Here is the definition of inertia as a noun – “a feeling of unwillingness to do anything”. That is what I am feeling these days, inertia, in fact I seem to be approaching completely inert. We went off to Cuba almost 2 weeks ago, had an amazing time and when I got home I did not write one little entry here about all of the things we saw, heard, tasted and experienced. I have agreed to put on a training course for 4 days in mid-March, I did that in December, it is now 3 weeks until the start of the course and I just got off my ass yesterday and started to put together the material. In the process I discovered that a lot of what I used to be able to do in PowerPoint I have forgotten. Just lovely!
I am not sure if this inertia is winter related, age related or what but it is really bothering me, but not apparently enough to do something about it. See – inertia.The last two days I have wakened early, been down stairs, made the coffee and had my breakfast finished by 6.30 or so. I did what needed to be done in the morning and then spent the afternoon and a good portion of the evening laying on the couch dozing and watching TV, sort of. Man there is a lot of crap on TV.
Perhaps this is the first step to recovery. I am admitting my inertia. I’ll let you know of it works, if I can get up the energy 
.
Motivation, where does it come from & how do you hang on to it? This a question that I have been meaning to think about and write about, if I can get motivated. January is a dark month and a cold month and those two things combined seem to have driven any motivation I may possess into the farthest reaches of wherever motivation goes for a holiday. Probably Bali or a tiny village near the headwaters of the mighty Limpopo River in central Africa. Anyway it seems to have gotten off my island.
I have not uttered these words out loud but I made two promises to myself sometime between Christmas and new years. I told myself that I would reinvigorate this blog. I’m not sure why this has become important to me but it has. It is a matter of great pride for me to write something (hopefully of some import) regularly. As I have said here on more than one occasion I am in awe of Clara’s skill with words and with her ability to find time in an incredibly hectic life to write regularly, articulately and very humourously in her blog. And if my son would start to write in English instead of techno-garble I’m sure that I would enjoy his blog also . These two are my motivation.
The other promise I made to myself relates to my health. I live with diabetes and hypertension. Both of these are invisible and both are controllable, by me. All I have to do is lose weight, exercise regularly, eat a far better diet and cut way back on the amount of alcohol I consume. Last year my motivation stayed home and I actually managed to lose weight during the winter, enough weight that people started to notice. My doctor sure did! My BP dropped right back into the very normal range and my bg readings were the best they had been in sometime.I was using a recumbent exercise bike and walking. In the spring I kept it up. I was outside gardening and walking.I managed to keep the weight off over the summer and things were looking pretty good. Good enough that I thought that I could start to eat a bit more than I had been and things that I know are not good for me. Just before Christmas I had an appointment with my doctor and although my BP was still good my weight had started to creep back up.That was enough to make me stop exercising completely. So I told myself that come January 1 I would get off my ass and get back to it. Well here we are on Jan. 23 and I am till telling myself the same story. I delude myself into thinking that hauling in firewood once a week and walking behind the snow blower are suitable alternatives but I know it ain’t so. I walk past my bike half a dozen times a day and every time I think I should park my butt and spend 15 minutes but its not happening and it is really pissing me off. I have to start! So if anyone who reads this sees my motivationwill you please tell it to come home.
Last Friday I walked out of the house at about 05:20 hr. At that time of day, at this time of year, at this latitude it is still very very dark. Where we live there is no ambient light to interfere with our view of the sky and all its natural beauty. Sometimes it is just inky black and you know that there is heavy overcast and clouds. Sometimes the fog is so thick that even though you can’t see it you can actually feel it. Sometimes it is so clear that you can see every star there is, or at least you think you can. I know, depending on the time of year, where to look to find the big dipper or Orion’s belt. You can, if you stand still for a few minutes, usually find a satellite streaking across the sky. But Friday it was really special. Before I walked out I knew that it was bright. And when I walked out there was something special. There was an almost full moon still high in the southwest, well above the treeline and in front it was a layer of high broken cloud. It was perfect. There was a halo around the moon, caused the light reflecting off the clouds. It was relatively mild, -10C or so I just stood there in awe. What a sight. And, there was no sound: no cars, no trains, no boats (we can, on a quiet night, hear the freighters blowing their horns as they make a turn at the foot of the island). It was eerie and I almost expected to see a witch on a broom flying across the face of the moon. I didn’t want to get into the car and head in to work.
Some of the best parts of living where we do are so free and so natural and so available that all you have to do is stand still for a minute and take them in.
