The Soul Knows

Hmmph. I wanted to show you a photo of the light prisms that I see on my wall from my chair on some mornings. For some reason, it has disappeared from both my phone cloud and my computer. So, I will leave you with just two things.

One: a Sue and John selfie that I don't think that I have shown you. It's not that you need to see yet another one of the happy couple, but here we all are, so here it is.

Two: I was watching a podcast and had to stop and record this statement. It goes pretty well with what I recently wrote about belief not really being a choice.

You can't ultimately lies to you soul. Your soul knows when things don't feel congruent.

I believe it was said by Simon Mundle although I am not completely sure if it wasn't the other guy on the podcast.

We'll be off for our daily walk soon. How many selfies should we take? 😊😎😉😇🤔

Notes in Passing

Winter is Coming

Although it is unnaturally cold lately after a very hot summer, it is not the current weather that causes me to think of winter. Rather. it is the snow removal contract that landed in my email on the weekend. They will gladly keep my very short driveway cleared for $467 (tax incl). Shauna's drive is about a half car length longer, so she will have to fork out $80 more.

You may recall from last winter that we we were overly blessed with snow, and you may also recall that it accumulated to the point that the pile in the yard grew taller than I. Pushing snow is one thing but lifting it high is another, and then there is the big, heavy pile that the plows leave by the road, and I cannot deal with that anymore.

So, I don't have much choice but to pay the piper, as it were. There are financial costs to aging that people don't think about.

I almost forgot, but there is another sign of winter, Sue ordered and received the wool for her winter afghan project. 

 

Car Troubles

Our 2010 Honda was getting noisy. It had only been 2.5 years since I had done the exhaust completely, and we had driven fewer than 11000km/7000mi in that time. Nevertheless, there was a hole in the pipe, and the costs of repair was more than $550.

ITU

Speaking of expenses for seniors, I went to the expense of purchasing UTI test strips that cost almost $19 for 3 strips. You may recall that they discovered a UTI in that trip to the ER. Or did they?

My last UTI, two years ago, also in August, was a deuce to clear up, so once the meds were finished, I wanted to know if we had contained this one. According to the trips, we hadn't.

I was expecting to be prescribed more antibiotics, but when they cultured the specimen, they did not, strangely enough, find an actual infection. So the test strip is reporting one thing, but the lab results do not concur. I guess that I should see the doc for clarification. 

 

Inconsiderate Dog Owners

I get that people can't help their dogs peeing on lawns. I really do. And our front lawn is so rough, especially in this drought, that I don't mind too much. However, Sue has maintained a lovely pot of flowers near the sidewalk as she has done for years. It's never been a problem before, but a dog peed right on the pot and damaged the flowers. Sue moved that pot to the back of the yard and put another in its place. It was hit again. That is not acceptable.

Speaking of parched grass, I am glad to report, however, that the drought broke yesterday. We had a goodly amount of rain. Is it my imagination, or is it looking greener already?

Back to the Woods

Dear Reader probably wouldn't remember that during the summer we took a walk up to the patch of woods on the north edge of town. It was a hot and buggy walk, so we decided to wait until fall to return. It isn't yet fall, but we've had some cool weather, and once we pass mid-August, the insect plague seems to diminish greatly.

On Tuesday, it was time to try again. Once again, we stuck mostly to the perimeter path.

I had been hoping to spot a lot of chicory, but we only saw the occasional flower.

There was much golden rod, however, and a number of sleeping bees, so they were relatively easy to photograph for once. They were sleeping because it had been a cold night and still a cool morning.

We did duck into the woods briefly. The trail was short, so we soon found ourselves back on the perimeter path. Someday, we shall explore the trails more, but I don't think any will be too long because it is not an very large woodland.

On the way out, we passed a very cool looking old truck that called out to me, so I stopped and took out my phone.

What a beaut! I know from the mat on the cargo bed that it is a 1949 something or other. At the time, I didn't think to check the hood for the make or model.

Finally! Shawarma with the Kids

When they were younger, every now and then we would have shawarmas with the kids at the little park behind town hall. We'd park the car, walk along main street to Lakeside Shawarma, and take our food back to a table by the river.

Look at all of the rock on the far side of the dam. The water is very low.

Somehow, we missed  this ritual last year, but we had this week to get together before school starts up again next week,

The circumstances weren't the best on a cool and windy day with the yellow jackets pestering us. In fact, I got stung really well by one of the blighters. But we made a memory with the kids, and those are getting harder to come by now that we don't see Dani and JJ as much.

We didn’t linger long and left to head to the Blue Spoon for desert, which we consumed while walking. I got the most scrumptious cookie ever! It was a biggish chocolate chip cookie with a bit of sea salt. Baked until perfectly crispy, it was delish. I am not usually a huge cookie guy, but this one was spectacular.

We wandered around main street for a few minutes, but since it was my cane hand that was stung, I put it in the car. I was doing fine without it, but the others still kept the outing short out of consideration. 

We only ventured into one store — Amethyst — where I saw a rather nice amethyst lamp for $229 and a very impressive chunk of amethyst crystal for $600. What a specimen!

