Oh! One more thing…

I forgot to tell you one more thing that has been big in my life for the past two or three weeks. Beatrix has been reading The Obesity Code, which focuses on insulin control, and thus deal with weight gain and loss. She began reading and practicing as a way of managing her weight, which is, apparently, very difficult to manage. She loses weight ever so slowly, or not at all, no matter how she diets.

Part of this practise involves periodic fasting - liquids only, no sugars or solids, for up to 36 hours. She is doing this two days weekly, Mondays and Thursdays. I have not fasted since the days of my running, some thirty years ion the past. I decided to join her. I wanted to lose 7 or 8 lbs. living on liquids alone for a day.

This has been going quite well. What started as a physical practise is turning out to be a much more profound experience. For one thing, living on liquids alone for a day sharpens the mind. It also frees up time and energy - which surprised me. For example, on fast days, I swim  more easily and with less fatigue than on days  when I eat solids! This has been a great surprise to m.

Another learning is that I am able to live quite comfortably on five days food each week. I don't overeat after a day of fasting, and I sleep better. Although I wouldn't call it a spiritual practise yet, there is no doubt that fasting has an impact on me that is far deeper than mere physical "doing without." I will keep you posted on this situation over time.

April

It has been a fantastically warm month - a record for this part of the world. The snow has been gone for weeks, and it has been 20° C more than once, a temperature unheard of in this region. It has been  great month for me, so far. My daily swim has been exciting, since the grade school kids have been taking lessons in the pool tight next to my swimming lane. This has made the pool sound like a day at the beach, with shrieking kids having a ball learning to swim. Some of them actually notice me! One little girl, after watching me swim for 30 minutes, came up to me with an amazed look, and said, "You do really good out there!" I guess she marvelled at such an aged person swimming back and forth, back and forth. Another grade two tyke (7 years old) looked at me intensely and asked, "How old are you?" Like perhaps someone so ancient shouldn't be in the pool. I told her I was very, very old.

The Red Cross swimming instructors, all of them my lifeguards, are terrific with kids. They give lots of themselves to the wee ones. I bring them treats once or twice a week to show them my appreciation. This program will go on until mid-May. I love it! I am swimming more front crawl lengths than earlier, and getting stronger at it. Thirty minutes a day, seven days a week. I do miss walking, but I'm not prepared to give up the pool to walk.

Another bit of excitement for me is my dream life! I haven't dreamt so often and so consistently for years. And the dreams are bazaar and highly symbolic. I tell them to Beatrix as soon as we're up, because they fade from memory very quickly. Sometimes I spend half the day interpreting them for myself. I wish there was a dream group I could join, like in the old days in Winnipeg, when we met every week to share dreams and work on them. My dreams have involved my children horses, people of Turkish extraction, small towns nearby, and road trips. So far, no erotic dreams.( Sorry)

I am looking forward to Jennifer and Balou's visit this August. He and I are cooking up a prank to pull on my conservative and racist coffee mates. Balou being brown, will be my ace! I have missed visiting Caley and Joe and kids this winter. Surgery in February screwed up my normal travel schedule this year. Looking forward to doing better in the coming months, after summer. With Beatrix retiring in June, we are making no vacation plans yet, although we'd both like to visit Lethbridge, since I have only been there for meetings, and Beatrix spent part of her childhood there. On this subject, "more anon", as Grandma Black used to say.

That's about all I have to add at the moment, so I'll stop until the muse hits again.

Hello again…

March 26…over a month since I last wrote. Sloth? Distraction? A lot has been happening in my little life over the past month. We took our teen aged snow shovelers out for dinner, and watched a gorgeous and fit 16 year old swimmer eat a MOUNTAIN of food. We had a great visit, and realized that these two young women are "surrogate grand daughters" for us!

We spent a night in Edmonton, and attended a burlesque show, which included our friend Erin. A whole different world for us, but very enjoyable! We have watched the "winter" act more like spring, encouraging some of our acquaintances to begin GARDENING…in March!

I am keeping up my swimming routine - 30 minutes every day, about 30 lengths, closing in on a kilometre, 40 lengths. I've pretty well stopped walking for the present. Swimming is a lot more strenuous, without prompting any more angina. In fact, my MD is wondering if I have angina at all, given the total absence of attacks since one in November.

Both of us are still culling books and clothes in preparation for a move to Wetaskiwin, even though it is many months in the future. Shucking off books is difficult, when each one…all of them left have been read…are like old friends, marked and noted as they are.

One of the most miserable aspects of being 80 plus is the way pulled muscles heal…or don't. I have 'fragile' shoulders, and regularly pull rotator cuff ligaments. They take forever to heal, and I have to work on them regularly. The upside is that I have a fresh physio, an absolutely gorgeous member of the Butterfield family - local legends in the rodeo field. Getting treatment is a treat!