You will quickly notice that I have not written anything here in almost a year. It wasn’t planned it just got to be easier not to write than to write. During that time my daughter-in-law has maintained a torrid pace on her blog http://torturedpotato.com/cheeseblog/ in spite of a toddler, a killer commute twice daily and most recently being the latter stages of a second pregnancy. I read her regular posting and am constantly in awe of her writing ability and her general outlook on life and every time I read a fresh posting I tell myself I had better get off my ass and write something. Laziness is no excuse. besides over the past ten months I have had a lot of grist for the mill. I made my first trip in a transport truck, I spent my first night in a Walmart parking lot, we lived through a major road trip across southern Ontario to introduce our Grandson to all manner of family members, we made a major road trip to western Manitoba and only took the wrong road three times and on and on and on. No shortage of topics just a severe lack of “do it”. So I have told myself that I am going to do this. So to my three or four loyal readers fair warning, I’m back.
We have had a cat in our house almost continuously for over 30 years, some of them much more memorable than others. On Wednesday our longest surviving old cat took her last ride. Spooky was approaching 18 years old which is ancient for a domestic cat. We found her as a stray while living in Hearst and she has been with us for 16 or so years. She came by her name honestly. The night we brought her home she hid in the back of the dryer for hours before we could get her out. She shared the house then with Tommy, a huge orange ball of fur and they tolerated each other, most of the time. After Tommy met his fate under the wheels of a car she had the place to herself for a few years and managed to make the transition to St. Joseph Island with only minor damage to her psyche. Then Mulder entered her life. Mulder had more personality than almost any other cat on the planet. Nobody ever told Mulder that he was a cat so he never acted like one, more like a big goofy dog. He may have been born brain deprived but we were never able to prove it. Spooky tolerated Mulder and Mulder loved to torment Spooky. But they were a team. Throughout her time on the island Spooky was a pretty good mouser both inside and outside. Lots of days in the summer she would head purposefully down the driveway as if heading off to work and then reappear a little while later with a dead mouse in her mouth which she would deposit on the deck. She rarely tried to get one inside. Then Mulder met his fate one night thanks to a hungry Bobcat who saw him more as supper than a cousin.
That event and advancing age caused her to become much more obsessive in her habits. She could only be picked up by certain people sitting in certain places or petted while parked on a particular perch. She was arthritic, hard of hearing, probably suffered from failing eye site and her aim around the litter box was more shotgun than rifle. She regularly hissed at her own reflection in any surface she walked past and was incredibly fearful of almost everything and everyone. She was eating less and less and over the past 2 or 3 months obviously losing weight.
We had her to the vet a few weeks ago and the prognosis was that Spooky was on her way out and the tests showed that she would probably die of kidney failure, as do most cats who live that long and that death by kidney failure will be protracted and painful if left to run its course. We had already decided that when the time came we would have her euthanized rather than let her die a natural and painful death. Decision time was approaching said the vet but not here yet.
We are getting ready for an almost three week absence and had several discussions about leaving Spooky, as we have on numerous other occasions . There is a young person who we hire to come in and feed her and clean her litter box once a day. This time we were really concerned about leaving her alone for that long; what if she got ill and was in real pain, what if Alexandra found her dead or dying. We didn’t want any of that to happen. One day I came home and Val told me that she had made up her mind that before leaving it was time for Spooky to go. We both agreed that this was the humane thing to do. We told ourselves and each other that every day for a week and every day for a week we did not call the vet to make the appointment. Last Monday Val called and made the appointment. It was a tough call, literally as well as figuratively. Tuesday we ignored the subject, but it hung over both of us.
Wednesday morning we both had a cuddle with her and both agreed that we felt rotten. Of course Spooky wasn’t aware of any of this and just carried on being herself. After lunch time just seemed to drag as we waited to leave. I finally went and got her cage and brought it in. She hated the cage and it always took two of us to get her into it.
The drive to the vet clinic was made looking out through tear misted eyes with Spooky in the back making sad noises of displeasure at being in the cage. When we arrived things moved very quickly. The vet asked us if we wanted to be with her and Val said yes and I wasn’t going to make her go through that on her own. Spooky was calm and both of us were blubbering. To say that the procedure is quick would be a monumental understatement. She was dead almost before the hypodermic was out of her vein and she never made a sound. The vet checked her with a stethoscope and confirmed what we could see. Now we were both a bigger mess. After a few minutes we put her back in her cage for the ride home, no argument this time and headed back to the island. It was a very quiet ride home.
When we got here I went and got a shovel for the shed and we buried her beside Mulder. We covered the grave with some rocks so nothing will dig her up. Back in the house we took out her litter box and cleaned up her food and water dishes. It was a quiet supper.
We miss her, a lot and the house seems a little emptier the last few days. . We know intellectually that we did the right thing and as the vet pointed out as we left we had done Spooky the last act of kindness by sparing her the inevitable suffering. But we still miss her and will continue to do so for some time I’m sure. We haven’t decided at this point when or even if we will get another one. We’ll have to see.
Bye Spooky.
