055 INDIANNA JONES AND THE BURIED GARAGE

You just gotta love all these doomsayers and so called climate experts like Leo DiCaprio.  It seems to me that last year at this time we had been without rain since April, and the so called experts were saying that was what we were facing every year now.  Drought conditions would be the norm and snow in the mountains surrounding Vancouver was a thing of the past.

Of course, we ended up with record snowfalls on the Coastal Mountains, and Metro Vancouver endured 12 straight weeks of either rain, or grey skies.  We had a couple of unseasonably hot days in May and a few more in June, but again for the most part June and the early part of July has been grey skies and rain.  It has currently rained, and rained hard here for two straight days.  In fact, it was so wet in June, a bunch of my flowers in the railing boxes, drowned.

Anyway, the point of this rant, is that the crappy weather is making it a little easier for missing the lake.  At least at home here, I have access to TV, Internet and I have lots of room to move around in between the top floors and even the garage.  More room than I had at the old house as well.

Yesterday, I got busy.  I was forced into it by of all people the Canada Revenue Agency.  Here it is, eighteen months after Dad died, they wanted proof that he was disabled for the last few years of his life.  They have had a form T2201 on file for many years.  When I asked how they expected me to prove he was disabled, they said I would have to find the original T2201.

Now, I am about 99% certain that we would have mailed in the original and all I would have was a copy.  I was also 95% certain that I had shredded all of Dad’s documents dating back that far.  In any case, there was that 5% chance that I didn’t and the documents were buried among all those boxes in the garage.  They were insistent on it.  I could just say that I couldn’t find it and let it go, except as the executor of Dad’s will, I am responsible for all debts related to him.  If I let it go, it will be a $13.000 bill to pay back.

Anyway, I waded into the boxes.  I managed to find some of my missing tools, which is a bonus.  I managed to find two boxes of documents that I had been looking for.  One of which contained my own will.  I worked for several hours’ yesterday, and could not find any documents related to Dad.  Then again, I didn’t manage to get through all the boxes yet either.  I finally got so exhausted I had to pack it in.

When I came out though, the box warehouse which is my garage, is starting to bear some semblance to a garage again.  There is still a long way to go, but it looks a little less overwhelming now.  I even managed to make it all the way to the back wall.  Now if I can just get into the little alcove back there and clear it out, I will be able to slide the boat back another ten feet, which will give me enough room to be able to park my truck inside, finally.

I had intended to continue my explorations today, but I am so stiff and sore and tired this morning that it just isn’t going to happen.  I have physio tomorrow which should help loosen things up a bit.  I really don’t think I am going to find those documents, but the incentive to continue is getting my truck inside, oh and finding the rest of my tools.  Once I do that, and clear out some more boxes, I should be able to get one of those huge rolling tool boxes to get things organized.

So while the reason for doing it, isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world, (when is dealing with the CRA ever?) at least it got me started on organizing the garage.  Who knows I may even be able to get it semi organized before September rolls around.  As for the crappy weather, it has made it a whole lot easier to accept missing out on lake time.

054 SUMMERTIME, CABIN TIME

A year ago at this time I would have already been at the lake for the summer.  I would have listened to the BC Lions game on the transistor radio, and missed the end of the game when the signal faded after 9:00 PM.  Instead I am still at home and watched the game on the big screen ultra HD TV.  It was not a great game, but the Lions won, which is all that counts.

I love it at the lake and have been going there ever since 1969.  I have only missed a couple of years in that time.  Two years in 1996 and 1997 after the ex and I separated and I couldn’t afford to go and 2011 when Dad was in critical condition in hospital.  Even so, last year towards the end d of the summer I had decided to cut back a bit on lake time.

The reasons behind it were that I spend approximately 12 weeks at the lake.  In that time, Renee visited for 4 days in July and another week in August.  Tamara hasn’t been up in 5 years.  Caitlin has not been up in 3 years and neither one has even seen the new dock I built.  Karl has been up for a 3-day weekend two years ago and a 2-day weekend last year.  So essentially the rest of the time I spend it alone.

