It's official, I'm an addict!

As if I didn't have enough things to occupy my time in retirement...oh wait I don't...I've discovered Facebook games. Much to the chagrin of most of my family and friends who don't play games on Facebook it's apparent that I'm hooked, between my RollerCoaster simulation and farming in Farmville, I'm tending a Zoo, running a mafioso family and roaming the streets at night as a vampire. Good thing Lynn hasn't noticed, she's too busy tending her own farm, aquarium and zoo :) Worse yet, Lynn went to Ottawa for a few days and I've had to tend not only my crops, my fish, fight my battles with the mafia and vampires, but I've also had to do hers as well. But the dogs are fed, the poop is picked up and I'm running a load of laundry as I type, so all is not lost. Tomorrow we're driving down to St. John to see my old partner Mark Knoop (now withVancouver), I'm looking forward to the drive and seeing him, it has been a looooong time, maybe he'll be fat...oh wait, he's travelling with the torch bearer for the Olympics, so I guess not. I just realized that sentence is almost as long as one of Sarah Palin's. Sheesh

It's not Homer but he's pretty good!

I always thought the Trappers mascot Homer was
too funny but this guy or girl is right up there!

Some good TV news for a change

Bad enough all the networks keep cancelling our favorite shows which makes it hard to commit DVR space to any show, we just discovered that Defying Gravity has bitten the big one. We only found this out when one of its stars showed up on Dexter. We were a little bummed. But now, some good news from out in TV land, just when we thought things couldn't get any better after Paula Abdhul left American Idol we get this news This improves two shows at once!

Tough Stuff - Eco Friendly Socialism

I don't often find myself espousing tree hugger mantras but I have to admit that the Tough Stuff solar power project had the right blend of a useful product for me and a beneficial product for someone who is not as fortunate as most of us are. The link on the top right side of my blog will take you to their website and you can read for yourself what this company is all about. Buy one for package for you and they'll donate one package to a person in need. Sounds like a simple plan to spread the benefits of a simple solar powered system to those who could use the power but might not otherwise be able to afford it or have access to power at all. Check 'em out.

Another Passing

It seems like hardly any time at all has passed since my retirement and the time I spent working went by just as fast. I expect of course, to occasionally hear of a members passing and some of those members I remember vaguely because they retired when I was just beginning my career, others I remember much more vividly. I was shocked to hear of Guy's passing, we were not especially close but I remember him as an outgoing, grab life by the horns kind of guy and he was a hoot! I remember him with Scotty, I remember him at Cook County, a big ol bear of a guy, who you could always count on for help. I am sorry that he is gone and I am sure that his loss will be felt by many. His Facebook page was still up as of yesterday and the profile picture of him reminded me of how little he had changed over the years, although I don't remember him being all dressed up like that but he cut a fine figure. He will be missed.

Fall Fair Time!

It was time for the annual Charlo Fall Fair and we were looking forward to it but wouldn't you know it, our baby, our lovely Equinox was having a hiccup starting, not your usual dead battery kinda hiccup but something weird. Being so mechanically inclined, I let Lynn open the hood while I wandered around trying to find the battery charger. Lynn found it and hooked it up and the truck started dutifully a minute later. We'll have to investigate this further but now, it's off to the fair!

We picked up Mom and headed to the restaurant and sat at a large table since we were expecting more people. When they didn't show, we moved to a smaller table and then after we were all set up, everybody else showed up so we dutifully moved back to the big table. Kind of like an old time square dance with tables n chairs instead. Dinner was great although it took forever to get the food, this being fair time after all and the place was packed.

We headed off to the fair, oohed and ahhed at the bees (one of the honeycombs from a beekeepers hive), they are so industrious and could care less if we stared at them while they worked. There were full sized motorcycles made out of wood, fudge and cotton candy, german sausages and bugs in plastic for keychains and paperweights n stuff. It's quite the eclectic mix of things, and everyone kept running into people they knew, even though it is becoming a big deal, it still retains all of its hometown charm. Oh and you would not believe the number of bongs and pipes and containers for illicit goods that were for sale, funny thing was, all the people selling them were old but did have the look of old hippies about them :)

All in all, it was a great night, we came home and passed out almost right away, but we had to deal with the three furry dervishes first, who acted like we had been gone for years. I'm already looking forward to next years fair!