Last night we went to a concert in Hilton Beach. Valdy was here! The OTH is a neat venue. Seating for about 200 so everyone is close to the performance. Lots of pony tails and gray hair in the audience but a few younger folks and some even brought their kids.
He started right on time and put on a great show. He has been doing this for a long time and the patter is funny and offers good stories. He manages to drop a bunch of names ranging from Prince Charles to John Prine, an eclectic group. He talked about kids and literacy and nuclear waste, causes about which he obviously holds passionate views.
His singing is still good, it doesn’t sound like he has to strain to hit the notes and most of all I could understand every word he sang. I have never seen him play before and i do not own any of his recordings but I was surprised how many of the songs I could sing along with and he repeatedly invited us to join in any time we felt like.
In 6 months we have attended three very different concerts; in November we were among 10,000 or so who went to see Bob Dylan, I still have mixed feelings about that one. In February we went to see the Bare Naked Ladies. It was ok. But last night was my kind of night. It doesn’t have to be Valdy, it can be almost anyone with a guitar who has the balls to get up in front of folks and entertain them. I love to sit close to someone who can make music on an acoustic guitar, play it well. I love to hear the stories about where the person has been or where the song came from.
I may be a little sappy but some of the songs he sang spoke very clearly about experiences and feelings I have had and mistakes I think that I made over the years.
All in all a wonderful evening.
There has been lots written over the years about the difference between Americans and us. Some of it nasty, some of it funny and most of it funny and nasty. I was watching tv tonight while we ate dinner and I saw something that to me doesn’t define as much as typifies that difference.
I watched the Doctor Phil Show, something I do not normally do in spite of the fact that my wife enjoys it and watches it regularly. Tonight I got sucked in. The show related the story of a couple who have 6 year old deaf blind triplets and the amount of work required to look after these children and the affect it is having on the couple’s relationship and by extension the affect that starin is having on the children. it really was a heart rending story and Dr. Phil; gave them some goods advice and at the end with the aid of some big corporations gave them a lot of help. Really great stuff. The show ended with Dr. Phil urging viewers to go to his website and donate money to help this couple with things like a “blind/deaf intervenor” whose fee can run to $50,000/year.
What was not mentioned throughout the entire show was any mention of a societal responsibility or a “social safety net” like we have. Granted it may be tattered and torn but it does exist. No mention of organized respite care or of getting these girls into a school. Up here the complaint would be that the respite care is only 25 hours a week or something like that. I did not hear the parents say anything about subject.We are different in so many ways.
The title of this blog refers to musings, my musings about all sorts of things. I muse regularly about the state of my world or the state of the wider world. I muse about my past, my future, my health, my beliefs etc etc etc. The really personal stuff that I may or may not choose to write down here.
Every once in a while I have what I consider a brilliant idea for a posting and when I go check the Cheeseblog or In The Rough One of these two has invariably scooped me or I will read something that one of them has written and think ya, I can relate or I had an experience that fits right in but then I don’t want to seem like a copy cat so I don’t blog it. Believe me in my mind this is one of the best personal blogs that never gets written. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Saturday when Charlie and I were out and about I asked about Leo, a retired Co and lifelong bachelor who lives just down the street from Charlie. “Oh he’s fine” said Charlie, “He’s using his treadmill every day to stay fit and putting in a quiet winter.”
I got a very unexpected call from Charlie about 11am this morning. One of his officers had just found Leo dead in his livingroom and to make matters worse he had probably been dead for 3 or 4 days. Charlie was very shaken and I have to say that it shook Val and I also. Not that Leo had been a real close friend but he was a collegue who I have known for almost 20 years. It is also very distressing to think of him dying alone and nobody noticing until this morning. He was only 54 and had been retired for 2 years. That sucks about 600 different ways! You just never know.
After I finished Tuesday’s whiny post I got dressed in several layers of warm clothing and headed outside. It was cold, about -22C but when I got out there I remembered something, I do like winter. I like the crispness of the air, the crunch of the snow and how clear and blue the sky is on a morning like yesterday. I’m a winter person, always have been and I guess I always will be.
I spent about 90 minutes with the snowblower cleaning up the yard. Sure my hands got cold and I took a short break after about an hour to get warmed up but it was not a chore to go back outside.
I understand Cheesefairy’s comment since where she lives it never gets that cold. My winter experience is different. Winter mornings like yesterday were the norm all the time I was growing up and throughout my working life, most of it in northern Ontario. In fact this climate change, I find very disconcerting. Not having to plug in the block heater on the car, never hearing the foundation crack and scare the crap out of you late on a really cold night. These and many other things about winter I miss or at least I certainly notice that they rarely happen any more. So I have re-categorized that post under “whine whine whine”. This is a musing, that was a whine.