I have a TV, a DVD player and my DVD collection, but you can only watch so many movies.  I engage in my pursuit of wildlife photography.  But again, it is tough spending that much time alone.  I have the neighbours to visit with, but I don’t want to wear out my welcome and I certainly don’t want to bother them when they have all of their guests visiting.  So I had decided to cut back the time this year.  Maybe go up for a week and come home for a week, whatever worked.

Unfortunately, the decision was taken out of my hands this year.  The first was the big move.  Since going toe the lake is almost like moving, with the amount of stuff I have to take, it was really hard to get motivated to “move” again.  The other more important reasons where injuries.

I fractured my wrist in two places for the second time in three years.  Despite several weeks of physio and the fact it is healed, it still bothers me and would limit what I could do at the lake.  The second and more importantly is my back.  It has flared up so badly that moving around was difficult and in fact it played a large part in my decision to move out of the house.  This is a long term injury that has gotten worse over the years.

Finally, I got some therapy, called Spinal Decompression and it is working wonders.  I don’t want to interrupt the treatment by leaving now and possibly screwing my back up even worse.  So, here I am at home when I am usually at the lake.  I don’t really mind though and maybe taking a year off will make me appreciate it more next year.  It worked after missing 2011.

Anyway, after missing many years at the lake, my sister has decided to use it again and we decided that I would take June and July and she would take August and September.  So, by the time my physio treatments are done, it will be late into July and leave no time to head up, unless I go for a week or a long weekend or something.

As it sits, I am quite happy staying here.  Now if the weather would start to cooperate it would be better.  Late yesterday afternoon, the sun finally came back and it looks like today is going to be a nice day.  Could summer finally be upon us?  Good thing I got the air conditioner, now maybe I will have a real reason to use it.

053 PARTY TIME

Even though my birthday was May 31 and Father’s Day is not until June 19, and throw in trying to coordinate a Housewarming Party, we chose June 11 to combine all three celebrations into one.  Between me having friends over and the schedules of all three kids, this was the day that worked best for the celebrations.  My cousin Beth and her beau Denny were able to come as well, which made it a great time.

Initially we were going to have a big housewarming party and invite everyone at once, but we decided to break it up into several smaller celebrations.  This was Beth’s first time here as it was for my daughter Tamara.  It’s tough for her to get here as she doesn’t drive and taking a bus from Surrey is a long arduous journey, even though it’s essentially just across the Fraser River.  In this case she was able to catch a ride with cousin Beth.

Everyone began arriving at 1:00 PM and various treats were brought to augment my supply.  Beth brought some tasty shrimp wraps and ironically Caitlin was going to bring the identical ones but at the last minute changed her mind and brought her special meatballs.  Karl brought Spinach Dip with Sourdough Bread.

Tamara’s boyfriend Stephen could not come because he was working.  Caitlin’s boyfriend Trevor could not come because he was at an event with his Dad, but Karl brought his girlfriend Lisette.  So when all was said and done we had 8 people here.  The plan was to have a BBQ and make use of the deck, but the weather didn’t cooperate and we had a chilly damp day.  If this had been done at the old place, I never would have been able to accommodate that many people.  Everyone fit fine here though.

Eight though, would probably be the limit as it was a little crowded, but it all worked out.  I provided burgers, hot dogs and Bavarian Smokies for dinner and then at 5:00 in the morning I made my first ever potato salad.  Earlier in the week I made 50 peanut butter cookies on Wednesday, 80 Milk chocolate chip cookies on Thursday and on Friday made a scratch bake Angel Food cake.  The chocolate drizzle was done early Saturday morning.

We had lots of visiting and touring of the house, for all to see.  Everyone had their fill of food and when it came time for presents, Beth and Denny gave me an awesome platter, which will be great when I finally make a roast beef or a turkey.  I didn’t have a serving platter before now.  The kids got together and bought me a Fitbit which works great.

The day after the party, I managed to get 10,687 steps in.  Monday not as many as I had physio on my back and I am supposed to walk Toby right afterwards to keep my back loose and then I must rest for the day, to let my back heal.  I have to avoid sitting for too long, so I crawled into bed, cranked on the air conditioner and cuddled up with Toby, where we fell asleep for 90 minutes.

