I found $145.00 just blowing around on the ground across from the Anglican Church as I walked home from Tai Chi on Thursday morning. I picked up the four bills and stood on the spot holding them as if they were lottery tickets I was trying to sell for about 5 min. Then I walked with them through the church where the weekly vegetable box pick up was being held and no one claimed them. So I went home and decided the best thing to do would be to donate $100.00 to the Upper Room Mission that feeds the homeless in Vernon and give the rest to street people. Well, I didn't quite carry through with the last part of the plan. I spent $20.00 of the last $45.00 on myself, buying a knee support that is supposed to have powers verging on the miraculous thanks to the fact that invisible copper threads are woven into it. It's probably the closest I've come to quackery, but my knee still hurts, a lot at times, and I can't really do anything about it until late Sept. It's been diagnosed as a soft tissue injury which could take a long time to improve. There's been no miracle, but I think my knee feels better when it's on. Anyway, my luck took a turn for the worse when I tried to give away the last of the money on my way to Tai Chi on Thurs. morning. As I approached the Salvation Army hostel I saw that there were quite a few homeless sitting and lying around waiting for the door to open. I gave some to a desperate looking couple and listened a while to the woman's story of how she lost her house because she rented it to some people while she went to jail and when she got out and tried to live in it again, they got furious and destroyed the place so now she is on the street. Then I gave the rest to a woman who was desperately trying to open a scrunched up piece of tin foil that probably contained the last of some drug. The blotches on her arm were probably the result of injections. They all seemed grateful but I felt dismal. The agony of their existence and the futility of my act left me feeling hollow. Added to this I was glared at and cursed by a man who was also there but had received nothing. My feeble excuse that I had found the money and had none left did not impress him. And I can understand why. I felt little better after an hour of Tai Chi and walked home along a different street.
My planned hiking holiday in Wells Grey Prov. Park is still not a sure thing. As the company does not give cash rebates, we were offered credit for a future trip or an alternative package in the Monashees. Most of the women in the group are professionals of some form or other so they have been considering these options from every possible and some improbable angles. The email flurry has been considerable. In spite of the fact that I can usually hypothesize with the best of them, I have not contributed much. Most of them are younger than I and seem to be able to conduct searches and bang out emails at a rapid rate. I can't. Everything hinges on whether or not the fires abate in the Caribou and the park is reopened. I the "heat" of the emailing I contributed a flippant comment to the effect that at least our houses weren't burning and our children alone. As soon as I hit 'reply all', I wished I hadn't. I'm sure this remark was considered to be 'not helpful'. Now it looks as if the fire threat has diminished and we will soon hear that our original trip for next weekend is back on. I'm pretty sure that if ever a decision has to be made during the trip my contribution will not be sought.
Bad luck arrived in the mail this week in the form of a letter from Manu Life telling me that the company that calculates their clients' capital gains for taxation purposes made a mistake and undervalued my returns, so I had to sign a form acknowledging this and mail it to Canada Revenue. I will owe more tax. The good luck is that the amount is small, so I'll hardly feel it. Wouldn't it be amazing if it turned out to be $140.00? Then today while Jay and May were visiting after he finally got off work, he seems to be always on call, we decided to install a mirror in the basement and broke it. So the money find will be followed by seven years of bad luck. But as it will have to be divided three ways, if there's any justice on earth, I only expect to get 21\3 years of it.
Hinterland who dun it. The real question is how, given the fact that the grass in this area we hiked through last Sunday was parched. I can't imagine what these cattle were eating. A big fire the day before destroyed eight houses just below where we were hiking.
