Jonathan Was Mortified

Jonathan was mortified at family dinner last week when we ended up talking about catheters.

Here's how this odd, non-family-oriented discission came about.

Perhaps you recall that I have been self-catheterizing once daily since sometime in June. It wasn't my idea you understand. My urologist recommended that I try it, and so I have.

It does help: at least enough for me to defer the dilation procedure that was scheduled to occur this week until late next month. I hope to then postpone it again because dilation is not a whole lot of fun.

This is while I await an appointment with the specialist in Ottawa. It has only been 8 months, and I was told the wait might be that long,

Yes, I am now getting back around to the family discussion, but one has to ease into these things, for there is always a backstory to unravel.

Back in June when this all began, I was left high and dry without a supplier for catheters. The nurse had come and shown me how to do the procedure, but she then departed, leaving me with a handful of catheters. She said that she'd get back to me with a supplier, but she didn't.

While we were searching, Shauna came through and ordered some through her workplace: a seniors home that she manages.

The second set of catheters that she sourced for us were pricey, so we got to calling the manufacturing company directly. They were even more expensive for individuals like us to purchase. Each catheter could have cost me close to four bucks. A hundred and twenty bucks/month is a heckuva lot for this guy. 

So, we have been trying to work through Shauna's connections again, and so, the topic came up at supper, or I should say, after supper while we were sitting around the living room.

It was then that Jonathan asked, "What is a catheter?"

I had to tell him, and that is when he became mortified. I offered to show him one, but he didn't want to have anything to do with it.

That, my friends is the story of Jonathan's mortification.

Except to say that I think that I have a two month supply coming from Shauna that will not cost $4/day.

Fall Has Now Mostly Fallen

To delve a little deeper into my Blogger commenting issues, I went into Settings and under the Comments section, I switced from whatever I was using to the  Embedded option. I wasn't sure what would happen, but the reply issue seems to be resolved. Finally. Fingers crossed anyway. 🤞

The new format is also now on my tablet too, but I still have to login to comment on many posts. For example: if I login to comment to Charlie, when I get to April, I might have to do it again, and so on. Still, I can now access most blogs on my iPad, so that is also progress.

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We got to the park and took a short walk, but our outing turned out to be shorter than we had intended. It was a cold 7C, and the wind was blowing pretty fiercely, so I turned tail after the second photo, which was not all that far into the park from where we had parked.

There is some colour remaining, but you are about to see that it is falling fast. Most trees that aren't bare already have lost half their leaves. You can see the leaves on the ground in both photos. The fallen leaves in the second photo are red from nearby red maples.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend. May your Sunday be sunny.

Replying and Compositing

Just so you know, because I have an ornery template, if you want to see my replies to your previous comments, you will encounter a hurdle. All you will see is my replies, but you won't see to whom. So, believe it or not, another step is required. Go to the bottom of the comments, and  click the Post a Comment link. There you can find what reply I made to whom. I know, I know, but that's how it goes with me and my silly life.

I will say that I am now being pretty faithful about replying, but I am still not perfect. I am also doing better at checking your replies to me on your blogs. I am getting to know who replies. like Boud and Barb, for example, and trying to remember to have a look. Sometimes, heaven help us all, I even reply to the reply, but I probably wouldn't think to go back to that one because the chain could go on forever, and my memory doesn't do that.

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I didn't have anything else to post today, but I was looking at pictures that Sue wanted from me for her daily prompt.

Once I sent the three of them, I decided to do this.

In the olden days, like about two years ago (which is old in computer time), I used to do composites quite often. The trouble was that it was a manual, time-consuming process for me. Mind you, it did give me some satisfaction, so it was worth it back then. When Sue was able to make fancier composites in a flash, I stopped, but I decided to play around again this morning and made the above image.

Then I asked Sue to do one with her phone app. She can whip them up pretty quickly, and I chose to show you this composite of the four or five that she made. In theory, I could also do shapes like that, but it would become an even more intensive labour project than it already is.

When I was doing composites before Sue's app came into being, I would often make them for photo albums: Jonathan and Danica, both at three weeks.

Here are two from Shauna's wedding.

