Emergency Landing - Part 1

In the middle of the night I come to an abrupt halt. My breathing is ragged, my heart rate is beating at an extremely slow place. I feel it. I do not look at my FitBit as I know I could go into panic mode. I struggle to breathe lying down. I call 811, a health care line. I can barely talk. A kind of insanity has taken over my brain. 811 would have an answer for me if I tell them I have been sick for at least two weeks and my internist, whom I had seen on a regularly scheduled visit, had said I had a virus and it would take 6-8 weeks to recover as he had had it himself. No worries, it just takes time.

811 had no answers but the nurse on duty said very slowly, several times, "Call 911, emergency" "Call 911, emergency". I remember thinking I didn't want to bother them with my trivial emergency. But feeling desperate, I do so.

Within 5 minutes a fire truck shows up and two young cheerful fire fighters bang and clatter into my apartment, wiring me up to their equipment assuring me they are trying to locate an ambulance - many aspects of our health care system here, with a doctor as premier of the province! - is a complete and utter disaster. Finally an ambulance shows up and I am carted downstairs. Our elevator, in a seniors' building, is too small to handle a stretcher.

I spend an inordinate amount of time in the ambulance in the parking lot getting hooked up to all sorts of machines while paramedics telegraph my vitals ahead to the hospital. It doesn't sound good. I look at myself remotely from overhead. I tend to do this when stressed and confused. I find a woman in a pair of men's pjs, partially covered by a 1000 year old hoodie which she uses as a robe, now opened to accommodate the wires plastering her body, and on her feet a pair of worn brown slippers. She clutches her cellphone and her wallet in one fist. No one has told her to pack a bag, locate her purse. She might as well be naked, or a laughing stock.

Its 5 o'clock in the morning now as evidenced by a clock in the ambulance. Too early to call anyone. And what would I say? "I made a mistake? Get me off this ambulance?"

I think of the book I have half read. The Netflix series I am half way through. I think of my bestie Helen who left a book half read before she succumbed to the glioblastoma that squeezed the life out of her. 

So this is how I die, I thought. Ridiculously, in an ambulance in a parking lot, in my old pjs, in my shabby old comfie LLBean hoodie 3 sizes too big for me, old weary slippers on my feet, desperately needing a haircut and someone to hold her hand.

Hurricanes and Blizzards

It's been dubbed #snowmageddon2020 and fact is I have never experienced a worse winter storm.

This was announced yesterday at 11.00 am.:

As of 11am, the Mayor has declared a state of emergency. All businesses are ordered to close and all vehicles are ordered off the road except emergency vehicles. Please return home until the order is lifted. #nlwx #nltraffic

The city has never been closed down before. We are tough out here on the Edge.

A state of emergency was enforced in St. John's. All vehicles and humans off the roads. The winds roared, the snow flew horizontally, the biggest fear was the power blowing out. It didn't. thankfully.

here is a sample from downtown where many reporters holed up in a hotel. No one could get to their homes outside of the city.


Our local CBC radio station died with no power and the batteries and/or generators weren't working either. The staff were trapped inside of the building overnight sleeping on the floors and wonder of wonders, hooking into CBC Halifax, Nova Scotia, to keep us company for the entire time. It was extremely comforting hearing stories from call-ins. Farmers and stable owners, sleeping in their barns keeping the animals calm. Many opening their doors briefly to catch the awful sound of the peak 167km/hour winds. Windows completely snowed over. Just now the sun came out after over 24 hours of non-stop intensity and partially melted two of my panes:

the plows were taken off the roads due to the danger of being unable to see the road edges or heaven forbid, near the open ocean.

The historic Battery area was evacuated as there was an avalanche which fell into the backs of the houses shown here. No human injuries thank goodness.

And this final story:

Not the baby - but this woman should be premier of this province. She gets things done!

PS, we're still on emergency status here but there is snowboarding on the streets (we're very hilly, a la San Francisco) but we have bright sun.

How innocent the world looks after a storm!!

Carpe Something.

Daughter's kitchen and its wall of cast iron goodies. All of which she uses regularly.

Daughter brought her cream of broccoli soup, gluten-free, dairy-free, legume-free. I made my smoked salmon frittata. She also brought muffins.

We sat in front of the fire and ate this delicious repast. And got caught up. There has been limited visiting with each other because of the weather. So this time together was to be treasured. Later on we had a long walk, the old boreens were pretty packed with others carpe-ing while they could. We admired the sea views, the clear blue skies, how joyful Ansa was on the walk, the fellows out cutting wood on the edges of the road, the fellows with half a moose on the back of their trailers.

We spoke of of the Newfoundland Grand Blackout of 2014 which seizes every bit of writing and reportage around these parts and even to the national level. Our premier, Kathy Dunderdale, has been blistered repeatedly for her arrogance and down-talking to the peasants, basically telling us peons it wasn't a crisis even though people were dying and elders moved from senior homes to generator-run hotels in the dark blizzards of the night on stretchers borne down countless freezing concrete emergency stairs. Rumour has it that Kathy was banjed off on a beach in Florida and had to be dragged back kicking and screaming into darkened Newfoundland by her handlers to orate to her pitiful peons. As some pundit put it so well: "She speaks to the residents of the province like some vice-principal berating a class of poorly behaved 4th graders." She does.

But we survive. About which I've written previously. The kindness of strangers and neighbours and that Irish dark humour that keeps us all going. And emergency preparedness like torches and wood and batteries and candles. Note to self: buy some kerosene when it's back in stock again for those decorative oil lamps.

Emergency Landing Part 2

See Part 1 here.

