn’t stand for the pain and thought I should go to hospital and call an ambulance lying on the floor but waited because I didn’t to spend days on the floor in hospital waiting . I’d done that with my father.  The pain passed, I know it’s grief but a physical doctor would say it’s something else.  I have pain. I’m aging.  It’s all in my mind. My mind is in God’s mind and all is well. Fear will kill me faster than anything else,

I used to be stoic.  I used to laugh more. I think of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and this government as so like the Adam’s government intent on building a space highway through the earth and insisting they beurocrats had given fair notice by posting it at the nearest planet to earth . I like that the old gods of Dick Gentleys Holistic Detective Agencies have taking up residency in nursing homes because they get clean sheets and tea is brought to them.  

I worry I’ll be homeless though I lost faith in homes with the last divorce,  The mausoleum and insaniety . 

It’s now 7 and still no light. When I was sailing off shore and it was night I knew I just had to hold it together till dawn because everything was better in the light even if the 40 foot seas were horrifying to see, it was all so much better than my imagination of how much worse it was than it felt in the washing machine boat bucking and straining and threatening to pitch pole.  

So many near death experiences come to mind when I open that door but I don’t dwell instead on the recovery.  There have been so many. The sun always rises. When I die i will awake in another dimension, hopefully a paradise like Mark Twain’s Captain Stormfields Visit to Heaven

I don’t want to dig about in the snow to follow the lines and check the source if there’s problem at the main, Kelvin went over my water system last month to ensure it was skookum,  It’s just these are the coldest days.  

I haven’t down the laundry for fear there is some freezing along the outlet and I’d hate to have a water spill.

I just remembered the year it got so bad living in winter on the SV Giri that I moved ashore for the weekend taking a suite in the Bayshore and loving thee luxury, hot showers and room service. I might order a pizza tonight, I have a meeting and hope to go though right now my being is still pretzelled in a fetal position,  I’ve had coffee. Incrementally things have improved. I’m feeling the need for a bowel movement and considering what I ‘ll use to flush but I have liquid toilet cleaner and wet ones.  I’ll feel better.  It’s going forward.

The alarm went off and the Creed played, Inspirational.

I’ve been alone so long.  My father and brother had women who helped them and were assets, I reflect too quickly on the women in my life who tried to destroy me and how I picked them like that, damaged by some earlier relationships or insane drunken parents.  I have always been too willing to bite off my leg to get out of a trap.  

I’m blessed though. In the tarot deck there is the fool stepping off a cliff .  Everyone has called me lucky but I’ve just concluded that’s God acting anonymously, good karma or even sense but not something to disparage a person about. I was so brow beat in marriage. I began giving as good as I received but eventually found solace in silence. I was always blamed and shamed and wrong. Certainly never good enough.  Certainly not perfect,  Mostly poor despite constant work and providing for others.  

See the quick slide to self pity.  I haven’t drunk wine in 25 years but still am so which to whine,   The winos really worse such whiners in their cups,  

Today I’m struggling to be positive and hopeful even without water immediately. There’s no concern in the present. My anxiety is for hours or days away and my struggle with cancelling work I keep hoping the heat tape just went off and that when I fiddled with the plug it came back on and all shall be well. Though now I’m tired having been sup since 4 am.  

Silly Billy.

Thank you God for all your blessings, Thank you for the Hound of Heaven poem and the poem of foot prints in the sand,  

I’m so afraid and frozen in 

Valentines Day Snowstorm, BC Ballet, A&W meal, Terrorists for dinner and Sealy Posturpedic