Finally!!! Whoo Hoo

What a cutie, everybody, meet Dumpling, Mark and Mila's baby and Gavin's brother and no, that's not Gavin between his paws :) Welcome to the family! Rescued from overseas, he made a long journey to get here but it was obviously worth the wait. Mila, sorry, I stoled your picture :)
but I just had to have him here :)

They made it! We now have proof!

Garrick's graduation pictures finally arrived after several missteps and they were worth the wait. His grandmother (my favorite mother in law) will be so pleased, besides, that's one less frame I have to store in the house :) Seriously though, they do represent an accomplishment and I look forward to seeing his next set of graduation pictures when he is finished at school this time around. Hopefully we won't have to wait as long for the next ones (hint..hint).

We Need A RainMaker

Hurricanes galore rolling up the eastern seaboard, the Atlantic is all churned up, massive rain showers everywhere, everywhere but here No, I don't want a deluge, I'm not interested in riding around in a rowboat but it's been so long since we've had a decent rain that the cat o nine tails in my ditch are starting to wilt! To add insult to injury, grass apparently doesn't need rain to grow, so I still get to cut the grass anyway.

Small Town?...How Small?

Howard, our town is so small, Google barely knows it exists, preferring to say we are near Beresford..the small town next door! So sorry, no satellite pictures for you.

Raising our Carbon Footprint..yet again...

First we flew the boys out here for a vacation burning fossil fuels as only Air Canada with its multi-connection flights to the east coast can do, and then once they were gone we got down to the dirty job of cleaning up the mess left over from our rear deck renovation from last year or was it the year before? Time flies when you're retired. Three hundred bucks for the rental of a dumpster...eighty bucks for nine paving stones and a little bit of gasoline and whoosh...problem solved...sorry Greenpeace...we tried...we really tried....

Home Renovation Tax Credit At Work!

Who says the Conservatives can't help out us old retired folk? We saved the price of almost one whole set of stairs! We didn't do it for the savings, we did it because of the snow...now we only have to shovel the tiny bit by the side stairs and we can ignore the rest..Woot!...Woot!

Over, much too quickly

We did a little visiting, a little sightseeing, a little eating, a lot of sleeping :) All in all a nice visit but it was way too short, it takes time to recover from flying across the country courtesy of Air Canada's insistence that you lay over for hours in the two centers of the Canadian Universe; Toronto & Montreal before hopping on a little puddle jumper for the last hour and a half to Bathurst. Oh well, hopefully their next visit will be a longer one and by then the elusive Mila may have built up some vacation time at her new job.

Hail, hail, the gangs all here!

Well, my sons made it safe and sound on their cross Canada journey to visit us here.  Imagine a five hour layover in Toronto or three hours waiting in Montreal.  Sounds like a torture the CIA would dream up but no, just our national airline doing its bit to screw over its customers.  However, I digress.  It's great to see them both, they were up until 2:30 in the morning adjusting their body clocks to NB time, Lynn and I however, had retired hours earlier.  Jake couldn't believe that his pack grew by two and loves these new pack members, Loki is beside himself, four extra hands for pets and Odo, well he's just being Odo.

They look good and I'm sure that once they have time adjusted, we'll see more of them :)

Squirrels and lions and bears oh my!

The great fat hunter has managed to trap (and release) three squirrels using the new trap. I drove them one at a time into the next town and released them. I brought Lynn with me on the last trip and when we got home she told me that we had only gone about four kilometers. I had read somewhere online that we should drive them at least five miles away as they might return.

Now we have three squirrels playing on the bird feeder, an empty trap and I have a feeling that the rodents have put one over on me.

Kidneys, can't live with em...

I know everyone knows that you should drink 6 to 8 glasses of water a day but I mean really, has anyone ever really done it? After a scan for my vision problem (which went away) they discovered that my remaining kidney is acting up and my doctor arranged for yet more tests but until then she suggested that I drink more water...echhh....I did discover though, that I can drink water while I sit at the computer since I'm not looking for a sugar rush...so I drank three glasses of water over two days and was quite proud of myself. Half the tests are done now and we are waiting for the results, the next test isn't until November. We'll see how it turns out, meanwhile I am going to really really try to drink more water.