The physio is already paying dividends as I can now walk up and down stairs normally.  Beforehand I could only do one step at a time.  I also could only bend over and touch my shins halfway between my knee and ankle.  Now I can bend over and touch the floor with my fingertips.  This is after only 5 Spinal Decompression treatments.  My physio is confident that we can get me pain free, very soon.

The day after treatment is a bit rough as well, since all the muscles that were used to being tense are forced to let go and as a result I’m pretty stiff and sore the next day.  It feels like I have had a workout, which is exactly the way I am supposed to feel according to physio.  At this rate, I might become the hockey player that I was only 2 years ago.  I can’t get much lower than only two goals, so it has to improve.

One thing that did happen, is that the smoke alarms kept going off, even when there were no appliances turned on.  One time it happened when we were all sitting in the living room eating.  I phoned the company today, and they are sending someone to check them tomorrow.  He’s pretty sure that it is a buildup of dust and told me that I am supposed to take them down and vacuum them once per month, which I was not aware of.

Anyway, it was a great day.  The last guest to leave was Caitlin at about 7:45 PM but that was only because she stayed behind to cut my hair for me.  I am so enjoying my new house; I cannot put into words how great it is.  It is amazing to have the room, the furniture and facilities to accommodate having people over.

052 DAMN, I'M HOT

It is June the 6^th and we are still 15 days away from the official start of summer.  But the last two days have been stiflingly hot.  It hasn’t just been the sunshine and high temperatures; it’s been the 46% humidity that completely saps your strength.  Combine that with the 33C temperature two days ago and the 32C yesterday and by the end of the day I was completely bagged.  Heck it was 22C when we started our morning walk at 8:30 AM and 25C when we returned an hour later.

Don’t get me wrong, I love sunny days, especially after the 4 solid months of rain and grey skies we endured this past winter.  The previous ten days or so was no picnic either.  There was so much rain, the plants in my hanging rail baskets couldn’t keep up.  Some are doing ok, but several of them don’t look like they are going to make it.

The problem here is that the baskets we bought have a plastic liner and there are absolutely no drainage holes.  I wanted to drill some holes in them originally, but my tools are still buried somewhere in the cavern known as my garage.  Even if I had found them, I would not have been able to use the tools anyway, as that is when my wrist was at its absolute worst.

Back to the weather though, today was a very pleasant 16C when I took Renee to the Westcoast Express at 6:00 AM and it was still 16C at 8:30 AM when I finished my physio appointment and Toby and I went for our morning walk.  That was extremely important as the cooler temperatures allowed toby to come with me to physio and wait in the truck.  Any warmer and I would have had to drive home from physio, drop Toby off and see if I could sneak away.  He does not like to be left home alone and I didn’t want him waking the neighbourhood with his howling.  Anyway, it worked out well and it is supposed to be chilly and rainy on Wednesday for my next appointment.

Sleeping last night was no picnic either.  Even lying in front of the fan blowing directly over us, the house was not cooling very fast overnight despite having all the windows open and the cooling temperatures outside.  I guess this means the house will retain its heat well in the winter months when we will be trying to heat it up.

It’s funny that this mini heat wave hit when it did as I ordered a water cooler and water deliveries last week, but it was due to arrive until today.  It did and it works and looks great.  More importantly I ordered a portable air conditioner from Sears last week but it doesn’t arrive until Wednesday.  I researched these well online and talking to people and the best rated unit is a Honeywell 14,000 BTU unit.

I searched everywhere for this unit in Canada and nobody carries it.  Not Rona, Canadian Tire, Staples, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, nobody.  I searched Amazon and they have it, but when I went to order it, I got all the way through to the payment stage when it told me it could not be shipped to my address, likely because it was in Canada.

Finally, I found the unit at Sears of all places.  There’s a Sears just up the street a bit but imagine my dismay when I discovered that they do not have the units physically in the store, but it had to be ordered online from Sears.  Well I did that and discovered it was on sale and I actually got it $150 cheaper, which is excellent.