Despite the effort, tt actually felt good to make that new one today, and I enjoyed looking back at the old albums too.

Furnace and Truck

I succumbed yesterday and started up the furnace. It was after I looked at the long term forecast and saw that it was not going to get warm again. It wasn't that we needed it yesterday, but it seemed to be time to acknowledge the truth. However, we did turn it off again as the day heated up. We didn't even turn it back on overnight. The temperature dropped below freezing and wiped our our pots of petunias, but the house didn't get too cold.

Three years ago, we made it one day longer: until today, October 25. Last year, we didn't turn the heat on until November 01. Back in 2020, however, We relented on October 12th.

In terms of synchronicity, yesterday was also the day that the guy came to service the furnace. We have him come every fall for the furnace and every spring for the air conditioner.

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Yesterday, as I turned the corner onto our street, I spotted a truck and admired how it fine looked against the row of colourful trees along the edge of the street. Actually it was the trees that looked fine, but I was also interested int he truck as the principal subject.

There is a Happy Truck Thursday group on Flickr. I seldom post to it, but since it was Thursday, I seized the opportunity, stopped, and took out my iPhone.

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Today, there shall be coffee with the boys. Bob will pick me up at 9:45 because Sue has some errands to run with our car this morning.

Now for my second cup of coffee.

Montreal Memories Evoked

We left Montreal in 1962. I will say for the general audience that we moved to Toronto, but we were well outside of the city then although it has since expanded to where we settled. I turned 15 a day or three after the move but returned to Montreal for visits in the next two summers. However, that its pretty much the only time spent there in the past 62 years, except for two days when I visited with Sue more than 30 years after the move in 1995.

Recently, I have been following a Facebook page called Montreal Golden Oldies. I like looking at their old photos to see what might connect with my memory after such a long absence. This is the first one that caught my attention this morning: a Woolworths lunch counter in the heart of downtown Montreal. We called it uptown back then in the early fifties because we could walk there, and it was kind of up from where we lived. Unfortunately, we did not know enough to do the Uptown Funk back then. (After we moved farther away from the area, we called it downtown.)

I have a memory of mom taking me to this very Woolworth and ordering chocolate cake for us. We were not a family that got out much, so it was quite a treat that stands out in my memory. I am sure that I liked the cake, but, if memory serves, I think that it was the outing itself that was special: to think that a stranger would bring me cake!

My uncle worked in Eatons which was close by, and I expect that we paid him a little visit that day although I can't swear to it. I was very young, you understand, probably only 4 or 5 years old.

Later, on the same Oldies FB stream, I saw a picture of the Orange Julep.

I have never been to the Orange Julep or any Orange Julep if there were more than one, but I remember passing it often when we took the streetcar to and from church. It was near a spot where the tram went up a hill and then down the other side. We weren't going over a physical hill but an overpass of some sort, and it was a fairly steep little rise and fall.

Boyhood me thought that going down the the other side was quite exciting, for the streetcar driver would seem to let it speed up a little on the downslope. I remember that I even had nervous dreams about speeding down the hill, almost like it was a runaway tram.

Speaking of streetcars, I also found a photo of Garland Terminus where we would change streetcars, and later, buses, going to and from church.

A car on the Outremont line. They were a little niftier style on
that line for some reason.

In the early sixties, a year or two before we moved away, I would sometimes bike to Garland Terminus to buy a Gazette newspaper. I was 13 or 14 and crazy about football in those days and wanted all of the news that I could get about the Montreal Alouettes football team. As far as I can tell from G-Maps it was about a 20 minute, 6 km bike ride along urban streets from our flat to the terminus. I would ride all over on my bike back then and thought nothing of being out and about out there on my own. Life was different then.

The memories kept coming, and I soon came across a photo of the Val Royal train station near where we lived. It was a station on a commuter train line that would take us through the tunnel under Mount Royal to downtown Montreal. If memory serves, the ride cost 25¢. When my friend, Peter, moved we could also take the train in the other direction to St. Eustache to visit him. I think that Nelson and I once rode all of the way out there on our bikes because we would do that sort of thing.

