Sunday, December 18, 2011

Closing down for Christmas


It’s 5:10pm and dark on Sunday, December 18, 3 days before the longest night of the year.  By the 22nd, the first day of winter, we will already be heading towards summer, and I will be in Victoria, BC, I hope.  I’m going to drive there on Tuesday, weather permitting, to spend the holidays with mom and dad and Barbara and Terry. 

My Christmas party was a success.  Most of the people I had invited came.  They were in the mood to see each other after not really getting together much in the last 6 weeks.  The few who were not members of the Vernon Outdoors Club mixed in well.  They all moved around and talked and laughed and ate and drank and stayed quite a long time.  It wasn’t exactly a cotillion, but I have made a puny entry into Vernon society and am satisfied with that for the moment.  Maybe next year I will break into the higher strata of Predator Ridge and The Rise.  Only people from Vernon will appreciate the heights to which I aspire.  Enough.  I overestimated how much eggnog people would drink, probably because my own capacity for drinking it knows no bounds.  I will take what is left to my parents who share my enthusiasm for it.  Dad has been losing weight lately and having to drink supplements; I’m sure he’ll prefer a bit of brandy and eggnog. 

I think my back spasms were the result of my doing too much hot yoga in the sauna and steam room at the Vernon Rec. Centre.  I haven’t been there in the last 3 weeks and all is well now.  This weekend of training for the volunteer program to work with disabled skiers was a qualified success.  I learned a lot, including about my own disabilities.  I have no upper body strength, so I will not be able to work with a sit-ski.  But there are many other things I will be able to do.  The program is well established at Silver Star, and the people involved, although they are all volunteers, run it in a professional way.  They are knowledgeable, skilled, and very humane.  They have a lot of equipment that will take time to learn about, but this weekend was an introduction.  I will not be working alone for the first year.  The snow conditions were good and the weather was warm, ideal for slow practicing on easy hills.

I had a very good class on Friday with Kiran at Immigrant Services.  Unfortunately, Misoon’s husband is still not well, but at least they know what is wrong.  He has angina and will have to live accordingly.  I went to visit her at their carwash on Friday.  She was nodding off in the office; she has to cover all the shifts at the moment.  Very different from the work she was educated for, teaching.  Such is the life of the immigrant. She thinks we will be able to get back to our weekly meetings at Tim Horton’s in the New Year.  I hope so because I think they were good for both of us.  I’m going to happily slack off for the holidays.

Merry Christmas to all


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