In case there is any confusion on the timeline of all this, it happened a month ago and only now, because of the trauma and ensuing grief, I can only write about it, thanks to a dear fellow-writer who encouraged me to do this to release some of the pain and loss that felt so bottled up inside me. A huge namaste and thanks to all you wonderful readers who shine their light of warmth and healing my way via comments and emails.

I would ask why are ambulances so incredibly uncomfortable? They seem to reverberate with each pebble the tires hit and speedbumps are bone rattling. But we make it to the hospital and I am transferred to another gurney and vitals are unhooked and rehooked and to my surprise my (I view them as my own special) paramedics stay with me in the hallway. I ask them about this and they tell me I am conscious and they want to keep me that way so they show me baby pics on their phones and ask me about myself and I ask them their names and then ask them about themselves. All very gossippy and chatty. 

One of my biggest fears has always been: An emergency hallway in a vast impersonal hospital, all alone, lying on a gurney forgotten, others freewheeling around me, ignoring me. Well, here I was. I can't get hold of Daughter, finally I get hold of Niece, turns out Daughter was out of cell range in her crack of dawn early morning walk. She now heads into town. Nearly 2 hours away. My two paramedic buddies keep me company. There is so much activity around me. Most of it horrific. 

Drug addicts, knife wounds, one naked young woman rushed by me, pregnant. Minutes later there is screaming as a middle aged woman rushes by following the woman. I have never heard such keening in my life as the pain of that woman crying over her dead daughter, the victim of a car accident, her baby inside her. A woman in a side corridor shouting for pain meds, overhearing her, my paramedics saying she goes to every hospital around trying to get a fix. Judy, they all knew her name. A man behind me in the hall raving like a lunatic. Tied to his gurney. Dementia, my medics tell me. Not enough facilities to handle 'em all. So they wind up in emerg. Not to mention the homeless, they pile in here too, not enough shelters. The unknown underbelly of the ERs. Probably everywhere. 

Daughter texts: she has arrived but they won't let her into this section of the hospital, it's forbidden unless I'm dead and she wishes to say goodbye. Our dark humour always saves the day. She has to wait until I'm assessed in triage.

Finally, finally, I'm transferred onto yet another stretcher and wheeled into triage. I am assessed. Things are getting blurry. There's so much activity all around me and beside me. They're asking me about my meds, they are concerned my kidneys are failing, my heart is failing. Suddenly, Daughter is beside me, holding my hand crying. I start to cry. A team of doctors come by and ask me about DNR (do not resuscitate). As I stare blankly at all of them in turn they proceed to tell me in graphic detail what happens if they attempt to resuscitate me. Broken ribs, brain damage, possible stroke. Vegetative state. I look at Daughter, she looks at me. I say clearly: Definitely DNR.

And I resign myself to die. 

Dissonance

Is there anyone else out there suffering from an excess of dissonance these days?

I know I am.

1. When I hear endless wittering about the bailouts solving the whole problem of the economy which hit rigor mortis over a year ago but was burnished and paraded around like the corpse of Eva Peron until even the true believers began to question the heavy makeup.

2. When I hear bleating from the automobile manufacturing sector about unfair competition from Japan when they themselves killed the electric car, oh, 20 years ago.

3. When I hear of the bailouts of the obscene bankers, the ones who are so removed from any semblance of human compassion and who got us all into this sad and sorry mess to begin with.

4. When I hear of the bailouts for ‘responsible’ homeowners. Who determines who’s responsible, pray tell? Push button two for corruption in the making.

5. When I hear the fading yelps of the Obamabots telling the rest of us cynics that there is still hopey changey in the air. In spite of all evidence to the contrary.

6. When I hear our prime minister, Stephen Harper- aka Bush-Lite – finally giving green energy some lip service in the light of Barack Obama’s visit and his feigned interest in same. Two emperors wearing no clothes for the price of one.

7. When I see absolutely no MSM reporting on the bankruptcy of California – IOUs issued in lieu of tax refunds to its citizens, 55,000 prisoners released to the streets for lack of funds to feed and house them, and oh yeah, some of the citizen journalist reports where I read this have been, yup, deleted. But you can read much about it here in The Independent

8. See: I watch California for the canary in the goldmine that it is, its disease will sweep across the US, gobbling Canada in its wake and then on and over to Europe which is already in its death throes.

9. I see absolutely no emergency preparations being made by Thems Wot Rules Us. Except here in Ontario where, for over a year now, we have been exhorted to have our emergency survival kits at hand.

10. Maybe we’ll be one of the few places that won’t turn on TWRU in primitive savagery when civilization collapses around us.

Enough already, you get my point. But honestly, my head hurts. Most of the time.

Emergency Landing Part 3 - Final

See Part 1 here

See Part 2 here

Health Sciences Centre, St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador.

I slept off and on for a few hours. Daughter went to my place and stayed and gathered up items of need. Niece came to meet her at the hospital with more essentials, including a book of poetry. I heard all the noises around me. Triage is a very noisy place but what struck me most was the comradery of the staff. Often raucous and humorous but also so extraordinarily helpful with each other, shouting "you want help with that, here, let me do that, let me lift her head, let me bandage that head for you." I found it extraordinarily moving. Around me were the unconscious, the moaners, the injured, the dying. I looked at my tubes and my wires and my vitals on screen and someone spotted me and came over and said, beaming, "everything is improving".  Blood and urine had been taken every hour or so and the kidneys were ticking back up.