Vancouver 20 cm plus snow storm hit on Friday. I had tickets for the Ballet and Pacific Theatre that night.  Laura was out in Point Grey where the steep hills had cars sliding and lanes blocked with snow. I was driving my Ford F350 4x4 truck around Surrey and Burnaby.
I didn’t want to go into town because of Vancouver drivers.  All of them are aging hippies with cataracts, stoned on BC Bud, drinking BC wine by the case since Alberta boycotted it when BC refused their flatulence. Everywhere cyclists are defending bike lanes and seeking ICBC claims.  The rich Asian immigrants, criminals from Communist countries ,where their profits are based on who they know and knowing where the bodies are buried, well, they just buy their driver’s licenses here.  The kids high on crack and crystal meth speed their Lamboghinis.  No one knows how to drive in snow.
I might catastrophize a tad about BC drivers faced with white stuff. At least we’re not in Ontario or Quebec where the Climate Change Dicaprio Cult is at their fiercest.  Climate Bartie groupies with Offended Ken see any change in weather is proof of their religion.  They’re worse that the Cargo Cults.   Meanwhile the middle class is sacrificed en mass to the latest fashionable get rich quick taxation scheme.  Which citizens can we demonize this week.
“Can you move the tickets to Saturday night, “ I asked her.  She’s good about dealing with tickets. She was already switching my friend Dr. John’s tickets to Saturday so his son could go in his stead.  I told John his wheel chair tires need studs. They slide to much on the ice.  But the city complains studs hurt the roads.  All the Gaia folk don’t want you to walk on the planet and the city doesn’t want you to hurt the roads.
Laura wasn’t even sure she could get home in the snow. “I didn’t bring my tall boots with me. Only the ankle boots. They’re going to fill up with snow.”  She was house sitting caring for a dog out in the Point Grey boonies.
Saturday the snow had stopped and the big thaw had begun.  Fabulous day.  Sunshine and warmth.  All one could hope for in a spring day. I’m sure the blue crocus and yellow tulips that had poked their heads out of the soil were pleased too.  They’d committed with hope and faith to the coming of spring. Now this had struck.  The Vancouver city plows were doing a masterful job.
Locally, Mack was working the plow in our neighbourhood.  Dave actually came by and shovelled my walk. He’d go on to shovel his daughter’s big Langley driveway.  I wasn’t dressed yet and had to assemble the shovel I’d bought at Home Depot.  Now that the founder of Ikea is dead everyone is muscling into his turf.  Home Depot Ikea type shovels.  While I was assembling my shovel Dave had finished the walk.
I’d bought another propane tank at Meridian RV and more toilet paper the day before in case we really were socked in.  Eric had fixed my furnace the week before and I didn’t want to stop enjoying the tropics in my home just because I lacked propane fuel. If I had any say in the pipelines from Alberta I’d say run them right to my door.  Being without heat is devastating in Canada, even in a Vancouver winter.
Last week I’d been going to work and coming home to a living room with a 30 galpropane tank with indoor heater head from Canadian Tire. I was also relying on electric heat and electric blanket at night. It was all precarious.  My back still hurt despite exercise, industrial supply of ibuprofen, ASA , robaxin, voltaren and chiropractic visits. Chronic pain gets worse in cold..  I had so much work that was backing up too.  My environment was fighting me all the while the government was stabbing me in the back. At least I was not alone.
While Canadians were suffering unprecedented snow storms, terrible cold, flu season and gnarled traffic our dynastic Stoner Prime Minister was making a fool of himself in the heat of India. His trip was naturally  paid for by the carbon taxing of Canadians, old folks and veterans dressing in three and four layers of clothing in an attempt to use as little heat as possible to ’save the planet.   Carbon  dioxide is the air plants breathe as do we. so yes, the air we breathe was being taxed so our Selfie Socked Prime Minister could galavant with terrorists in India.   Others in the UN Agenda 21 hegemony were similarly redistributing wealth with pseudo science.  Meanwhile  the Sharia
Communist, feminist ,virtue signalling PM Trudeau who had hoped to dine with terrorists again so he could give them the standard Liberal $10 million dollar terrorist encouragement bonus was blocked by an aghast Indian press who thought the man daft.
