Month: August 2024

With all the medical problems I’ve supposedly had over the last few months, I was thinking that I had better find an undertaker. Fortunately, not necessary. Rosalie had to make a quick call to the insurance broker to cancel the claim.

My symptoms are all back to normal and I’m off all the extra meds I was having to take. Part of the problem was that I would get one med, then I needed another one to counter the first one. Then when that one caused a different problem, I had to take yet another med to counter it, only to find that one was causing issues for the first one I took.

Anyway, the BP is down and the dizzy spells have dissipated so I’m feeling much better. I’m feeling quite normal, whatever that is. I still have to do a few scans to make sure my heart is okay and of course, I still have my leg problem.

I went for an ultrasound on my leg and that Doc thought it was a blood clot. However, my GP just told me that it’s actually a narrowing of the artery and can easily be fixed with surgery. I have to get an echogram done, and hopefully before we head south. So, only two more CT scans, an echogram and an echocardiogram and I’m good to go. All this just to find out that there’s probably nothing wrong.

I asked if all this could have been a virus. My GP said that I had symptoms that could be caused by a virus but without definite proof, he couldn’t say. A virus is my thinking and I’m sticking to it. After this diagnosis I think I would make a good doctor, all I would have to do is walk around looking important saying “Yup, sounds like a virus!”

Maybe it’s all just me. I’ve been told by a few people that I’m probably an alien so that would account for it. I know I can be a bit strange but I don’t think I’m that strange. It’s not about being from England either. Dogs won’t bite us because we’re poisonous, but we’re not that different from other people.

Anyway, I’m back!

Friday came around and the weather forecast predicted rain for Saturday so I had to get all the tarps out of storage.

I spent the whole day getting them just right for the water runoff. I put up one and when I looked up there were holes all through it, off to the dump. By putting them up it was a guarantee that it wouldn’t rain on the day.

After that, I was a little worn out

Saturday morning was the final panic time. I had to make sure there were enough seats and tables for forty people. I ended up with thirty-eight but knew that Rosalie and I wouldn’t be sitting down much anyway so it turned out okay. We have better plans for next year.

The tables had to be prepared and we got a lot of help from our friend Maureen who stayed with us for a few days.

Three o’clock came and I got changed into my spiffy party shirt. People started to arrive and the fun began. With the cooperation of Mike and Fern, our security friends from across the street, we had lots of room for parking.

Eventually, I opened up the Taqueria and started to cook, with Peter as my trusty helper, serving as usual. We did well, but next year I have to make a few adjustments for faster service as Peter and I got fed up with the whining while people waited. And darn it, I forgot to put out the tip jar.

We had a lovely Mexican friend Claudia, as a guest and she said my tacos were just great so I was relieved about that. I have to give credit to Rosalie though as she did all the prep and spicing for the meat. The chicken was awesome.

It happens to be Rosalie’s 75th birthday next week so part of the celebration was for that. She got lots of accolades, some great cakes as well as cards and some gifts even though she said people shouldn’t bring any. She also had thirty-nine people singing Happy Birthday. To cap it off Claudia sang to her in Spanish.

Then the desserts came out, and as a special treat, Claudia made fresh churros. Delicious! And she said she would make more next year.

As people started to leave we were left with a hard core of about eight people and that’s when the tequila came out. Finally, we were down to just Jim and Ylda, Rosalie and I. Eventually, I chased Jim and Ylda home and went to bed, but not before declaring it a very successful party even though I forgot to wear my Taco T-shirt, forgot the music and we didn’t play Jenga.

The next day Rosalie and I got up early and started to clean up. We had moved our good chairs off the deck and replaced them with Bob and Marleen’s picnic table which is made of steel and quite heavy. I’m starting to realise that I’m not as strong as I used to be and need help. Mike offered and also called on Fern and between the three of us got everything back to normal.

Rosalie was feeling it the next day

Then I had to take the tarps down again. You have to remember that I was a little hung-over and had to go up a ladder a few times. I got the two small ones down and decided to leave the large one until Tuesday when it would be sunny. However, after lunch, I decided to take it down too.

And of course, it didn’t rain.

Saturday is our annual Melaque party. Each year it seems to get bigger. This year we have 41 confirmed attendees. Rosalie said to heck with that and she’s off to visit family for the weekend. I don’t believe her though. I think she’s off to a spa until it’s all over.

The weather for once is refusing to cooperate. It’s been up and down all week but it finally looks like we will have rain on the day. This has happened before so we are prepared. I have a good supply of tarps and will ensure that at least Peter and I, the main servers, will stay dry. Otherwise, it’s every man or woman for themselves; I’m sure I’ll get wet.

I’m in the process of sneaking around and stealing tables and chairs from all our friends. Then I have to make sure that we can fit them under the tarps.

The food is all ready and just waiting for the day. Because of all the people, we bought an extra 1.4 litre bottle of tequila, just for Rosalie and me.