So now I await my chance for cool air, and it will be installed in my bedroom Wednesday afternoon.  Meaning I will be having a nice cool sleep Wednesday night.  Of course, one looks at the weather forecast and it is calling for cool temperatures and rain on Wednesday.  Of course it is.  Oh well, at least I will be pre-loaded for the next mini or full on heatwave that is to come.

Most people I have talked to have told me their units are good for cooling their bedroom but not much further.  I’m hoping with this full power unit that it will cool the whole upstairs and if it works well, then I will get a second unit to cool the downstairs as well.  We shall see.  It’s important for me to be cool as I don’t tolerate heat really well.  It’s even more important to keep Toby cool.  My favourite kind of day is a bright sunny day where the temperature is below 0CF and there has been a fresh snow.  Granted we don’t see that in this area too often though.

051 TIME MARCHES ON

Time marches onward and today is no different as I turn 61.  Hard to believe everything that has gone on in that time, but even more so what has gone on in the last year or so.  A year ago today, I was dealing with a spirit crushing mortgage.  My back and knees were causing me so much trouble that I couldn’t even cut the grass in the back yard.

I mention that because yesterday I underwent my first session of Spinal Decompression Therapy.  I had heard about it before but didn’t think much about it.  I had seen ads in the paper but could not believe that it was a legitimate treatment.  Finally, after hurting my wrist and going into the Maple Ridge Physio-Therapy and Pain Clinic for treatment, I saw that they performed the therapy there.  Better yet, it is covered by my Extended Health program.  Well at least 80% of it is.

I read their pamphlet and some research papers.  I spoke to the physio-therapist, and I even spoke to a patient in the bed next to me who was in the process of having it done.  She told me that she limped into the clinic using a walker and after only 4 treatments she was able to walk without even a cane and was pain free.

During treatment t on my wrist, I grilled my physio-therapist on what the treatment was and its effectiveness.  I outlined my history of back injuries starting way back when I was 25.  I first hurt it when a young boy got stuck in the gravel hopper at Lafarge Cement.  Complicating matters were he was in a tight spot in the hopper.  His foot was stuck in the outlet valve when the auger turned slightly and pinned his foot.  He also needed an insulin injection.

In that hopper were the boy, two paramedics, a fireman, a mechanic, an engineer, a surgeon (in case he had to amputate) and myself.  I was bent at the waist and holding the boy under the arms.  I stood in that position for two hours while everyone else was doing their level best to free him.  They also had to figure out a way to stop the auger from turning even a fraction more or it would take his foot off.  They finally managed to take the auger itself apart and the boy was free.  My back didn’t fare quite so well and bothered me for weeks afterward.

The second major injury came a few years later.  We were responding to a noisy party call and while we were on the porch a teenage miscreant kicked out the tail-lights of our patrol car.  I gave chase on foot and as we ran across a guy’s front lawn, I felt the ground open up under me, just as I grabbed his shirt collar.  I didn’t know how far I was going to fall, but I was determined he was coming with me.

My left leg went straight down; my right was at 90-degree angle on the surface.  I was buried up to the waist and all my equipment was buried too.  Knowing I could not get out and was trapped, if I let this kid go, I was positive he would put the boots to me.  So I held on.  I stuck my finger in his ear and told him “If you move I will blow your head off”.  He laid there quietly.

Finally, after about 15 minutes we were found by a police woman.  She handcuffed the kid and then saw my predicament.  At the time I was 6’3” (still am) and weighed 225 pounds.  I figured it would take several people to pull me out of the hole.  Nope, she grabbed me and with little effort lifted me straight up out of the hole.  She was a former Olympic rower and for the life of me I cannot remember her name.  She is my hero though.

My back did not fare so well and I had ruptured the L4-L5 disk and would spend 9 days flat on my back in hospital awaiting surgery.  The day of surgery came and a final x-ray revealed that the disk issue had resolved itself and so instead of surgery I was discharged from hospital.  Over the years there were several more instances of back injury, but none quite so spectacular.

Anyway, with that history and with the most recent injury 3 years ago playing hockey, I didn’t think there was any hope for correcting my back without surgery.  But yesterday I had my first treatment.  This has been a long winded way of saying that I woke up this morning having just turned 61 and I feel a lot better today than I did last year at this time.