CBC would never have question  holy aetheist family of Quebec.  He  was shocked that others didn’t find his boyish charms amusing. So he fell back on his winning strategy. Buy your friends with Canadian taxpayer dollars.  gave Indian billionaires $750,000 in exchange for an $250,000  claiming a major business and diplomatic coup, a billion dollar trade agreement with India. This was from the economic idiot who said ’the budget would balance itself.” .  Only it turned out that  Canada was giving his Indian Billionaire cronies $750,000 and getting only $250,000. Just like taking candy from a baby.
Behind closed doors there were no doubt lots of promises that Punjab in Canada would vote as told by their colonial and post colonial leaders.  Trudeau was dancing up a storm in his latest tax dollar wardrobe.
Then to add insult to injury, he flew in from a Canada an Indian chef, not a particularly good one either, but charming like Trudeau and no doubt a major Liberal supporter.   However to fly in an Indian chef to India is the height of cultural insult. A form of Cultural terroism.   As if India doesn’t produce it’s own Indian chefs.  Someone must have stopped Justin and Vijay slaughtering a sacred cow for the dinner because not a moo was heard. With his hourly costume changes he’s looking more and more like Gadaffi every day. At least with him out of Canada Canadians could get on with winning at the Olympics.
A three quarter of an hour drive across town on the lousy roads and still blocked traffic took me an hour and a half.  Laura was out on the street waiting for me in her ankle boots in the snow.  The streets were turning icy with the night.  Parking the F350 with crew cab and 8 foot box is it’s own trick.  I’d told Laura I’d take her for dinner.  But with traffic, snow, parking and everyone else of like mind there were long line ups at the restaurants near Queen Elizabeth.  We walked three blocks to the almost empty A & W.   Laura is a trooper. One Ballet it snowed while we were inside. She was dressed in a little black number and high heels.  I’d picked her up on the Harley and that’s how I drove her home in the snow.  This night was   Mamma burgers and fries.   We normally have fast food driving with Gilbert getting a little burger paddy.
The Ballet was tremendous. Medhi Walerski’s choreography was spectacular.  This last evening was sold out.  Some of  the Friday night folk like us appeared to have, like us, moved their tickets to Saturday night. It was a squeeze. It was also an older crowd than Friday alone.  Because it was an adult theme there weren’t the gaggles of ballet children.  Well coiffed and exceptionally well dressed adults though.  I loved that the fellow sitting beside me with his husband had an appliqué coat.  Great fashion idea.
Medhi Walerski was also in charge of costume design which in its modern minimalism was so well conceived.  I loved the simplicity of the Theun Most design using rectangular blocks as doorways and benches.  Elegant really.  The whole cast of the ballet were on stage for most of the show making it very exciting and busy. The fight scenes were gloriously rendered in high art.  C.T. Roland Cooper’s Sword Play and Joshua Reynolds Combat Instruction was all filtered through the most ingenious dance mind of Medhi Walerski. Every move was symbolic and refined.  A joy to watch.  So much happening all the time.  Montagues and Capulets everywhere literally flying about with great leaps
and bounds. I do think Shakespeare would have approved.  The dance was worthy of his genius.
Kirsten Wicklund had been Juliet and Christoph Von Riedermann Romeo on Feb. 23.  Emily Chessa was Juliet and Brandon Alley Romeo the other nights.  Their pas de deus and interpretations were
exquisite.  The whole first set was a delight.  I really did like the clever use of curtain and scenes.
In the washroom at break, a fellow commented, “the death scene went on a bit long’.  We all laughed as so one said, ”It wouldn’t be art if it didn’t.”  It really was of an era when a ‘good death’ was to be desired.  Such drama. Such poise. The last moments of a man and woman so important. Such a contrast to the proletarian present with it’s utilitarian approach to death and such efficiency euthanasia.  Death captured Shakespeare in all its historical glory.  An age of innocence. High art. BC Ballet did it well.
The shorter second act dealt mostly with the star crossed lovers.  Beautiful dance.  “It reminds me of the opera,” Laura whispered. There was alot of the acting of parts to explain the poisons and the parents.  Then the love scenes. Nothing says joy better than a man lifting a white clad girl high above his head as she arche swan like to the heavens.  Such beauty and form.  I loved the fake death and the rippled sheet so like sand on a beach. The music of the London Symphony with Andre Previn was so good that Laura looked for the actual orchestra. More deaths more drama and more remarkable dance.