Around 6 a.m. I was moved to a kind of holding station with 2 other beds. It soon became evident that the man across from me was dying, his family came in and a priest. the last rites were performed.  The woman next to me was youngish, 60 or so, but had post-covid dementia, something not written about much but appallingly evident in ER now, as one of the nurses told me. She wanted to play with the contents of the linen cupboard: incontinence pads, kleenex and wipes and laid them all on her bed and moved them around like a chessboard. She was non-verbal. Her 30-ish daughter was with her, crying, trying to calm her but the nurse stopped her, the playing kept her mother happy and quiet.

I got my first meal halfway through the day. the man across had died and was moved and I cried inconsolably, realizing that his last moments should have been private and were public enough for me to hear it all, the grieving and the prayers. My innards were still in turmoil from the infection. But I managed to get the bland meal down me. I could not manage the next meal. It was revolting. Daughter went away and got me a sandwich which I devoured. This was going well.

Later that night I was moved to a ward in the "real" part of the hospital with a real bed. But when I left the holding station I passed the nursing station where the four staff on duty applauded and cheered me on my way out on the gurney. Which moved me no end. I imagine not many leave there alive and alert. I waved back like a queen. Crying again in gratitude. 

The real bed felt like paradise. The large room not so much. Across from me a woman dying. A year older than me according to the hushed conversation of her family. Her granddaughter and the rest of her adult children came in the following morning. Again, tears, overhearing her granddaughter telling her she had good marks in school. The loving words of one son asking his mother if she wanted to go out for one more cigarette - which told me, perhaps, what she was dying from. But I cried once more, pretty inconsolable in Daughter's arms when she arrived. She cried too.

Kitty corner all night was a man raving in dementia. Begging for his mother, then for a nurse, then for his mother. Attendants trying to soothe him, always kind, always calling him mister. It was disturbing how loud he was. Not much sleep.

Next to me, in the morning, a team consulted with the man in the bed next to me, I had a glimpse of him and he looked familiar, a man I might have seen on TV or a film, perhaps. The team were telling him that his liver, kidneys and other organs showed masses, they needed to get into his bowels now and see where else it had spread. He was fighting it, and repeated over and over, "are you sure? are you sure?" Later, I presumed it was his wife who flew by the bottom of my bed and landed at the bottom of his. All the curtains were pulled but sometimes they were dragged open accidentally to give me a glimpse of the real world. I am blessed with good hearing and a voracious curiosity, so could hear their conversation. He eventually asked her "Are you still going to leave me?" And she responded, coldly "Does this change things?" "You'd leave me to die alone?" "How long do you have?" "Maybe three months." "Would I have to take care of you?" "We had thirty years together, what's three months? For God's sake, Rita!" "I'll have to think about it." And with that, she upped and left. 

At that moment, another team of medics dropped by me. The chief, who turned out to be a prof at the university, internal medicine, asked me if I minded she had some students in tow I was quite thrilled to see her seven students were all male with her in charge. Quite a reversal of roles. They answered all my questions and she was cautious when she said, if you are still doing well, we will release you later on tomorrow pending the readings and your vitals.

Later a trainee doctor came by and I asked her a ton of extra questions as to what exactly happened to me. She  had the time to sit down and explained exactly what had happened. The norovirus had invaded my stomach and my bowls causing constant nausea, diarrhea, eventually dehydrating the body, releasing enzymes in an effort to keep the kidneys going which were shutting down and then in turn shutting down the heart and the oxygen levels. My inherent kidney disease accelerated all of this plus my aging body which had no resistance to infection.

My terminal brother, who was also in a hospital in Cork, was communicating through much of all this through WhatsApp we were so worried about each other. Our last communication was when I said to him :"We're a right pair of langers* aren't we, lying about in our beds, being waited on hand and foot." And he cracked up. I loved cracking him up through our times of misery. "A right pair of langers alright," he responded, "you nailed it." 

Later the following day Daughter and I left the hospital. Breathing that air outside, looking at the trees in disbelief, watching the birds, I cried again. Knowing how fortunate I was, how free, how privileged. The parking lot was packed. I was aware, as never before, of how much pain and sorrow awaited all those car drivers and passengers in the hospital behind me. And yet, here was I, leaving the experiences I will never forget.

One of the lucky ones. Dodging death. In awe of the heroes and heroines in the emergency rooms, saving lives, comforting the dying, healing the wounds, finding spaces for the homeless, the doomed and demented, cheering each other on through the countless tragedies. Overhearing the last moments of so many. The real champions of our world in the real Olympics are our health care workers. I'd hang a gold medal on every single one of them any day of the week. 

*langers: Cork slang. langer (plural langers) (slang, Ireland, derogatory) Fool; idiot; annoying or contemptible person, langers can also mean drunk.

Here's a Cork song about langers. Some of it is in Irish, in case you're confused.

I play it for my dear brother who died a few short days after I left the hospital while he remained.

Life in my Village - a snapshot.

I never need a tracking device because people find me. All.The.Time.

Case in point was today where I was conducting a writers' workshop. In the middle of it, Roger, our old postmaster (he had a rather stupid tussle with a Big Gun at the main post office in town and lost the service) called me out of it with one of those secret agent beckoning fingers along with a shhh on the lips. As he is also the honorary fire chief, I thought it to be an emergency of some kind.

"Drove all the way up here, couldn't find your car anywhere near your house (story of my life out here) and then I had to hunt you down," sez he, "I had a courier delivery for you, huge box - come down and get it, I can't lift it."

Ah yes, when a snowstorm hits, I order groceries by mail, free delivery over $50. Great service.

Assuring him, yes, I'd be down later not now, I resume the class.

On wrapping up the class an hour later, and locking up the building, I notice a jeep with one of our elders in it, obviously waiting for me.