Dog Days of Summer

His first swim in the Bay Of Chaleur for this year and of course he loved it!

Our squirrel trap arrived finally, so hopefully we'll get back to having a garage where we can store the bird seed n stuff.  They even tried to chew through the top of a gas can if you can believe it.

Mark and Jonathan will be here in less than a month, that'll be fun.  Mark's moving from Toronto to Vancouver prior to coming here, I guess he just wanted to be on a plane that much longer :)  I hope he stops in to see his grandfather, if he's in Toronto, before he goes.

We got Gaston Gavroche(ok, not his real last name), out to give us some quotes, we'd like to rearrange the stairs on both decks so that they exit the side rather than the front, but apparently both decks (the front is worse) are in bad shape so they will both likely have to be replaced.  We also had him take a look at the bathroom, we'd like the bathtub taken out and a sit down shower put in, as well as fix the leak in the main floor bathroom shower.  God knows, when you get some income tax money back, you have to spend it!!

I have to go in for more tests, apparently my lone kidney is not doing it's job properly or something, so more ultrasounds, peeing n stuff to come...oh joy....I have been drinking more water though, I'm almost up to five glasses a week :)  I'm gonna have to try a little harder, I think.

With the renovations to come we will be getting closer yet to our dream of a much easier to maintain property.  We took down the split rail fence between us and the neighbors, which will make cutting the grass much easier and I did some more tree/bush trimming to assist with that as well.  Loki and the boys have been helping by digging post holes in the yard, not that we wanted to put posts in the yard but they think they're helping.

I picked up some lillies to plant in our side flower bed for some additional color and for the hummingbirds, and the two new apple trees and most of our new shrubberies survived the mountains of snow and are thriving.  Things are looking good.

Got an email from Tom Peebles announcing someone's retirement..oh yes, Les Bell, but at least it wasn't another death notification, we seem to be getting quite a few of those.  Sheesh.

Ok, time for coffee...I'll keep you all updated as to the renovations.  Congrats to my niece Francine for yet another beautiful baby boy!

What a beautiful sentiment

Time Is by Henry Van Dyke

Time is
Too Slow for those who Wait,
Too Swift for those who Fear,
Too Long for those who Grieve,
Too Short for those who Rejoice;
But for those who Love,
Time is not.

Spring is Here!!!

 

It was 25 degrees yesterday, life is good, the snow is melting faster than I can walk, not that that is saying a lot. Almost two months after my surgery and things are still not quite back to normal but I have managed to gain all my weight back...yippeee!!!...not....

We took Jake...much bigger Jake to the beach yesterday and he had a hoot...clamshells to crunch, seaweed to eat, freezing water to play in and oh..the smells...lots n lots of smells...he had a blast, we had fun too although by the end of the walk I was played out.

We're finally catching up on all of our shows that had been building up while Lynn was away, it's amazing how many shows we record in a week. I've discovered Two and a half men which doesn't help, it's been on a long time and there are tons of episodes but it is funny enough to make me laugh so hard I cry...which except for the crying part quite hard to do...

We actually got to sleep with all the windows open in the house for the first time in what seems like forever and boy was it nice...the yellow finches and red finches have arrived...there's nest building galore going on...Robins have also arrived another sure sign of spring.

We got our tax refunds in the mail, that will go a long way to buying next winters firewood and hopefully getting our front porch renovated to move the stairs to the end of the porch. That will mean a lot less shovelling next winter. Gotta plan ahead.

Now we just have to finalize arrangements for Jonathans visit...June or July...maybe we can lure Mark and Mya down for a bit...we'll see how it goes.

Pass the staple remover, please

Woo Hoo, I am officially allowed to go through metal detectors and the like now.  They have popped out all of my staples and although that was a strange feeling, having the bandages removed was much much worse.  I would imagine, whoever comes up with a way to remove bandages without pain will win a nobel prize for ouchie relief.

I am looking forward to my first shower, sponge baths suck big time.