I’m writing this outside on the deck. We had to stop watching our TV show out here because of the noise of the rain pounding on the roof. We have our table with a propane fire in the middle to take the chill off. We could be inside of course where it is nice and warm but we prefer to be outside, and we do have a small TV out here, also we’re snug, wrapped in our Mexican blankets.

I just thought of all the work between now and Saturday: putting up tarps; arranging tables and chairs; preparing the cooking facilities etc. etc. And of course, I have an ultrasound scheduled in Nanaimo tomorrow, as well as beer day and our usual in-town chores and then a contact lens fitting.

In the meantime, Rosalie is flying around the house waving the vacuum cleaner around and pretending to work hard. I came in a few times and saw her eyeing the tequila. She has been working hard though as we have a sleepover guest for a few nights and she has to prepare for that.

After looking at all the work we have to do, I thought of joining Rosalie and her family for the weekend, but then there’s that bottle of tequila.

In the last year, I had been feeling guilty that a lot of people around me have health issues and I have had no serious ones. When asked how many meds I take I would look away and guiltily murmur “One.”

Then the roof fell in! I now have four distinct issues but I feel like I’m finally in the club. My issues are minor compared to a lot of people I know, but I intend to whine about it anyway.

After my stint in Emergency, the tests have been coming fast and furious. I had a bladder ultrasound last week and a stress test this week and I am looking at another ultrasound next week. After the stress test, the Doctor signed me up for another CT scan.

This afternoon my family Doctor said that he also wants another CT scan. We talked about getting both scans done at the same time. The organs in question are three inches apart, but apparently, this is too difficult for our healthcare system to handle, so now I have to wait and see.

The doctors have been great and are trying to get all the tests done before we go back to Mexico in mid-October.

On top of this, I innocently went to an optometrist to get a vision test so that I could get a contact lens to give me monocular vision. After the test, he jumped up and down all excitedly and said that the schisis in my eye, which I have had for years, needs urgent attention. He called a retina surgeon in Victoria who agreed with his findings, of a progressively detaching retina. Now I am waiting (again) for a call from them.

The upshot of all this is, I’m in no danger and the problems are mostly minor. So apparently, I have nothing to complain about. Well, maybe, except for the stress test. It went like this:

I asked if I was going to get the treadmill or the lying-down test. The technician said the treadmill, as the lying down one was for woosies.

The technician took me into a room and made me lie down. So far so good! Then the torture began. He cleaned lots of little areas of my body with very cold sterile pads. Next, he got out some 40 grit sandpaper and tried to take several layers of skin off. When he had finished that he got the pads, gave each one a lick and stuck them on me. Then he checked my BP; 200/101. I wasn’t in the least surprised.

I thought that was it but no, he led me to the treadmill and made me walk uphill going nowhere at a furious rate to see if he could kill me. I fooled him and survived but I ended up panting like a puppy in the heat.

Through all this, Rosalie, the love of my life, was making jokes at my expense. I told her that I wanted her to become a comedian and get on stage so that I could throw rotten tomatoes at her.

My older brother, trying to cheer me up, said that he took a few pills until he reached my age, and then he suddenly had to take lots. I scoffed at this but said nothing. Now instead of the one I felt guilty about, I have to take six.

Well, we have to laugh a lot as it helps with the healing process.

Rosalie has been making sourdough bread and the first one she did was delicious. However, she didn’t want to make another for me as it was a lot of work pulling it and her wrists would get sore. So I suggested she put it in her bread-making machine and set it on ‘pull my dough’ and the result would be that I would get my dough pulled every hour and end up with a well-pulled dough and her wrists wouldn’t get sore.

Well, I thought it was funny.

When we have company I’m not allowed to use the “guest towel” but have to use the towel set aside just for me. I feel so special.

The news the other day suggested that we should no longer have seniors discounts. Some people agree and some disagree. I absolutely agree that we should. Rosalie and I can get by without it but we take advantage of it as much as possible as it helps. I think of what a help it would have been to my Mum when I was little and she didn’t have much income.

Just one example, think of a senior whose kids on the mainland just had a baby and she has to pay $16 on the ferry each way to go see them. That money would put a lot of food on her table. I know, the kids could pay but maybe they are in the same boat. Anyway, it was just an example of how senior discounts help.

Seniors helped to build this country, should get respect and a little extra once in a while. So there! Soon I’ll shut up about it, but first:

“I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”

Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Parents today give their kids the most peculiar names. There is Frant Zappa’s Moon and Dweezil Zappa, Elon Musk’s Strider and Azure with Zilis, X Æ A-Xii, Exa Dark Sideræl, and Techno; and many more, as he has eleven living children with three different women.

What happened to George or Sheila, Tom or Elizabeth? I was at the Doctor’s office the other day and liked their dogs’ names much more than modern ones.