"Ah yes," sez Mr. Francis through his lowered window, "Finally! I've been waiting for over half an hour. I had to track you down!"

"What?" sez I, "Another delivery?"

He looks at me baffled. "Ah no, no, girl,(it's always lovely to be called a girl when you're an elder yourself and he or she is 16 years older) I've been worried about the ice dams on your house, I took the liberty of checking the outside and I'd sleep easier if you could have an engineer look at it, to make sure there's no structural damage after the melt, know what I mean?"

It has taken me quite a while to get used to these invasions at all times, no matter where I am. Coming from cities (Cork, Toronto)it's all part of my adjustment to rural living. Everyone knows where you are and what boxes lie in wait for you and what's happened to your house, your family or your dog.

I wouldn't go back for anything.

Big Brother Nudges Ever Closer

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 will grant unprecedented powers to the president to shut down the internet on a whim.

The bill's draft states that "the president may order a cybersecurity emergency and order the limitation or shutdown of Internet traffic" and would give the government ongoing access to "all relevant data concerning (critical infrastructure) networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule, or policy restricting such access."

Essentially, the Act would federalize critical infrastructure security. Since many of our critical infrastructure systems (banks, telecommunications, energy) are in the hands of the private sector, the bill would create a major shift of power away from users and companies to the federal government. This is a potentially dangerous approach that favors the dramatic over the sober. response

Read more about it here

It seems that as long as the bogey man, Mr. Terrorist, is tossed around on a daily basis, more and more citizen rights can be eroded.

Bravery

We're all so terribly brave, aren't we?

Like we have no idea where we're all going and we march on. Or stumble. Or fumble. There is no light at the end of this particular tunnel. At least not yet. And I hope fervently that we will not repeat The Great Flu of 1918 where millions upon millions died and it appears that many do not learn from the protocols they put in place even then, over 100 years ago. Contagion is contagion is contagion.

The toll on fire and emergency services on the western seaboard of the US to counteract this cataclysmic burning must take a huge toll along with the risk of Covid to all concerned. Bravery indeed.


I'm avoiding the US news as if it were another form of plague on the landscape but sometimes it is unavoidable. A horror of a genocide with nearly 250,000 citizens now dead. My friends who live there and also hold Canadian citizenship have made arrangements to move back to Canada in November. Constant sunshine for them has a high price. And then the fires. Flames and pestilence at the same time. It crushes the brain. This was yesterday's Covid statistics for the top countries cases on the planet. With the US staggeringly ahead.

Here we are catching (in isolation) each case as it lands and thus preventing community spread. The 4 Atlantic provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland & Labrador) are in the same bubble, with provincial border checks for those coming in from outside these provinces.

St. Pierre and Miquelon, tiny islands off the coast of Newfoundland which is French territory, is not faring so well. 11 cases in their tiny population of 6,000.

The rest of Canada isn't faring so well at the moment.

We're all tapping into our depleting stockpiles of bravery these days. Even if it's just shutting our eyes and going wah-wah and not contemplating a future that has no shape whatsoever.

And a PS to the Etc

 Dear Joared and DKZ

Your blogs kick me out after I comment which is very frustrating. Can't figure out why this is so. Can you figure it out? Other blogs do not do this, much to my relief as I could become quite paranoid.

I've been tossing books lately with a DNF* note in my book journal. I resent the time I spend on them before this act as I could have been reading a good book. Know what I mean?

I'm into fiction in a big way. I like the escapism provided by a good author. Good in my estimation, maybe not in yours.

I persist sometimes when the books are both gifts and best sellers as these last two were.

But finally I just threw in the towel on both and picked up my emergency Michael Connolly who never lets me down when Bosch is involved. And PS I can't abide the actor portraying him in the Bosch series on Prime.

I will update my 2021 Books Read Page soonest as I have enjoyed some smashing reads this year.

And I will mention now, albeit with connection to reading, that my right eye, one day after the hospital procedures has gone semi-blind. A grey fog has descended. What next, I think, sitting on my pity pot. I have an appointment with my eye guy first thing Tuesday and we'll take it from there. 

But at least the left eye is behaving itself. And there have been no alarming calls after two biopsies on last Tuesday.

And, I always think, and I pass this on, who would trade places with me right now? So many worse off, so many in desperation and pain. So many, and I know one dear one, who are facing their own mortality.

*Did Not Finish.

What's Next USA?

I was flabbergasted to see many of my USian female friends post the above as their profile picture on Facebook today.

The comments were chilling. Many considering sterilizing procedures, their husbands considering vasectomies. Others stockpiling birth control methods. Others putting out words for friends who need abortions. Canada is taking in droves of them at the moment and offering services free of charge.

And then I thought, of course. The Handmaid's Tale, long predicted by Margaret Atwood (a Canadian) has arrived and this is how it arrives.

It's 2022, I keep reminding myself and rights are being removed in the country to the south of us by a positively evil misogynistic Supreme Court who are planning to take away the rights of gays next and have gleefully announced it.

All this trailing back to the rapist and racist they put in power in 2016. One who promised he would take his revenge on every woman who rejected him. A psychopath, fraud, grifter and grafter - who will never be charged for all the criminal acts he performed before, during and after his election. His (paid?) fall guys will take it all on the chin for him. Because that's how a mafia works.

Meanwhile, this is all a great distraction for a country burning  up or flooding catastrophically while racist cops stop and sometimes kill  those who drive or walk while black, and AK47 wielding 18 year olds kill random children in schools as the cops cower outside, afraid. And enshrined by the NRA is the right to bear such weapons, concealed or not. And Monkey Pox declared a national health emergency.  And in the midst of this, the speaker of their house marches off and pokes the beast that is China.

