Monday, February 17

It's Family Day in BC and Alberta, so we old locals aren't going up to the hills because they'll be crowded. But it's a beautiful sunny day, so I had to get outside. As I ate breakfast I listened to an interview on CBC with Erling Kagge, a Norwegian explorer I had never heard of. He's a walker, the only person to have walked to the North Pole, South Pole and the top of Everest. He's in his late fifties now and has done other things, but he still firmly believes that walking, usually alone, is the best. This gave me an idea. I hadn't walked to the Black Rock in about a year. So I did, and it was great. I took two puffs on my new puffer before leaving the house and for the first time since I started using it about a week ago I think it helped my breathing. It also might be the fact that I was not walking at 6,000feet, which is the approximate elevation of Sovereign and Silver Star, but I don't care. I agree with Erling that walking, often alone, and always unplugged is mentally and physically stimulating. 

Part of an interview with Erling Kagge

Casper the Friendly Ghost with a bit of weed to help him through a hard winter on the wall at the top of the Black Rock

Jay, as usual, gave me my laugh for the week via Kakaotalk. Although, also as usual, there's a bit of black in the laugh. It's a selfie of him on the subway on the way to school. He titled it, "Teaching in the time of coronavirus."

The number of cases of Covid 19 is rising in South Korea and some of them are in Song Do, the area where Jay's last school is. Things are being shut down there and he's concerned for the two men who own the school because they are still his friends. They've worked hard to build up the school and it might be closed, at least temporarily. 

This is the picture Jay sent me today of him on the subway. 

Whistle Blowers

The first sound I heard as I lay in bed this morning after I had reached up to turn on the radio was that of whistles being blown in many parts of China.  When the newscaster  explained why, I felt exhilarated. The term whistle blower has almost been worn out, but to actually hear the sound of whistles, each one being blown by a real human being in memory of a fellow human being who died of the disease that he had had the courage to declare to exist and then been forced to recant in a written statement gave me a thrill such as I haven't felt in a long time. I think I was especially moved because last evening as I continued my feeble effort not to lose the little Spanish I have by reading some news in Spanish I had read a report on the death of Dr. Li Wenliang that included a quotation from him that appeared on a Chinese portal, Caixin, on January 30,

"A healthy society must have more than one voice."

Dr. Li's comments could also be applied to the Republican Party in the USA. 

It may be debatable who is "the most powerful man in the world"; I for one would like to see a Xi Jinping and Donald Trump 'duke it out'. But one thing is sure; neither the US nor the Chinese society is in very good health at the moment.

Keep blowing those whistles.  

The Great Outdoors

As exhilarating as the sound of whistles in the morning is the sight of Montane Spruce at the top of Silver Star. This is a picture of Lynne among the ghosts. These trees spend their first winters bent over like fiddleheads by the weight of the snow at the top of the hills. For the rest of their lives they are as upright as minarets even though huge blobs of snow build up on their branches. 

02,02,2020

Today is the first global palindrome day in 909 years. The only thing it makes me think of is the Monty Python skit about the dead parrot but I don't even know why. I looked up famous palindromes. Given that bats have been mentioned as a likely first cause of the coronavirus that is currently occupying the top spot on all news reports, this one struck me as the most apt:

EVA, CAN I STAB BATS IN A CAVE

The biggest laugh I've had at my own expense lately concerns my house and my tendency to make do. I've always been that way which explains why my favourite Newfoundland expression is, "Leave 'er lay where Jesus flang 'er" 

My New Years resolution to leave a bit more space between stimulus and response might be encouraging this trait although I only meant it to keep me from rushing in too quickly to fill every void in a conversation. I rarely rush into action. At any rate, just as the cold weather began my back door lock system showed serious signs of failing. It had been giving hints of doing so for about two years. Jay can attest to that. The key had to be carefully manipulated from the outside but from the inside there was no problem, so I did nothing. But one day in late fall I had trouble unlocking the door from the inside. I finally responded to the situation in a way that was as extreme as my ignoring of it had been. I stopped trying to unlock the door and found some green painters' tape Jay had left. I stuck that over the lock itself lest I forget and try to open the door some time later. Then I taped all around the inside of the door to keep out winter drafts.  I had decided not to touch that door again until spring. It's been a bit inconvenient living with only a front door, especially as the car is parked behind the house and the garbage and recycle are there too, but I'm used to it now. Then two weeks ago the upstairs toilet would not stop running. I looked in the tank and tried the few things I've done before to fix flushers, none of which worked. So I drained it and went to the garage to get the box of parts I knew was there but had forgotten why. I was going to fix it myself until I started reading the instructions. When I Kakaoed with Jay that evening, he was relieved that I had stopped at that point and reminded me of the fact that it was a burst pipe in that bathroom that had caused so much flood damage to the basement room that he had carefully built. That switched me from action to default mode, leave 'er lay. I began using the new bathroom in the basement and set up a potty system in the upstairs bathroom for nighttime. I was laughing with a friend at one point about how I might just keep on making do as the house and I grew older together and various of our parts ceased working. But then I snapped into action, did my physio and found a plumber. My Immigrant Services student's husband is starting up a plumbing and heating company. The back door remains taped shut but that will be fixed in the spring

Moose junction in January after the Christmas decorations were removed and a big snow fell