It all took place in about and hour and a half or less, but we took one more photo before going our separate ways.

We'll see them again sometime on the weekend for a birthday celebration before school recommences next week. In the meantime, I leave you with one of Sue's collages.

My Deconversion Story

When I posted my recent churchy blogs that I shall link at the end, people seemed very interested in hearing about my faith story or actually loss of faith. 

You know my churchy background by now, but you may not know that I continued to be a very committed Christian until my mid-30s. In point of fact, there was a time when I thought of leaving teaching to retrain as a minister. 

In those years after our marriage in 1969, Sue and I attended various evangelical churches — Pentecostal, Free Methodist, Associated Gospel, and even the occasional Baptist service. This lasted into the 1980s. I loved being an evangelical Christian, and church music is still what plays in my head more than any other. The music still gives me feelings or at least memories of feelings.

Near the end of my faith period, I led a little couples bible study of just 3 couples. It was great. We all enjoyed our times together. When the sessions concluded because one couple was moving away, one of the guys loaned me a set of creationist tapes. At the end of the tapes, the presenter went on about the continents zooming around after the flood, just 4000 years ago.

I knew enough about the study of plate tectonics to realize that was balderdash. However, it shouldn't have affected me because I hadn't been a young earth creationist to begin with. I knew the earth was old, but believed in guided evolution or Intelligent Design as they call it now. I knew that it had been 200 million years since the planets were together in the form of Pangea and that they have been moving to their present position for all of that time and that they are still on the move. While I won't go into it, the science is irrefutable. 

All along, I had known about geologic time yet still also believed the gospel. Science and belief were not incompatible in my mind. However, it was realizing the absurdity of the claim that the continents had shifted dramatically just a few thousand years ago that made me think of time differently. It suddenly hit me that, geologically speaking, the earth hadn't required divine intervention for 200 million years. Geology just grinded on and on. I had never thought of it this way. 

I realized that the planet hadn't needed a guiding god for 200 million years. That's a rather long time.

As people and Christians, we have this notion that we are special and that god created us with a special purpose. If that were the case, he really took his time getting around to creating humans. And it wasn't just 200 million years but actually 4.5 billion years that our planet had existed. And then . . . when you figure that the universe is 13.7 billion years old, the notion of the earth and humans being specially created at the whim of a god suddenly made no sense to me.

That was it. I stopped believing in that instant. It wasn't deliberate; I couldn't help myself. For many EXvangelicals, deconstruction is a long and panful journey. They struggle mightily to find reasons to hang onto their faith, but in the end they cannot. That wasn't my experience. I believed in one moment and not in the next. I had no control over this. You can't force yourself to believe what you don't believe.

Although I had loved being a Christian, I no longer believed after that sudden and unanticipated momentary flash of insight. There was nothing more to my deconversion. Christians tend to assume that ex-believers were unhappy about their, perhaps, restricted lifestyles, but that wasn't true for me or for others whom I have encountered. 

For many, deconstruction is a most painful journey. For me, the shift was instantaneous and natural. I still attended church with the family for some time afterward and not unhappily.

I am not sad about having once believed or having been raised the way that I was. I am not mad at a god whom I don't believe exists. I simply don't believe although, oddly enough, I still love to sing the songs of Zion, as some might call them. Gospel music is the main music in my head, which I know is weird for an atheist.

What I I don't remember from those days is evangelicalism being as mean-spirited or so anti-intellectual. We graduated scholars from my youth group: scientists, doctors, professors and mere teachers like me. My late brother-in-law, for example, was a highly intelligent and educated professor who believed deeply. Non-belief isn't a matter of intelligence, but I suspect it is often a matter of being honest about confronting truth and reality.

I think that we come to the end of this sequence of posts at last. I hope that I have answered your questions.

=================

For the record, these are the posts that led to this one.

Remembering the Foo

Evangel Temple

It Bagan on Drummond Street

Onto the Queensway

Onto the Queensway

Not too long ago, I posted of some of my boyhood memories form Montreal, and they became mostly about church. Afterward, I  thought that perhaps I should post about my very first church in Toronto after we moved there. I then left it in the queue for a while because I had more current things to bother you with, but here it is after some hesitation.

Carrying on with my memories, mainly about my early church history, we moved from Montreal to Toronto in 1962, just a day or three before my 15th birthday. This city boy found himself living in a little cottage on a rural nursery where his father worked the greenhouses. Said boy — said introverted boy — found himself friendless in an almost foreign land, as it were. He even had to board a school bus to get to his new high school. He had scarcely seen a school bus in Montreal and, suddenly, after just one weekend, he was riding in one. And the school . . .  ah never mind . . .  let's get back to the church.

Somehow or other, we found someone to drive us to Queensway Cathedral, a pretty highfalutin name for a Pentecostal church. Hitching a ride was the only way to get there because this wasn't a place with good public transportation, and we didn't yet have a car. The church was really Lakeshore Gospel Temple for the first visits before the new building, Queensway Cathedral, was dedicated.