Oh and on a side note, Kentucky Fried Chickens large snack bowl doesn't have enough cheese or popcorn chicken to make it a worthwile purchase.  The mash potatoes and gravy though are very very good.  See?  My new diet is working like a charm!

Lazarus...excuse me...Lazarus?

The big day came and began without incident other than the fact I was starving.  Funny how you can go without coffee and biscuits anytime and it doesn't bother you, unless you aren't allowed to have coffee and biscuits and then suddenly it's a very big deal.  We drove the two and a half hours to the Moncton hospital on what had to be one of our windiest days ever.  We wore our lighter winter coats thinking of the long trip in the truck but regretted that decision quickly once we found our parking spot.  It had to be the coldest walk I have ever made and that includes some wicked Edmonton winters, walking the night beat.

We checked in without too much incident and the pre-op preparations began, weigh this, measure that, temperature this, remove that, put this on, show the world your butt, scare little children, all the usual stuff.  They made me remove my wedding ring, I guess they figured it might jump off my finger and into one of the holes they were gonna make in me.

A quick goodbye to Lynn and off I went, a busy little room, this operating room, lotsa folks around and I hopped (ok, I didn't hop) onto a bed the width of a playing card and they had me outstretch my arms, which helped me not feel like I was going to fall off and probably allowed them access to veins 'n things, I'm not sure because although I didn't know it, I was not long for the land of the concious.  I've always thought they ask you to count backwards or something but it was nothing so complicated, breathe, he said and I was gone.

Amazing, like a light switch being turned off, one minute you are concious, aware and thinking and the next, you aren't.  I have never experienced anything like it and I hope, never have to again, I still find it a little disconcerting.

I awake later, with my wedding ring back on and Lynn is there, apparently I have been awake for some time but I have no recollection of it.  Everything has gone well, the kidney, along with its cancerous hitchiker is gone and I'm in a recovery room with several others, including a woman who had the same operation done just before me.  Now it's just a matter of time for recovery.  The doctor had said I would be out of it for a bit but by saturday I would be raring to go and with luck I'd be able to go home saturday night.

I'm not going to recount those days, suffice it to say that when Lynn says if men had to have babies we'd be extinct, she'd be right. While I was playing push the pain button as often as humanly possible the lady across from me was putting on her makeup, getting out of bed, going for walks and possibly dancing lessons.  I was glad when they transferred me out of there, she was making me tired :)

I did get to go home saturday night, my angel came to get me and we made tracks, I'd like to say our getaway was speedy but it was more like Tim Conway's old man routine but eventually I got into the truck for the trip home.  A bazillion bumps later and we were home.  The furry throng was waiting and I was very happy to be home.
Although I didn't perk up as quickly as the doctor had said, every day gets a little easier.  I can cough now without falling down or crying like a girl and breathing is getting easier everyday.

I managed to lose twenty pounds during all of this and although Lynn says a kidney isn't that big, I'd like to think it was :)

The staples (yup, no stitches for old fat folks) come out on monday and after testing the adhesive strength of these bandages, I'm not looking forward to it :)
Thanks for the well wishes, life is moving back towards normal slowly but surely and normalcy is something to look forward to.  Take care everyone, we'll type again soon.

We Now Have a Date

The moment has finally arrived, we received a call from the doctors office. My surgery will be on the 12th of March. It's scheduled to run from 1130 to 1500hrs, three and a half hours. Now all I have to do is shake this cold that has been plaguing both of us and has happily settled into my chest. They are concerned that if I can't get rid of the cold they'll have to cancel the surgery. That concerns me too but so does the not being able to breathe after going up a flight of stairs. Sheesh...but it is getting better. I have to buy some jammies for my hospital stay, oh and some slippers too. With any luck they say I should only have to be there for a couple of days. I'll head to my regular doctors office today, hopefully to get some meds to finish off this cold and we'll be good to go.

The doctor is extremely confidant and enthusiastic, highly recommended by the urologist in Bathurst and both of them are pleased that they found this thing early and that the prognosis is very good. Their optimism is heartening. I am not sure what life will be like with only one kidney but it sure beats the alternative. I'll be glad when it's all done.