It's 3:15pm, Sunday, November 26; the sun will set at exactly 4:00 today. It's already getting dark after a day that was sunnier than most we have had lately. At least it's been warmer this past week than it was in early November, and there's no snow on the ground. Unfortunately, there's not been much in the hills either.

I went Xcountry skiing with Miriam about ten days ago; conditions were perfect at Sovereign. I was surprised at first by how tentative I was because of my right knee, which remains capable of giving me eye-crossing shots of pain if it's bent and weight put on it. However, after a little while on an easy trail, I felt more confident and moved at a moderate pace that satisfied me. We went all around Sovereign Trail and Woodland Bell, the two easiest trails. It felt great. Yesterday was a different story. I went to Silver Star with Mo and John. The day was cool and dull; the conditions were icy. I skied a short way, realized that I could easily get out of control and turned back. Mo and John carried on but even Mo who's usually buoyant about all life in the Okanagan said it was the worst ski she's had since she moved here. The only good that came out of the day for me was that I was finally convinced to pursue Mo's suggestion, which she's been repeating for months, that I see her friend Avis, a retired physiotherapist. I spent a couple of hours with the latter yesterday morning and now have a regime, taping my knee and doing numerous squats with a pillow between my knees, that gives me hope at least of improvement. After years of criticizing my dad to his face and behind his back for doing nothing to try to improve his knees, I came perilously close to following in his footsteps; I use the cliche figuratively because ultimately he couldn't walk. I don't want that to happen to me but I sure have his stubborn tendency to just push on through and damn all medical intervention. And this after having been pulled back from immobility many times by physiotherapists and saved by a surgeon from melanoma. Incorrigible. I like to identify with the crow, but I think the donkey is more my kin.

Jay on the other hand is perhaps too willing to submit to interventions. Thinking to ease the pain in his neck and shoulder and give some work to a Filipino friend of May's who does massage, etc., he was having weekly treatments at home. After one of them he was in such pain he could hardly move his head. When he showed up for work in spite of it, the HR person insisted on driving him to the hospital where he was examined and given a CT scan. Fortunately, it showed no serious injury and he too is now doing the exercises recommend by a physiotherapist.

May arrived home safe on Friday from Manila. There is no satisfactory solution to the awful murder of her brother, but she did what she could and the family and friends gave him a good funeral which eased their pain a bit because finding his body, shoeless on the street was horrific.




May, in black and white, at her brother Dexter's funeral.

Some pain-Some gain

The new stove is snug in its spot in the kitchen, and I do mean snug. Jay came over last Saturday and did a lot of jobs that I hadn’t been able to do by myself, among them was fitting the stove into the counter. The opening was only about 1/4 inch narrow, so he didn’t want to attack the arborite with a saw; besides, we didn’t have one. But we did have time and hadn’t had a chat in a while so, after failing to get the sandpaper to adhere to Jim’s old circular sander, we set to sanding the opening by hand. It took ages, but after a certain point there was no changing plan. Finally, it almost went in, except for a *#~& inch or so. We had to pull it back out. That’s when I stupidly decided to help a strapping young man who easily could have managed it alone. I pulled and twisted at the same time. I’m not sure if I felt or heard the muscle tearing on the left side of my back, but I knew in an instant that for the first time in my life my dependable back had gone. Jay made me stop all work and continued alone to finish the job. It’s now in its place and so am I. At 71, with a bum knee, weak shoulders and a back that painfully reminds me of its presence with almost every move I make, Leonard Cohen’s words,”I ache in the places where I used to play,” have real meaning for me. I used to think that was just another example if his inspired wording.

Today is a warm, gray Saturday, and I am going to use the stove again to bake the cake for our celebration of Min Hee’s 18th birthday tomorrow. Jay, Jin and I will be running the show without May. She flew to Manila early this morning to join her family to mourn the death of her brother Dexter. He was shot to death in a Manila street last week. His life was not blameless, but no one deserves such an end. May and her brothers are going to do their best to find out what happened, but justice in the Philippines is not easy to obtain. At least the family will be together to remember their brother and son. Attention will be paid.

Today is Remembrance Day, and for the first time since I moved to Vernon I will not be at the ceremony, but I do remember.














Dad wearing his uniform as a navigator in the RCAF in WW2













I put together this picture of Min Hee, a beautiful woman with her whacky family, as part of my birthday gift to her. She will be 18, and in the Philippines that is the day when a girl becomes a woman.