All this while climate change is the only item that should be on the agenda of the USA - the worst polluters on the planet.

/end rant 

Trouble Comes in Threes

Car trouble does for sure. Oh, and did I mention I name my cars? Silly, right? This one is Strawbella. I don’t know how I came up with the name. OK, I do. Italian Strawberry. She’s a lovely colour.

It’s been a busy 10 days with Strawbella. I feel there’s a spell on me or her. I need a reverse incantation.

So far in this life, I’ve racked up well over a million km in driving I would think, if not more. I’ve encountered minor trouble. I never had a serious accident or any accident. Near misses but I can’t even think of a fender bender actually.

People tell me I’m a good driver, they often fall asleep in the passenger seat as I tool along which is the ultimate test, right. I avoid brake usage unless it’s an emergency. I go with the flow, I’m relaxed even though I’m a defensive driver, I classify everyone else on the road as an eejit or a Fwad, which is a private family term for driver-dolts and is quite obscene when not abbreviated. Being defensive is a good way to drive. Always watching out for some careening catastrophe or a wavering wobbler who is either drunk or high.

All the moose that plague the highways here are long gone to beddy-bye for the season, I’ve been told. So I’m more relaxed than usual as I drive at dusk last Sunday. I don’t have to watch for them anymore. I’m heading for a small dinner party at a friend’s. I’ve got a mixed album on. Celtic Women. Lovely voices, I join them as I tool along.

Out of nowhere it gallops out on the road. An effing moose. No car coming, no car behind, veer sharp to the left. Very sharp. Moose veers to the right. Moose falls. Hard. Not fast enough to escape me and my car. And it is sickening this awful sound as I drive over her four legs. Heart pounding, I pull over to the side of the road. What if she’s in pain, bleeding? Broken legs? Briefly I lay my head on the wheel, I can’t look. There’s no sound behind me. No other cars. I raise my head, look in the rear view mirror and there she is, clambering mightily to her feet, shaking her head (at me?) and retreating from whence she came. Standing quietly. Waiting for the next car? This is a game?

I get out of Strawbella, walk around her. Not a mark on her. No dent, no blood, no fur. I get back in. Swear to heaven, the dog lifts one eyebrow at me. “And for your next trick, human?”

Well, she only had to wait three days. We leave St. John’s at 9.00 p.m. last night for the normal 55 minute drive and get caught in a blizzard. A bad one, snow, freezing rain and no snowplows out. And loads of Fwads on the road. All in tractor-trailers. Markings on highways are buried and there are steep inclines on both sides. Fwads drive by, flashing highbeams, honking and throwing immovable ice on to the windshield which necessitates pulling over onto air and manually removing it. The drive home took 2 ½ hours of white-knuckling, frequent stops and appalling language, even for me. I would have waved fists at the Fwads, but my fingers were stuck to the wheel in a kind of rigor mortis.

The dog staggered out of Strawbella at the end of it all with a look at me that would fry bacon.

Yeah, OK, I admit it, I tell her. I plan and plot these manoeuvres to really, really get up your nose.

Hurricane Igor

Photo courtesy CBC of the St. Lawrence area not too far from here.

Yeah, it's here. Igor has hit and he's brought some really strange weather. House so warm within and so wet outside that all windows are fogged up. The trees sway as their still green leaves get wrenched and thrown at the windows in handfuls.

My niece, who lives about 400km from here tells me her roads are washed out, she ventured out briefly and saw cars floating in the water, something she'd never seen before. She turned and went home. All of her town has folded up into itself, many have lost their homes. Her brand new home has roof leaks, but it could be the force of the wind.

Here we are slightly more sheltered but it is still an awesome sound with a frisson of uncertainty as the windows, under the pressure of the wind, leak in odd places. The roof, so far, is solid.

Only the odd dudely truck rolls by on the streaming flooded road. The stream across from my house has burst its banks, the bay is a mass of whitecaps. If the windows were clear I would try and capture it. I have never seen it like this, a complete turmoil of white and grey flowing in with the north wind.

With all of this maelstrom around, I feel grateful that we are far better off than the unfortunates of Bermuda.

The power is still on, with emergency supplies standing by and the woodstove ready to be fired up.

I'm dry and safe within broken by the odd accusing look from the dog.

You see, in her world, this is all my fault.

**Update - 4.40pm my time
Now the power is out. I have large battery back up and I am on "turbo stick" for internet and had the sense to stockpile a bit of water this morning as my pump is now down and also landline is out. Lots of candles and battery radio. CBC is going to stay with us until it is over but it is on generator power only as all of St. John's now in blackout along with all of the Avalon. Wind is frightening, small branches flung like matchsticks off my trees. Oh, we are such midgets in the force of awesome Mother Nature.
**Update - 7.10pm my time
Well the sun peeped out amongst the speeding clouds for a few minutes. Radio says the rain storm is now over and another two hours of wind. Hurricane has been downsized as of now to a tropical storm. Leo came over and started picking up the branches around the place and then stopped as the wind picked up again. Mr. Igor is not done with us yet.

Changing Times

A dear friend whom I was meeting for dinner tonight (I know endless rounds of delightful dinners out with friends seems like a permanent lifestyle for me at the mo)texted me to say she had severe pains in her abdomen and was taking herself off to the hospital.

Whoa, nelly, what? I text her back. Where are you? What hospital? Silence. I leave messages at her home, on her blackberry, on her office line. Silence. One of my messages I say: Yeah, I've been there with severe abdominal cramps, mine was a ruptured appendix followed by peritonitis.

