Friday, Feb. 6, 2015

It’s Friday, February 6, 2015 and tomorrow might be the first day in well over a week that Bill and I won’t be wearing masks, gowns and gloves for a good portion of the time.  Mom is getting better and will not be considered contagious by then.  I didn’t feel well this morning, so Bill and I just did a bit of banking and tried to find Services BC.  That was not easy.  Bill thought he had found it, put the address into the Google GPS on his iPhone and navigated while I drove.  It took us to the most dismal collection of buildings I’ve ever seen in Victoria.  We had to park and ask passers by where we were only to discover that this was in fact the location of the administration offices of the entire Services BC for the province but they did not service clients.  In fact there is no such office in Victoria; you have to drive to Duncan or do it all on line or by mail.  We still have to wait for some papers we hope are in mom and dad’s safety deposit box before we can do this work anyway so we had to leave that undone.  Meanwhile we can’t get into the safety deposit box until our Power of Attorney papers are approved by the main branch of RBC, so we were left spinning our wheels.  We did what we have been doing to keep on an even keel, went for coffee in a great little local place.  Then we visited mom for a while, went back to her apartment, where Bill is living, for lunch and then I returned to Barbara and Terry’s safe house to rest.  Bill had given me some pills that fight colds, so I took one and went to bed.  I just got up and feel better. I Face-Timed Bill to find him masked for the last time and visiting mom.  She was sitting up and sounding cheery.  She was very weepy when we visited her this morning.  She seems to have survived the RSV and pneumonia but she faces a struggle ahead, learning to live without dad after 72 years of marriage.  At her lowest point she was saying they should just let her go to join him, but at other times you can see in her eyes and the intensity of her concentration to get something right the Shirley Mary Liddle who has never let anything get past her and is not yet ready to do so.  She hates cats but she is one.  Curiosity hasn’t killed her yet and at this point it’s still what keeps her alive.

Bill in an arbutus at Sooke Potholes

The ruins of a mill (I think) by the river at Sooke Potholes

Bill at the Royal Jubilee Hospital in a Seoul subway pose

Myself elf at the Royal Jubilee

Blossoms on Yates St.  Spring comes to Victoria

Dad died on January 30, 2015

Dad died at 2:00am on Friday, January 30.  He had been taken to the hospital on Sunday night because of a fall.  Mom thought he would be out in a day, but when I got home from skiing on Tuesday there were 2 phone messages for me.  One was a doctor who said that as much as she didn’t like to state it coldly over the phone, dad would not likely survive.  The other was mom who said that Bill was on his way to Victoria and I should come too.  I left Vernon at 7:30am Wednesday, thinking he might die before I saw him and glad that at least we had enjoyed a good Christmas together.  At that time we had shared a couple of looks and comments that we both understood to mean that we doubted we would be together for another.  I had not thought he would fail so quickly though. 

His final struggle was like all the others in his life, long and hard.  He did not go easily into that good night.  Mom stayed with him all Wednesday night.  When Bill and I arrived at the hospital Thursday morning, she looked good for a 93-year-old woman who had had only 4 hours of sleep.  We all stayed with him all that day.  Bill and I finally convinced mom to go home around 11:00pm.  The hospital phoned her at 2:00am to say dad had died, but she was so sound asleep that Bill didn’t wake her.  He called me at Barbara and Terry’s as we had planned.  I was so sound asleep that Barbara had to come down and wake me.  We decided to do nothing until morning.  Mom and dad are members of The Memorial Society of BC and through them to Earth’s Option Cremation and Burial Service in Victoria.  Between the two, we were able to settle everything easily.  We had all dressed up in anticipation of some need to go places and do things, but all was managed in mom’s place with the help of one man.  We felt so relieved that when Bill suggested we have a small wake, mom and I agreed.  We went to The Snug at The Oak Bay Beach Hotel.  Even mom had a glass of Grimbergen, a Belgian beer.  We had a great waitress, good food, a few real laughs and a walk on the balcony.  It was the right thing to do at the right time.

On Saturday, mom had a cold, so she stayed home.  Bill and I went for a drive to Sooke.  We walked all around the Sooke Potholes, had lunch in a good old bar, walked along Wiffen Spit and drove home to find mom in bed, very ill.  She was shaking, coughing and had called the doctor.  He arrived soon after we did and said her blood pressure was dangerously high and one lung sounded full of fluid.  We drove her right away to the emergency ward of the Royal Jubilee Hospital where she is at the moment.  She’s not in good shape, but everything possible is being done for her.  They’re not sure if she has RSV (a virus that usually hits children), which is what dad had or pneumonia or both.  She has non of the weariness with life that dad had, so I think she’ll pull through, but she looks very weak and tiny in the hospital bed and she can’t get comfortable and sleep as she should because lying down makes her PHN flare up.