Nothing much else goes on in my life, other than fascinating reading about the first world war, and another Scandinavian murder mystery. A few weeks ago, I started watching "Suits", a TV series about high-flying New York lawyers. Quite fascinating to tag along in a world which is completely foreign to me. This prompted me to look up the bio on Jian Ghomeshi's lawyer, Marie Henien. She is probably the top criminal defence lawyer in Canada. She is Egyptian born, and an absolute barracuda in the courtroom. Although I am sorry he was not convicted, I can see why when I read about his lawyer's reputation. Perhaps they can catch him in the second sex abuse trial, coming in a few months. Anyone in the witness box will have to be shaking in their boots, to face cross examination by this woman.

Next Sunday - April 3 - I am responsible for worship at Rimbey. Lately, I have been having a very hard time getting down to work preparing for worship - a new experience for me. Perhaps it's my mind and body telling me that it's time to stop this in my advanced years. I have yet to decide if I agree with that. Time will tell. Anyway, I'm off to go to court with Mike Ross, the lead in Suits. More anon, as Grandma Black always said.

Midwinter?

We are closing in on the end of February, and the local temperature is consistently above 0 Celcius by mid day! Not a typical prairie winter, and a bit unnerving. I keep wondering what the weather will be like in April, when it should be spring. One impact of global warming appears to be the distorting of typical weather patterns. I hear people celebrating our current balmy weather, but as one who consistently sees the glass half empty, I keep thinking of the long term outcome of these changes.

February has been a scrambled month so far. Earlier in February, I had some surgery and was in hospital for two and a half days. I wonder how serious the surgery would have to be to keep you in hospital for a week, or two weeks? A few years back, when I had a triple bypass and a valve replacement, I was hospitalized for less than a week! I fantasize at times about drive-through surgery coming in a decade or two!

I have been fussing about my inaction. Post surgery, I am barred from the swimming pool for a month by my surgeon. Strenuous exercise is off the table until mid-March! I'm finding this difficult, as exercise is a mainstay of my life. I'd like some involvement in the community, but feel my lack of energy interfering with that desire. I need to look at options more diligently. I feel like I have something to offer, but don't have the energy for much.

For the last month or so I've been reading fiction. Mostly Ian Rankin and Jo Nesbo, light but interesting stuff. I'm waiting for more Rankin to arrive by mail, but also a new theological book. Perhaps I'll get back into some kind of a groove if I real John B. Cobb for awhile. It's called "Talking about God…" and I'm looking for it to provide some ammo to deal with the current rage of so-called "progressive theology," which sounds  bit like the 70's stuff about God being dead. The more things change, the more they become the same…

Back again, finally!

Can you believe it? A month with no blog. I'm embarrassed. It's not like nothing has been happening. It's just that my "routine" seems to leave little time for writing. Or else I am slothful. Possibly. Actually, for sure!

Let's see…mostly mild weather all month; no -30 days yet. I have kept up the week-day swimming  with no angina mishaps. I just get tired after a half hour. I have rarely attempted a 45 minute swim, although I still have "plans" to do it in two parts, 25 minutes, rest, then 20 minutes. Sounds good when I say it. Feels different in the pool when I get to 25 minutes. I can hardly wait for the next five to be over so I can stop! Sloth? Lack of determination, mostly.

On the medical front, I finally had the cystoscopy, and that confirmed another surgery is coming on February 16, as I suspected. Not exactly major surgery, but serious enough. I've had two of these before, once in 1991, another a few years ago (I can't remember the year). That will mean three of four nights in the Red Deer Hospital - not my favourite place. I imagine a few more days at home, then back to normal. It says here.

Of more concern to me than physical sloth is the fact that I am having a difficult time focusing on anything as far as writing goes. Columns are hard now, as well as preparing for Sunday worship. Perhaps my rain telling me that, at 81, it's time to stop this stuff. I actually don't want to hear that. I'd like to keep on, but I am not sure where to find the motivation, or energy.

I keep looking at the books I need to cull, as well as my closet that needs weeding, but neither get done. I'm reading a lot. At the moment a really interesting book entitled What Soldiers Do. It's about (so far) the bad behaviour of the US army in France after the Normandy invasion in 1944. The researcher maintains that Yankee troops were much more destructive and contemptuous of the French than either the Brits or the Canadians. Lots of robbery, rape and general mayhem, with little intervention by the US military command. The author goes on examine the US attitude to France generally after the 1940 surrender of the French Army. Quite a fascinating read for a history buff.

We are slowly refocusing our attention on the move to Wetaskiwin. That won't happen for awhile, but many of our in-house actions move us in that direction. People who know are AMAZED that we don't plan on staying in Ponoka after Beatrix retires. I have to bite my tongue to keep from saying "What would hold us here, in a community that is so conservative and (frankly) racist?" Wetaskiwin has three big factors in its favour. Our doctor is there, they have a great hospital, and a brand spanking new swimming pool! What more could I want?  