She finally texts from a Women's College Hospital ambulance, they are taking her directly to Toronto Hospital for emergency surgery. We continue texting. She is outside the operating room, saying it is pointless for me to be there, they have diagnosed her with a perforated appendix (I know, I know, I should be a diagnostician)and are taking her in for the surgery immediately.

All digits are crossed for her. I am so glad she had the sense to take herself off to the hospital once the pain hit and that she is now in good hands. I won't relax though until I know she is OK and I hope to see her tomorrow.

I find it extraordinary that in a few short years so much has changed in how we communicate and how instantaneous and immediate it all is.

Blog Jam

It's a fog of snow out there. Flakes so small they blanket the air, gauzing the meadow and the barn. I can't say as I like it. We had to cancel, again, the Book Club monthly meeting and now we're deferring the works till March. First time ever Book Club was cancelled and twice to boot.

As I was dressing this morning I became aware, as if for the first time, how there is no longer a need to rush. It seems like in my old life I was rushing from one thing to another. Like most working mothers, like most cramming every scrap of life into an overflowing day.

I thought:

Thirty minutes to perform all the rituals of the woken up morning.

I thought:

Why am I paying attention to the timing of that?

I had the house record (in a house of males) when still living in my parents' house. Five minutes from start to finish. Including the slap(Irishese for makeup) and clobber (full dress regalia). No showers then, just the bath at night. Now it's thirty minutes of drift, a meditation in there too, a chat with the dog. A leisurely teeth brushing, a selection of which of the two pairs of jeans to wear, or the sweats if going absolutely nowhere.

My old newfound friend phoned me yesterday. I hadn't heard her voice in well over thirty+ years. It hadn't changed. She has led a life as an emergency room nurse, a teacher, a farmer, a saw mill operator and now an artist. It turns out she is an expert in the art of Chinese fine line painting and conducts classes. And yes, she's in her eighties. Below is some of her work on exhibit at a gallery:

We also shared missing children stories. One of her sons estranged himself for twelve years from the entire family. During that time she missed the birth of her grandchildren and their growing up years. Years never regained of course - lost forever and with no foundational love for those grandchildren like she has with her other son's. She is stoic when she tells me this and has made the best of it, even through the apologies of her prodigal son. She said to me: "Apologies are too small, too inadequate. I tell him I do not want to hear them for they are meaningless. Let's make the best of the remaining years."

Wise words. I'd forgotten how very wise she was.

Shared heartbreaks. Shared creative souls.

A long lost friendship retrieved from the mists of time and misunderstandings. Elder bonus.

July Month

{And I post the above graph just to show how USians have been consistently lied to about universal health care costs.}

I remember that expression from my childhood. My grandparents would say "July month", rather than "month of July". And this is the Newfoundland useage also.

There's something poetic about it. To my ear anyway.

I had many medical appointments today, from 8.30 a.m. to 2.30 with a narrow break for lunch. I was sitting in Starbucks with my netbook (I've been having awful problems with the turbo stick and its so-called "upgrades" here at home - don't get me started) so I availed of the chance to post responses to my blog comments, check my email for client payments and my daily email from my childhood friend, etc. when it hit me. As it does now and again. Everything was free, down to the emergency glucose pills for my purse to exercise equipment to books, to consultations - some lasting more than an hour. As in FREE. And not a death panel in sight.

How lucky I am to live in this country, this True North strong and free, I thought. Even though our prime minister Harper (aka Bush-lite) would have it very different given his druthers. And we are all carefully watching those druthers.

When I see in the wee country south of us druthers are being yanked left right and centre as the debt deadlines come marching home with the trillions in treasure blown into the cavernous pockets of the giant industrial military machine.

And with Harper in charge can we be far behind I ask myself as he ramps up the prisons and the fighter planes and gives away our water and mining rights.

So, I'll enjoy this universal health care while I can. And never, ever take it for granted.

Norah

This story was inspired by the photo above taken by my friend Joe Healy.

[As a follow-up to yesterday's post and requested by you faithfuls via emails and comments, here is the short listed story. Thank you kindly and feel free to critique.]

Strange how the simple regimentation of childhood fell into place once again in the declining years, the seeming spontaneity of middle life vanishing almost imperceptibly. Each day blended seamlessly into the next. Every morning at eight she had her simple breakfast of tea, toast and marmalade while reading the headlines of the Irish Examiner which seemed to slavishly follow the unwritten rule of 'if it bleeds it leads'. Accidents, drug lord battles, a drowning in Crosshaven. The bowl of mixed fruits in the middle of the table brought the only spot of colour into the kitchen, a counterpoint to the murky grey day nudging at the window. She rinsed out her dishes.

November is a wicked month, she reflected, looking out. Now who'd said that?

Ginger wheezed at her feet. A most unattractive fellow, all the colours of the dog world on him none of which were even remotely appealing. A mottled thinning wiry tufty fur: grey, dirty sand, streaky black topped by his white whiskers in a downward swoop giving him a constantly mournful expression. Fifteen. A great age for a dog but it was far too challenging to calculate it in human years like some did. Multiply a dog's age by seven? Maybe six? Or something far more complicated. She couldn't remember. And she a maths teacher back in the day.

Ginger was a witness to the last breath of her married life. A couple of years before he died, Hugh had found Ginger on St. Patrick's Street huddled up against a rubbish bin. A wee puppy. Rain slick and softly whining. He'd brought him home wrapped in his winter scarf and wanted to call him Pana after the street. Ah now, he'd said, don't be so hard Norah, a dog will get us out of the house more. And on the third ah now she'd relented. What harm? But she stood her ground on calling him Pana. Ginger, she'd said. And that was that.