One winter day, my friend, Nelson, and I were playing down the embankment on the other side of the train. The snow was deep, and I got stuck and lost my boot in the effort to extricate myself. I hopped home on one foot in the cold. When spring came, I found and retrieved the boot. I soon outgrew that pair, but they fit my mother, and they even came with us on the move to Toronto.

Almost next to the train station, but down the left side this time, was an old tree that we could climb. I would sometimes take a lunch there and sit on a big limb with Nelson and his sister, Doris. I am still in touch with Doris; she is a poet and animal rights activist, and sometimes blogs at Thoughts and Things. If you read her most recent posts, you will see that she has recently had some tv exposure in her bid to get public buildings to mark windows to prevent birds from flying into them.

Since most of these memories have to do with transportation, including cycling, I will post one more photo: this one of Bois Franc Road. It wasn't far from where we lived, but as the photo reveals it was quite rural back then, and it made for another little bicycle expedition.

This 1967 photo of Bois Franc Road from 1963 would be close to
what I would have seen on those excursions.

We found an abandoned farmhouse out that way and loved to explore it. I remember that it had a trapdoor leading to the second storey. The stairs would stop abruptly at the ceiling of the first floor, and we could lift the trapdoor to access the upper floor, which was a proper storey and not an attic. I have no idea why it was constructed like that, but it was a neat place to explore. Actually, I don't think we ever had to lift that trap door. If memory serves, it was left like that.

I enjoyed the memories and feelings that the photos evoked. If you have read along on my sentimental wallow and have made it this far, I congratulate you heartily and hope you weren't too bored.

Two Outta Three

Generated by Adobe AI: photo of a surprised, old man in a ball cap and getting a vaccination.

When you're past 75, they recommend that you get a high dose flu shot. That is all well and good, but they are scarce as the denticles of domestic fowl. High Dose wasn't even presented as an option at the online registration site of our pharmacy, so we signed up for a regular flu shot and a COVID booster. 

We mentioned this at family dinner on Monday night. The next day, Tuesday, Danica, who works at another pharmacy, texted that she could secure us high dose flu shots, for they had five remaining of the 80 that they had been sent.

So that is what we did this morning. Unfortunately, they did not have C-jabs available, so we'll keep the appointment at our pharmacy for next week.

Then there is the RSV jab, but there is no hope of getting that one at this time. Although we are of an age, we would have to be in a facility of some sort to get it from the government without cost. (It's a Conservative government, you see.) The other option would be to pay $300 to get the serum and take it to our doctor to administer.

Ah well, as the old saying goes, two outta three ain't bad.

Replies to Comments

Many Blogger bloggers, as opposed to Wordpress etc bloggers,  frequently reply to comments on their own posts. It wasn’t always so because the reply feature did not exist for a very long time. It’s a cool addition, but it is still awkward because for most people it means you have to make the effort to go back to the persons’ previous post, scroll down, and maybe or maybe not see a reply. And if you do, do you then reply to the reply? As I wrote, it’s awkward. 

My template has not supported the feature until recently, and it is still iffy. A week or two ago, I noticed that it appeared on my phone but not on my tablet or computer. I don’t blog from my phone but did go to it just a few times when a reply seemed to be in order. In fact, I have usually endeavoured to reply to a specific question in the past, even if I had to write @Someone to direct my comments, but I never did a lot of this sort of replying. 

Yesterday, the reply option also showed up on my tablet. It still wasn’t available on the computer, or at least not in my Chrome browser. I had the idea of trying it on Microsoft’s Edge browser, and it worked. But then it didn’t. Go figure. I just checked again this morning, but it is still absent on the computer, but I don't know about the other device yet.

I wrote that to write this: that I may try to Reply more frequently if the option remains available to me although I continue to find in awkward and poorly implemented. People on other platforms can respond directly via email, but it is not so with Blogger (or not easily so), and that is a pity. But I shall make some sort of an effort, and we'll see how it goes.

By way of interest, please tell me what you see when you go to my comment section. Do you see the reply feature enabled? If you commented yesterday, would you take a minute to go back to see if you can see my reply to you? Oh . . . and just in general and not referring to my blog, do you return to someone's post from the previous day to see if the poster replied to your comment?