I’m at her place now, and Bill is with her.  He will come here to watch the Super Bowl around 3:00pm, and I will replace him at the hospital. 

More anon

Mom walking in the garden at the Royal Jubilee Hospital.  Note the glorious heather.

The Wake at The Oak Bay Beach Hotel

Raising a glass to dad

I spoke too soon.

Yesterday I talked on the phone with Barbara and Terry, and this morning I Skyped with Jay.  They all asked about mom and dad at some point, and I was happy; although, as usual touching wood, to tell them that at least dad hadn’t fallen since before Christmas.  Mom on the other hand is a little more Job-like in being visited by strange and painful plagues.  Most recently it has been some inexplicable welts or hives that pop up and itch all over her body and disappear just as she gets to the doctor’s office.  She is treating them with an over-the-counter antihistamine, which seems to have calmed them, so maybe it’s an allergy.  But this morning I returned from the Rec. Centre, checked the phone as always and saw the red light blinking to warn me of a message.  It was mom.  Dad fell yesterday and is in the hospital.  He had to go there because he was in such pain he couldn’t stand, even when the ambulance men got him upright.  And dad would stand if he could.  Although he used to say, “Never stand when you can sit; never sit when you can lie.” as he settled flat on his back on the bed for his daily afternoon nap, he knows that if he can’t stand and dress himself he can’t go back with mom to Shannon Oaks, so he’d stand now, even if it were in front of a firing squad.  I had a long talk with mom.  We agreed there’s nothing we can do, so she went to visit him, and I will await her news.

I read my last blog just before starting this one and realized I sound like a weather reporter.  Well, the weather is weird this winter.  I had a great ski on Saturday with John.  It was all thanks to Mo, who had to be at SSASS by 8:30am, so John and I were on the trail by then.  We went to Alder Point and on to After Me After You, even though it had not been groomed.  Conditions were fine.  We had a great time, lunch in the new cabin.  On the last leg of the ski home there was a bit of mist in the air, so I stopped to put on my visor.  Within minutes it was pouring down.  We were drenched by the time we got to the village at 1:00pm.  Had we started later, it would have been horrible for a much longer time because once you’re up there, there’s only one way down.

I’ve bought my plane tickets to and from Mexico from mid March to mid April and made arrangements to study Spanish for the first 2 weeks at a school in Guanajuato and meet Barb Steers there afterward.  Who knows if it will all happen?????  I did buy cancellation insurance on the flights.  Lately I’ve often thought about John Cleese’s joke:

                                    “ How do you make god laugh?”

                                    “ Tell him your plans.”

A view of the inversion below and the Monashees in the distance on the way to Alder Point

A view back at the downhill runs at Silver Star

Jan., 18, 2015

Sunday, January 18 and all is well in the west.  The weather in Vernon remains less than ideal, warmer than in the east and Incheon, but not great.  Cross-country skiing has been good on the groomed trails, and there’s finally some snow back on the trees at Sovereign and Silver Star. 

Yesterday I saw a very entertaining version of “The Merry Widow” live from the Met at the local cinema.  Renee Fleming was great as the widow, and her man, Nathan Gunn, was a happy surprise.  They made an attractive couple.  Kelli O’Hara played the ‘respectable wife’ with real zest for all that was less than respectable.  I had never seen Sir Andrew Davis before.  He’s a sprightly conductor. The dancers were excellent, and the whole production lively.  It lifts your spirit to watch such wonderfully joyous entertainment when so much of the news lately, especially from Nigeria and Syria but also France, Belgium and Canada is awful.

It seems to me that the disparity between rich and poor, whether it be nations or individuals is at the heart of most of the violence.  So many young people have nothing to either gain or lose, and governments do little to encourage society and individuals to be more generous.  Troubled, jobless and hopeless youth who can’t afford the gear to take up an extreme sport look to drugs and fanatics for thrills. 

On Wednesday, I went to Kelowna to see my Korean friend Lusia become a Canadian citizen.  The ceremony was well done, and the new Canadians looked truly happy.  Lusia was too, in her shy way.  Her son, the dynamic one in the family, whose idea it was to come to Canada in the first place, had his picture taken flanked by a Mounty, a judge and a picture of the queen.  I enthusiastically snapped pictures of the family, but none of them was worth keeping.