Way more civilized; I particularly like Carrot.

While in Mexico we met a lady with a kid named Axel. As we had been in the pub and had a few, we saw the funny side of this and decided that as he was named after a car part we would do the same for our kids (??) We had already decided that we would like Ocho for our firstborn so would follow that up with Gearbox, I think the next one should be Stixshift or Carbraeter-Turn Signal and for a girl Blinker-Flueed.

As the Melaque party is getting close and I’m feeling a lot better, I have been catching up on a few jobs. I had to re-paint the deck but first decided to power wash the skylights. Rosalie of course, gave me my first instruction “DO NOT GET ON THE ROOF”. A few minutes later I heard “WHAT ARE YOU DOING UP THERE”! She scared me so much that I almost fell off, and then I panicked and said, “It was a gust of wind.” I don’t think she believed me. But I live on, barely.

We had a nice evening with Jim and Ylda a while ago. We discussed when Jim was younger and all the men in his life who helped him along the way. It struck me that I didn’t have any of that and how it affected my life.

I don’t want the following to be about feeling sorry for myself. I’m not whining either because there are a lot more people who grew up like me and who have it way worse than me. I did okay!

But for me the story is interesting, so here goes.

I left school on a Friday at age fifteen. I started work on the following Monday at a large grocery store.

Our school “career advisers” found the job for me and that was it. I had little or no say. It was normal that when you left school you got a regular job or an apprenticeship. Either way, you were expected to pay toward your keep. I was raised by a single Mum so my wage was important to help her with the household expenses. So I started work.

I didn’t think beyond that, as my Mum was single and my Dad left home when I was eight. My Mum was fifty-eight when I left school. It didn’t occur to me to try for an apprenticeship and there was no one to push me in that direction.

The silly thing about this is, if the “career advisors” had looked at my school records they would have seen that I was excellent at wood and metalwork. So I wonder why they didn’t steer me into an apprenticeship. It could have changed everything.

My three brothers had left home earlier to get away from our Dad’s abuse. Our family was ostracised by the rest of the clan because of it, so I only saw an uncle or aunt occasionally, maybe once a year. Then my brothers all got married so I grew up with no male guidance.

If you were a poor kid in our school system you were ignored and not expected to go anywhere in the world. I think they equated poor financially with poor intelligence.

So life went on and I went from job to job but always working. Eventually, I moved to Nottingham, met my first wife, had my daughter and emigrated.

When I arrived in Canada, I carried on as usual as I didn’t know then that I could have gotten an apprenticeship even at the age of twenty-four. As far as I knew, once I left school, that was my only chance.

I didn’t stay at one company for more than about five years before I quit and went somewhere else. I have no idea why I bounced around like that (probably my quick temper however I was only fired once). Anyway, I was always working.

I’ve mostly been in the burglar alarm industry so my greatest claim to fame is when I was installation manager with a staff of fifty and a three million dollar operating budget. That only ended after a personality clash with my boss; it wasn’t because of my quick temper though.

I have little regrets about how my life turned out. While sitting that evening with Rosalie, Jim and Ylda, as well as the previous day with Peter and Suzie, I realized that I wouldn’t change moments like that with friends for any amount of money.

As I’ve said before, while sipping a margarita on the beach in Melaque “How the hell did a welfare kid like me get to be in this beautiful place?”

Since I’ve not been feeling so good lately, I had to ask Rosalie to drive as I still feel too wobbly. I’ve missed three beer days in a row so it must be serious. She is taking excellent care of me though.

At first, I was feeling a bit down about not driving but after a while, I thought it was a great time for some payback—a promotion from driver to back seat driver.

I have learned to say things like “Watch your speed! ” or “You’re in the wrong lane! ” One of my favourites is “Don’t park there, the one next to it is six feet closer to the store!” She used to grin at my comments but lately, it’s turned into a snarl. And of course “I wouldn’t have gone this way, my way is much shorter.”

Sometimes she does listen to my directions as we both know that she has no sense of direction. Instead of going from point A to point B, she tends to go from point A to point Q to point B. Fortunately, I haven’t lost her yet so that’s a good thing.

With this wobblyness has come the dreaded no alcohol edict. So Rosalie now gets her own back on me. She’ll stroll into the house and come out with a glass of tequila. Then she gives me a wink, looks me right in the eye, takes a sip and sighs like a contented cat. Then she says “Wow that was smooth, too bad you can’t have some.” When it’s gone she likes to kiss me just to give me a whiff of what I’m missing. (Double entendre not intended.) Then she goes inside again coming out with a cold glass of wine dripping with condensation. Oh, she’s so mean! I have often done the same thing to her when she’s off booze so I guess I earned the payback.

I know this is mostly fantasy on my part, but we’ve managed to keep our sense of humour going through the last few weeks. I hope that’s one thing we never lose.