For me it ended too abruptly, artistically true, but lacking the meaning that Shakespeare meant of the tragic loss of star crossed lovers that mocked the very division of Capulet and Montague rivalry. The cost of hate to community. It was there but the ending seemed to focus on the loss rather than the lesson.  But these are post modern times and morality is subsumed by beauty. The ending was so dramatic that the audience lept to it’s feet en mass in great applause.  What a wonderful night of BC Ballet. They’ve been invited to tour Europe.  Well deserved too.  The Ballet BC is a unique company of contemporary dance at its finest. We’re so fortunate to have their innovation and genius here in Vancouver.
Out in the cold the roads were icy and unplowed in Point Grey so I was thankful for the truck despite the difficulty with parking down town. A good choice.  I left Laura with the gifts I”d ordered from Amazon which had thankfully arrived in time for Valentines.  We kissed. She went off to house and dog sitting.  I drove back across the city to the warmth of my home and my blind dog, Gilbert.   Gilbert and I walked the block at midnight. He seemed miffed that the snow had covered the messages of friends.
Finally in bed, the expresso I have at shows to avoid snoring, inevitably keeps me awake later.  I was looking forward to the Canadian Sealy Posturpedic Mattress I’d ordered from the Hudson Bay. It was to arrive on Sunday.  Here I was on Valentine’s Day longing for my true love, bed, at my age.  A Sealy Posturpedic back mattress my Valentine’s Day gift to myself. Laura is excited that  she’ll be able to share the new firm King sized mattress with George, Gilbert and me next week.
 We loved Romeo and Juliet we really couldn’t related to the passion,poison, suicide and daggers. When we were younger for sure. But now the prospect of a Sealy Posturpedic mattress and a better sleep, that’s exciting. . I don’t suppose that would make a great theme for Ballet BC.  The whole idea of the new mattress is to reduce the movement in the night not increase it.
The mattress did arrive.  It was a trial for the young Pun Jab men, one of who showed me a picture of Trudeau and told me that he was going to help Khalistani separate. I supposed we were going to war with India.  Maybe  he’d teach the Khalistani how Quebec extorted billions from Canada by constant threat of separation.  I liked these guys though. Good workers.  Friendly.
I love my Indian friends here and so loved my time in Mumbai.  I certainly don’t want a war with India.  I just burned some incense I’d bought home from the Paramehansa Yogananda ashram outside San Diego. I’m so looking forward to going to the International Society of Addiction Medicine Conference in Delhi next year this time. Really I’m just envious of Justin Trudeau.  I’d like to take a week or two to go from the north to Goa and Kerala.  I’m covering in the clinic for my Indian doctor whose home is Goa. As a good son he’s dutifully visiting family.
These two fine strong gentleman had their work cut out getting the king size mattress through the smaller doors. I thanked them for their efforts before they headed off for another delivery.  I’d had to get out the screw driver and make room so finally the mattress was seated.  Kaloo Kalay! He chortled in his joy.
When it was finished I was inspired to tidy vacuum, shake rugs and wash floors on my hands and knees.  A new Sealy Posturpedic mattress deserves a good clean home.  George, the cat had bolted into deep hiding when the mattress had come. I’d put Gilbert in the back room.  He whined. Now the two were out of sorts with all the vacuuming and cleaning. Gilbert and George think everything below knee level is their domain. Gilbert was especially annoyed  that I was moving his toys. At first opportunity he got some out and spread them about the living room.
I then made the great bed.  New mattress cover. New clean King Size Sheets. Duvet.  Electric blanket. Hudson Bay Point Blanket, this year's much loved  Christmas gift from my sister in law and nephews. .  I helped Gilbert up on the bed and we both tested it. George is still suspicious of new things.  Gilbert and I loved it.
Now I’ve slept in it and though the firmness results in tingling in my fingers I’m hoping the new Water Pillow will reduce the neck flexion and eventually all will be well. I love the support on my back and waking this morning less stiff with less pain. I think I love the ballet as the mental images teach my resistant body of what it’s supposed to do. Of course I was a dancer once.  I once did such moves, I  lifted up lithe ladies over my head so they could swan on my shoulder. Ah those were the days.  Now I long for aSealy Posturpedic.