And he'd stayed runty small and Hugh, God bless him, ignored the laughter-laden jibes, the 'sure what kind of rodent-rat-squirrel is it at all?' remarks that were tossed casually at his six foot self and his ugly little dog by passersby on Pana. Ginger. How euphemistic a name was that, you'd have to hunt to find the small bit of ginger fur on his belly.
Hugh had died right there on the kitchen floor while he was bent over topping up the dog dish. Ginger had a voracious appetite. They had laughed about it. Taking a peculiar pride in his enormous consumption. Hugh would joke about the subsequent output, he'd put all the Irish wolfhounds out there to shame would our boy!

Ginger whined and licked Hugh's face as he lay there, dog food scattered around him, while she dialled emergency services, stuttering into the phone, her words panicked and incomplete. For they both knew, she and Ginger, that Hugh lay forever still beneath the death that had silenced him.

Lisa and Jeff and the grandchildren came down for a week but that was all a blur. A disturbance really. Lisa had left home many years before and Hugh and herself had always visited them up in Dublin as there wasn't room in their small house in Cork for the swarm of them all. Five grandchildren including one set of twins, all within five years. All very loud.

After her cancer and hysterectomy and some very careful consideration, she and Hugh had adopted Lisa. They'd hoped for a quiet girl. And Lisa, as if she knew what was required of her, was one of those self-entertaining babies fascinated with her own fingers and toes, overjoyed with the mobile they hung over her cot, rapturous at being taken outdoors into the sunshine and best of all she slept through the night. She was barely an intrusion on their reading and listening to classical music, was entranced by their singing rehearsals for the Cork Baroque recitals and gurgled as they hosted their turn at bridge nights. Pretty too. And bright. They took a modest pride in her accomplishments, her scholarships. And then she'd met Jeff and all these children started arriving. Quickly. Unseemly they'd thought but had agreed it was truly none of their business. Three days in Dublin every Christmas, they decided, followed by one long weekend in the summer. That would keep their grand-parenting end of things up. And, of course, remembering all the birthdays and the anniversaries and putting aside modest educational funds. There, that would be their duty done without the noise of the rambunctious four boys and their even louder sister offending their delicate sensibilities.

She'd embraced the internet some years before after a few night classes. A vast encyclopedia of untapped knowledge, she'd said to Lisa, excited for the first time since Hugh had died. She missed Hugh's stimulating conversation. The vast world wide web compensated for this in a small way.

A month ago, she'd looked up the symptoms for depression. Old Doctor Harmon hadn't picked up on what was really going on with her. By now he was just seeing her and a few more of the stalwarts as he called them - patients that had been with him for the fifty years since he qualified. So he listened carefully as she read off her symptoms from a slip of paper and then handed her a small pack of anti-depressants from his samples. He wagged his finger at her in that way of his that she was used to by now but that Lisa had so much trouble with when she was a teenager.

Now Norah, he'd said, you can only take these with a bit of food, and just one three times a day mind! She'd nodded, repeating what he said as that had always pleased him.

And the three prescription renewals were no trouble either. He'd asked to see her again after the third one. She made sure she pasted a smile on her face as she walked into the surgery and remembered to keep it there even though her face ached as she left with the new prescription. Feeling marvellous, she'd assured Gerry Harmon, like a new woman!

She'd seen her mother going down the road she was headed. Second childhood they called it then. But at least children could recognize their own families. Her mother hadn't known any of them during the eight years before she died, even their simple brother Bertie who had lived with her all his life. A mother to nine strangers.

On researching Alzheimer’s on the web, she found that there were ten early warning symptoms. Not that she could remember all of them now.

She went into the hall and put on her blue quilted coat, forcing her mind back to the symptoms. Oh yes, one had to do with driving, another with forgetting to pay the bills. She'd always liked driving out to the country, especially Kinsale, usually with friends, most of them now gone or in care homes. Lovely spots for lunch there. But the confusion on the roundabout, and those coloured lights, what were they again? – traffic lights that was it - and deliberately avoiding the motorways and then getting on to them accidentally. This was all alarming enough for her to hide away the car keys in a lucid moment a few months ago and then forget where they were. Good thing too.

Ginger was sitting in front of her, staring at his leash hanging on its hook. She certainly never saw the need nor had the desire to talk to Ginger as Hugh had done. They existed within each others' lives without the clutter of language. Ginger knew the times of his twice daily feedings and his walk or reliefs, and would leave his basket by the kitchen stove and show up by the dish or the coat-rack or the backdoor without prompting and at the right times for these functions. He made no unusual demands on her nor she on him. It was a highly satisfactory arrangement.

She snapped the leash onto his collar and put on her blue hat and her red mohair scarf and her winter gloves and took her cane out of the hall stand. Ready steady go.
Not for her the stroll on Pana of Hugh's days but the scantily peopled North Mall with its nice flat footpath around the corner from the house. There were no twists and turns on their promenade and they both knew the way.

As she walked, she found herself pondering yet again on that Ten Point List. Something about forgetting to groom, using poor judgement. She'd made careful notes. Stuck them around the place. Especially about bath times and washing her clothes in the machine. One day, she'd found herself washing sheets in the bath like her grandmother would in the old copper tub at the farm. At times, alarmed, she'd had to decipher what the notes meant as once it took her many hours to figure out the word shampoo as she'd thought it had something to do with Ginger's doggy business.