Some of my muscles are slightly stiff and sore but I am way more mobile than I was a couple of days ago.  I go for my second treatment tomorrow and two more next weeks.  The therapist figures it will take about 6 or 7 treatments and I should be a new man.  It would be nice to be more mobile again and better yet pain free.

I have always had a devastating slap shot in hockey which terrorized defensemen and goaltenders alike and allowed me to score goals in bunches.  Last year, I scored two.  That used to be a bad game for me.  It was all because the flexibility in my back was gone and I could not launch the shot.  I am hoping with the new found flexibility that my shot will come back next season and the results are looking positive so far.  Happy Birthday to me.

050 RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS

To quote Karen Carpenter, “Rainy Days and Mondays…”, the song goes on to mention Mondays always get her down, but since I have been retired, Mondays don’t mean anything anymore.  Come to think of it, with the shifts I worked, I didn’t very often have weekends off, so Mondays meant nothing then either.  My Mondays, could have been on Wednesday, or Saturday but rarely on a Monday.

I preface all this because I sit in the office here and stare out the window at a deluge of rain.  Rainy days rarely bother me, although the 4 consecutive months of rainy or cloudy days we endured this past winter, I’ll admit were starting to get to me.  Since the move though, I don’t feel like I’m locked away in a dungeon.  I have lots of windows and lots of things to watch out the window or do around the house.

Today we just about drowned taking Toby for his morning walk and when we got home and dried out a bit, Renee wanted to go to Maple Ridge pool and swim her 30 laps.  So off we went.  While she was in swimming, Toby and I waited in the truck and watched the people coming and going to the Saturday Farmer’s Market.  It was too damn wet though to consider getting out and wandering around.

The only depressing part about a rainy day, is that I always leave the camera behind.  I know they say that this pro model camera is weather sealed, I’m not risking something worth that much money to take photos in the rain.  Besides, rainy days are generally depressing and why would I want to take depressing photos.  I have tried, but my attempts at rainy day photos, look like a rainy day, if you know what I mean.

Instead on rainy days I get busy with other things.  We have had a string of about 7 straight days of less than pleasant weather, so I finally got busy.  After having my last physio appointment for my wrist and clearance to resume full duties, I came home and got busy.  My office desperately needed organizing and so I started on that.  In order to do it, I had to get the filing cabinet I bought from the garage, up two flights of stairs and into the office.  The thing weights about 150 pounds (who knew an empty file cabinet weighed that much) and I have had it for about 6 weeks, but couldn’t find anyone to help.

So, never being one for letting an injury get in the way, too much, I muscled it from the garage into the entryway and then tipped it back and started sliding it up the stairs, one step at a time.  This is the one time I am happy that I had to have carpeted stairs.  It didn’t make it a whole lot easier, but it was better than trying to slide it up wooden stairs.  Slowly, ever so slowly I inched it up, one step at a time and finally got it to the main floor.

But wait, there’s more.  Now I had to slide it along my laminate floor without scratching it and here’s where Toby’s blanket came into play.  I tilted the cabinet and kicked the blanket under and slid it along to the second set of stairs.  There I started the process all over again.  Eventually though, I got the cabinet up into the office and now I had to start emptying boxes and eliminating clutter.  All of my camera gear falls into that description.

I stacked all of the big equipment like backdrops, light stands, tripods and such into the closet.  Cameras, lenses, flashes and bags are off to one side of the room.  Eventually they will be proudly displayed and I have cameras dating back to the first camera I ever owned at age 6, to cameras that my Dad had.  I will display those as examples of how far photography has come and more importantly how far I have come with it.

Finally, I started clearing papers off of my desk and putting them in properly labeled file folders and put them into hanging folders in the top drawer.  I’ve kept receipts and warranties of everything to do with the move.  Once I find them in a box down in the garage I will add various financial and other documents to the cabinet.  I have no idea on how to properly file things and my daughter Caitlin has volunteered to show me how to do it.  The other documents I want to file are documents related to the genealogy research I have been doing for about 40 years.