Jay and his gang laughing it up before the serious picture was taken to celebrate Woo Jin's first birthday

Woo Jin's first birthday formal photo

Jay hiking last week on Bugaksan in Seoul

The big snows, 1937 and 2015

Vernon weather is starting to disappoint me but my friends and neighbors aren’t.  After actively shoveling around the house all Monday and getting help from Taiyo’s family, I spent Tuesday sedentarily worrying about the load of snow on the flat roof  and googling for answers about what to do.  In retrospect, shoveling seemed to have been wonderful, outdoor exercise that accomplished so much.  By late afternoon, I had concluded that I should buy a roof rake, clear off most of the snow on the small sloping roof at the back, get a ladder, climb up on that roof and throw magnesium chloride as far as I could all over the flat roof to encourage melting so that the snow would turn to water and flow down the drain.  Mo and John thought this sounded dangerous and futile.  John suggested I wait and collect from the insurance company if the roof collapsed.  I agreed to the extent that I went skiing with them on Wednesday morning.  The skiing was crap because Silver Star had had much more rain on Tues. than Vernon had and Monday’s wonderful white had wrinkled and hardened.  The skiing was OK where the groomer had been but difficult elsewhere.  That afternoon my troublesome thoughts returned and I went out and bought a snow rake and a bag of calcium magnesium acetate (the closest compound I could find to what was recommended).  Then I couldn’t assemble the rake.  John agreed reluctantly to help me and did.  I phoned Taiyo to ask him to help me do the job, and this morning he arrived at ten to get it done.  He pulled the snow off the sloping roof with the rake, held the ladder as I climbed up and passed me bowls of chemical, which I threw on the flat roof.  There already seemed to be faint runnels tending in the direction of where I think the drain is.  I made pathetic efforts to aim the mitts full of chemical crystals at these to encourage them but all I really accomplished, I think, was an easing of my mental anguish.  I’m no great thrower.  At any rate, I’ve made an effort and I won’t think about it again.  I read this morning in ‘The Morning Star’ that the only time Vernon experienced a dump of snow greater than this one was in 1937.  That relieved me a bit because this house was built in 1934, so it survived the big one early in its life; its beams should be even harder in its old age.

The wrinkled old snow at Silver Star on Wednesday

The big snow of 2015

The ‘dusting’ of snow has become a dump.  Vernon had its first snow day in 35 years today.  I woke at 5:45am to Skype with Jay.  That went well as usual, and at 7:15 I happily headed outside to shovel.  So much snow had fallen overnight that I had to divide the yard into 3 sections.  It took me one hour to finish the front; then I had breakfast and tackled the walks around the house.  That took about an hour, so I went in for another break.  I was still enjoying the day, not too cold and the birds were chirping.  Finally I tackled the car and parking area.  That finally took the fun out of it.  The snow was dry but really thick.  The birds were still chirping but I wasn’t.  The car was buried, and by the time I had pushed all the snow off the roof and windows, it was no fun shoveling the surrounding hills that were higher than the tires. I took another break and went out to start all over again about 3 hours later.  This time it was easier.  I started at the car park and by the time I got to the front, I was pleasantly surprised to find Taiyo, the boy who looks after the house whenever I’m away, and his sister, mother and father finishing up the whole front area, including the public sidewalk.  What a great family!  It’s almost 6:00pm now, and I’m going to go out again for a round of shoveling when I finish this.  It’s still dropping snow, so I might have to go again before I sleep.  Of all the horrors of climate change that the world has been experiencing lately, this is minor, but it’s tiring.  The banks are so high I can hardly throw the snow over them.

Beautiful hoar frost on trees beside the cross country trail on Saturday

Snow starting to pile up on Monday morning. The purple finches love it, to be continued.

Happy New Year

Christmas is over; I’m working to get trim.  The weather is helping by snowing, which forces me to shovel, which I did as soon as I got out of bed, before too many paper boys and dog walkers had brought their heavy boots down on the sidewalk and made the light snow hard to remove.  It was only a dusting by Wakefield standards, but the fresh air and mild exercise were invigorating.  I had to twist and bend my stiff body a bit.  For breakfast I had coffee and oatmeal, a Spartan start.  But beginning the day on a diet is much easier for me to do than ending it that way.  I look forward in the evening to a glass of wine and a good dinner, which rarely includes raw vegetables and small portions.  As the night wears on I become the willing victim of cravings for sweet and/or salty treats. But my weak resolve was encouraged this morning by something I read in “The Morning Star.”  It is a quotation from William James:

                       

                         To change one’s life:

                                    1. Start immediately.

                                    2. Do it flamboyantly.

                                    3. No exceptions.

This blog is about as ‘flamboyant’ as I get, so I’ve begun with 1 and 2.  Number 3 is where the rubber hits the road.  More anon, or not.

After reading the paper, I ‘googled’ a bit about William James and came upon another quotation from him that struck me as meaningful for a new year:

                       

                        Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out

                         they’ve got a second.  Give your dreams all you’ve got

                         and you’ll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you.

With these borrowed, pragmatic thoughts, I begin 2015 on the road to verbal and physical ‘trimness.’  I wish you all health and peace to carry out whatever resolutions you have for the New Year. 

My friends Terry and Barbara who live in the house with the cats between the bucks and the gulls

The fire near the rink at Silver Star on New Year's Eve

Silver Star village on New Year's Eve