Lisa hardly telephoned anymore which was all well and good. They now exchanged emails. Lisa sent current photos of her family on Sunday nights from her Iphone. Dinners, graduations, Halloween, birthdays, sports, performances. She would respond cheerfully, exclaiming over the children, all adults now, some married themselves. Unknown beings to her. She assumed their communal loudness had decreased in volume. Or maybe not, as on line she had kept herself up to date on heavy metal music and that rap nonsense that so polluted the airwaves on the radio.

Before she realized it, Ginger had turned around and they were headed back down to the corner of Marlborough Place. Close to sixty years at the one address though for the life of her she couldn't recall the number of her house if she was asked even though she'd silently repeat it to herself when she saw it on her own gate.

Mornings were the best. Afternoons were more of a challenge especially with the sun going down, for her agitation increased and then her ability to read even her own written directions to herself failed. She had let go of her beloved books, how long ago now, a year? Still aware enough then to find herself re-reading chapter one of each well thumbed tome over and over again trying to set the characters in her mind. And failing.

She carefully hung up the walking paraphernalia on the hall stand, placing Ginger's leash on its special hook and stared at it. She'd never been a sentimental woman. There was room for very little sentiment in the house she grew up in, and Hugh, bless him, had provided what sentiment there was in this house.

She took the four bottles of pills out of the kitchen cupboard and ground down two of the pills with her mortar and pestle and mixed the powder into some fresh mince meat. Ginger wasn't used to treats and devoured the snack quickly. And then she waited. It didn't take long. Wordlessly, she laid him in his bed beside the stove.

She put the remainder of the pills into the pestle and ground these. She poured some cornflakes in a bowl and sprinkled the powder all over it and poured milk on top and set it aside carefully and then went into the parlour to the computer in the corner and opened her email. She reviewed the instructions for 'delay delivery of email' and set the time for eight p.m. that evening. Then she painstakingly typed from notes she had prepared over the last few days.

Dear Lisa,
By the time you get this, I will have passed on to be with your daddy. I sense the onset of my own Alzheimer’s in more ways than I can tell you and I do not want yourself or Jeff to be burdened with my ever worsening condition. I've left all in order for you in your father's small safe. I'd like to be buried with him in St. Finbarr's.
You've been a joy and a source of pride to me Lisa and always respectful of my need for privacy and quiet. I am so very grateful that I can take care of this one small task left to me without bothering you. If you would, please have Ginger's ashes scattered on the grave. Your daddy did love him so. Goodbye. I've had a very good life.
Love, Mother.

Kiss of Death, That's Me.

I would add emergency sideswipes and hospitalizations to the above list.

My blogmeet with Annie was lovely. I dropped her off at a corner near her home. A short while later, she called 911 and is still in the hospital for cardiac assessment. Please send her all good thoughts.

Before my lunch with Tessa, her husband called to say she had a massive nosebleed that wouldn't stop and he was going to take her to the hospital.

Both are now well and being taken care of.

But I thought a T-Shirt imprinted with the above would be appropriate for me to wear on the plane going back to NL tomorrow.

PS And oh yeah, beware all you bloggers out there of blogmeets with wisewebwoman!

Screaming Into the Void

I'm going to call her Tess, not her real name.

She drinks too much. She's old. She's a very pretty, feminine, soft looking and sounding woman but very conniving.

If she runs out of booze she will find some simple unquestioning neighbour to take her to emergency to get her pills until her next pension cheque. She's running out of obliging neighbours. Her daughters have her number and refuse to engage with her when she gets telephonitis late at night and harangues them on their failures.

I wouldn't want to be inside her head when she wakes up of a morning for this is how she immediately goes on Facebook with many expletives:

Tess inhales her morning swallow
Sorts out the thrum of her inside hollow.
She hits the keys, all caps and spleen
And shouts the world to smithereens.

And this is the kicker - I so admire the restraint of the responses:

Have a good day Tess! Heart emoticon
How's your garden coming, Tess? Flower emoticon
Enjoy your day! smiley face emoticon.

It brightens my morning, it's hard to explain. She says terrible things, sitting firmly on her pity pot with a long list of those she hates or have offended her or died on her.

But the responses never vary, all kind and normal sounding in the face of such abuse. That's what makes my day.

Human nature is magnificent.

Innies and Outies

No I'm not talking belly buttons. Though I'd like to. Curious things, aren't they? All shapes and sizes. Connections to those who gave birth to us. I lost mine. Seriously. An emergency appendectomy of a slash and burn variety. I tell startled medical people now when I'm having a test that I'm from Venus. We do it differently there so I was hatched from an egg. It gets a chuckle. Or not. Depending on the personality of the technician.

Are you an innie or an outie person? I learned the terminology years ago when my romantic little heart set up a couple as being possible partners in love. They were both extraordinarly attractive and outgoing and to top it all off were both named Joanne. One was a client, the other was my tenant. They had their first date and tenant Joanne told me thanks but it would never go anywhere as client Joanne was an outie and she was an innie. Client Joanne was into motorbikes and extreme sports, tenant Joanne was into reading and theatre and playing her cello.

Well, this was all news to me. But I pay attention. As I do. And was startled to discover that my family and friends and relationships could be so classified. Now, before you start in on me, I do know that opposites attract. And I too have been smitten with the hell-raising fellows who never cut open a book from one end of the year to the other. But on the whole, my longest lasting friendships and relationships have been with innies. Those with an inner life, not predicated on the latest wevs* (fashion, car, star, mag, movie, TV show, cookery guru, etc.) but on their own dreams, aspirations and personal evolution.

And yes, I do know that there can be a mix of innie and outie in a lot of us. But I think most of us do lean one way or the other.

For instance, I find it is my innie friends and family who totally enjoy my haven in Newfoundland and are content to be with themselves without outer distraction and stimulation.





*whatevers