Anyway, this is the final room in the living area of the house that needs to be cleaned up and organized and once that task is complete, I have to start cleaning out the Indiana Jones warehouse that is my garage.  I do have the boat in there, but the plan is to be able to get my truck in as well.  If I can get rid of all those boxes, the boat can easily slide back about 10 feet and then I can start parking my truck inside too.  A side benefit will be finding my tools.

049 GETTING OLD SUCKS

I don’t know if it is because I am getting old, but things seem to hurt far more than they ever did before.  My back constantly hurts and I have very little flexibility now.  It really showed itself in hockey this past season.  My once feared slap shot has completely disappeared because I have no flexibility in my back and cannot lean into it or torque my body to send it.  The wrist shot is still there, but it doesn’t terrorize defensemen and goaltenders, which is the fun part.

I bring this up because I have never really had wrist problems before.  On Halloween morning of 2014 I hurt my wrist torqueing a screw into my back door to repair the knob.  I held on until the evening but it was hurting so bad I went to hospital.  X-Rays were inconclusive but they suspected a hairline fracture and so they casted it.  Initially it felt so much better, but when I laid down to sleep my hand swelled up and the pain was beyond belief.  I held out all weekend and finally couldn’t stand it anymore and went back to the hospital.

They did a CAT scan of my wrist and then 2 hours of agony later cut the cast off my wrist and put it in a flexible brace.  Weeks of physio got the swelling under control and movement back in my wrist.  I got pneumonia in between and finally was able to play hockey again 8 weeks later.  Every so often, the wrist hurts, usually after a hard game of hockey or a weather change.  I put the brace on for a day or two and it goes away.

A few weeks ago, my wrist started hurting again, I put the brace on and this time my hand swelled up to about double it’s normal size and the pain was unreal.  Ice didn’t help, T3’s didn’t help, Anti-Inflammatory didn’t help and so I booked a physio appointment.  My regular physio at 8 Rinks couldn’t get me in for three weeks and so I tried the Maple Ridge Physiotherapy and Pain Clinic.  They got me in on a Tuesday, but unfortunately it meant 6 days of dealing with the pain on my own.

The first treatment involved dipping my hand in melted wax and then putting it in a magnetic therapy machine after which I got ultra-sound.  It took the edge off slightly but was sure sore later on.  The odd part of this whole thing is that I do not know how I hurt it.  I was tossing around bags of dirt to plant the roses, but don’t remember hurting it.  There were a few other things but again, I don’t specifically remember hurting it.

Anyway, after three weeks of physio, three times a week, the swelling is almost gone and my hand and wrist are still stiff and sore when I make certain movements.  I finally went for X-rays 3 weeks after the fact and they were again inconclusive.  There were two “shadows” that may have indicated healing hairline fractures, but nobody knows for sure.

We had friends over for a visit and she had identical symptoms to mine and she was diagnosed with “pseudo-gout”.  I mentioned this to the physio and he thinks it sounds like a possibility.  Whatever it is, I hope it doesn’t come back.  I have a pretty high pain tolerance, but this hurt way more than when I was recovering after knee surgery.

You don’t realize how difficult it is to do things one-handed, especially when it is your strong hand that is out of action.  Simple things like tying your shoes, pulling your pants up or putting socks on.  Typing was damn near impossible, except one handed with my left hand.  Plus, I had to learn how to use the mouse left handed.

I never once missed taking Toby for his morning walk and even for his shot stroll in the evening.  I did do a lot of pacing around the new place when I should have been sleeping.  In fact, other than passing out for 2 hours each night, that’s how I functioned for 2.5 weeks.  Finally, I got enough relief that I slept from 10:00 PM until 7:30 AM the next day, and it has been a long time since I slept that late.  I’m recovering slowly, but at least not in constant pain.  I still can’t do a few things, but at least managed to use the camera again a few days ago.

So, I am hoping that it wasn’t this pseudo-gout although I kind of fear it is.  I am desperately hoping it doesn’t come back.  It sucks to be getting older and in 9 days it increases by one more year to 61.  On another bright side, I mentioned to the physio about my back and he is confident that with a treatment they do called Spinal Decompression I will be able to get the flexibility back in my back and eliminate the constant pain.  I would cross my fingers, but that’s a movement my hand still will not permit me to do.