Christmas Eve

It's December 24, a few hours short of a month since I wrote here. I have no particular excuse for being absent. It has been a full month, but not a wildly busy time for me. I guess part of it is that I have a daily routine, which I apparently follow virtually every day, so that an "extraneous" activity like writing has no assigned place.

Routine is one of the ways I order my life to give it some meaning. I'm not involved in any grand scheme or activity - sometimes I think I should be - but the end of the day comes quickly each and every day.  The one activity in which I engage is my morning swim. I chug up and down the pool for 30 - 45 minutes every weekday morning, careful to go slowly, so as not to provoke an angina attack. So far, so good, and I do puff and sweat in the doing of it. A good workout. I have mostly abandoned walking for the winter. Too slippery. I fell once last year and became aware that this is how old folks break hips. I slid down once earlier this winter - no hard fall - but a warning I will heed, now that I have found an alternative. I ache afterwards, shoulder and knees, but that's common at my age.

I rejoice in the pool, and think, and pay attention to my body and how it speaks to me. I suppose that's a continuation of recovery. It never ends. When you are 81, it's recovery or rapid decline. Decline comes anyway, but I resist it as much as I am able.

One thing that has occupied my thoughts and reflections through this December is the deepening power of consumerism on all of us. I spent two part-days in the Bower Mall in Red Deer a few frantic faces around me, although clearly some people appeared to be enjoying themselves. The shops seemed desperate in their displays, a concomitant of our sagging economy here in Alberta. Many people are out of work who have become accustomed to "the Life" as I call it. You know: a fifth wheel, a big truck, snow mobiles and ATV's, all on payments. When the income shrinks, the pressure is acute, and unfamiliar. It's been awhile since Alberta's had a "bust", and everybody was comfortable in the "boom." So Christmas is hard for many. Food bank usage is up, the unemployment rate is higher than the national average, and many people are afraid and angry. After a few years of good living, the arrival of austerity feels like your being cheated, having become used to good living. Not a pleasant prospect. There's been a lot of talk about this at Tim's as pensioners look at their shrinking wallets.

At a more personal level, this Christmas has brought one change to my
'celebration' of the season. I failed to put up a Christmas tree. First time ever. The reason is terribly practical. I was afraid of wrestling and struggling with a tree, fearful of upper body exertion that would spark an angina attack. I remembered the trials of last year, putting up a lovely tree. Neither of us can stomach a fake tree, which leaves me with a dilemma. I'm not happy with no tree, but fearful of the task of putting it up. I'll have to figure out a solution before next year, because I don't want to do this again. I wonder how many other 80+ year olds feel in the same boat? I'll ask around over the next few weeks.

Our friends the Chans will be here tonight, and will stay for Christmas. On Boxing day - my birthday - Beatrix and I will go to Edmonton to tour the Legislature, and look at the Magna Carta, which is here until the 29th of December. I'm looking forward to that.

Hopefully, it won't be another month before I write again. In the meantime, whatever your faith, or lack of it, enjoy the holiday, religious or secular, in good health. See you in 2016!

November

It's been almost a month since I posted here. Not surprising, as it was a quiet and humdrum month! Most of what happened was routine; snow tires on, doctors visited, volunteer commitments fulfilled, political meetings attended.

This month we began looking at appropriate places to live in Wetaskiwin, a task which prodded us in to the start of a purging process of our possessions. It is amazing what you collect after 13 years in one place. We have tons of "stuff"- as George Carlin called it -  to get rid of. Some to sell, and some to just junk.

I spent some anxious moments trying to figure out what is an "appropriate" amount of exercise to engage in, without triggering an angina attack. Swimming seems to be best way to go. I can backstroke quite steadily for 30 minutes with no consequences. Walking is more chancy. I can get the pace right, but the cold air to breathe is a problem, according to my physician. I may stop walking and just swim every day until spring. We'll see.

All of this has added a new dimension to the concept of "recovery." Caution has to be introduced, and boundaries set, and a certain amount to risk undertaken, to find out what is possible and safe, while being beneficial in the way of exertion. For reasons I can't articulate, I have grown my beard out. It looks fine, and I'm still trying to figure out why it seemed important to do this!

We haven't made any headway in Christmas preparation. Too much other stuff in the way. This week has got to be the start. Christmas letter to write, gift shopping planned and done. All very domestic and dull, but seasonally important. It's amazing how anxiety interferes with normal life and normal tasks, siphoning off energy and attention from ordinary life.

I'll try to be more regular with postings in December, but that may depend on something noteworthy happening. Perhaps the adventure of getting a tree will spur me on!