If I have the time frame correct, this was full 10 years after the inauguration of Evangel Temple. Like Evangel, the opening service with dignitaries and such occurred on a Sunday afternoon. Of course I remember more from being 15 years old in Toronto than I do from having been 5 years old in Montreal, 

Queensway Cathedral was founded as the Lakeshore Gospel Temple on High Street in 1955. In 1962, they moved into a new, larger church shaped like a geodesic dome at 1536 The Queensway.  https://www.etobicokehistorical.com/the-queensway.html

Let me tell you that t was a pretty impressive edifice, but I can't prove it from photos although I will show you a picture from our wedding in a bit. 

While specific photos of Queensway Cathedral in Toronto from the 1960s aren't readily available online, the church, now known as Church on The Queensway, is a prominent landmark on The Queensway in Etobicoke, a former municipality that was amalgamated into Toronto. (Google AI, emphasis mine)

Queensway Cathedral was where Sue and I got married in 1969. After the vows, we left Toronto and this particular church. Our wedding photo may give the reader some idea of the main sanctuary. Beyond the platform, there was a large back section containing a chapel and other good-size room for Sunday School and other events. It was a rather grand church in the 60s.

I sang in that choir loft a few times on Sunday Evenings, trying to sing the bass part in the back row.

Sue and I did get back to the QC every now and then a few times afterward when we visited our folks in Toronto, but my mother soon moved on to another, closer-to-her Church, so we haven't been there for a very long time — more than 50 years, I guess.

After we left Toronto, Queensway Cathedral grew yet again, so a grander, or at least a bigger church, was built on the same property. I have never been to the new building.

By 1984 they had outgrown this church and demolished it to make way for their current building on the same site. When this new church opened in 1985, it was the largest church auditorium in Canada, with seating for 4,000, two acres of carpeting covering the floors, one mile of pews, and television production capability. In 2013, the church was renamed “Church on the Queensway.”  https://www.etobicokehistorical.com/the-queensway.html

It has taken me four posts to get from passing Ruby Foo's in a bus in the 50s to getting married in 1969. While that should be more than enough of my ancient memories, readers have asked some questions about my faith or lack thereof. Perhaps, I will write one more post in answer.

Sundry Walky Pics

We don't know what we'll find on our walks; some days, it is nothing. On other days, we find a number of opportunities.

One day, as we sat on the park bench sipping our coffee, I noticed a bird in the crook of branches. It was shadowy, but it looked like a waxwing to me. I don't see many, so I asked Sue to take a photo with her longer zoom (in fact, my phone has no zoom at all). In post, I darkened the already shadowy bird and lighted the sky a bit to produce a silhouette effect.

Speaking of birds, on the very next day, from a bench along the trail, we spied a green heron out on the water. It was at a distance, but it is an unusual sighting, so we did our best. I believe it is only my second sighting ever.

Also along on the trail, we met a garrulous fellow named Gordie. He was with his wife and grandkids but let them keep on without him in order to have  long chat with us Sue. I thought that he might come home with us. I liked him and his beard best in b&w.

I have various photos of Sue on benches, but I don't think I've taken this photo before. I liked framing her between the trees.

Back at Riverside Park for a coffee and shady walk, we met another fellow. We'd had our coffee on a bench and then strolled up the park and back. On our return we heard bagpipes and eventually got to the piper, Robert. We both took photos.

Once again, mono seemed to be the best way forward after I was not overly pleased with the colour rendition.

After taking the candid shot ↑ we sat on the bench to listen further. After he stopped to rest, we Sue chatted with him. He took up piping in his senior years and classified himself as still a beginner, but we found his playing enjoyable. He posed for this photo ↓ but I prefer the first ↑ softer image

I took a short video of his playing, panning a little to also catch the canoes. Panning tilted the perspective; it is what it is.

He gave us Sue his business card. He wears a kilt for engagements.

That brings us to yesterday, which took us along our main street. I decided to take a photo of the front of townhall with flowers, signs and flags.

It was a very nice morning, not overly hot, so we walked a little farther onto the bridge where I took a photo with the church spire on the left and the trail bridge in the distance. As you can see, it was a lovely blue day.

There was also an unscheduled stop at the Blue Spoon Atelier for sourdough pesto parmesan bread and two sourdough cheese scones.

Latching Onto Memory

This image brings back a memory — of sorts. I am not sure if it a memory of an event or a memory of being told about the event. Perhaps on the telling, I implanted a false memory in my brain.

Once upon a time, my mother related to me that she once took me to her friend's house for her to babysit me for a short time. From Mom's recounting, I understand that the babysitter was a little disappointed in my visit, for all I did for the whole time was play with latch or handle on a door.

It can't really be the case that I remember, but I almost feel like there's a faint niggling in my brain of me standing by a back door and playing with the lock or latch or jiggling a skeleton key in a lock or whatever.

It is almost certain that this is just an impression of sorts. When Mom told me about this, and I think that I was still just a kid when she did, I probably just made a picture in my brain. Now, when I think that maybe I do remember the event, I am most likely just remembering the impression that I made back then. I was probably too young at that time for the incident to remembered anyway.

Most adults have little to no memory of events before the age of 3 or 4. This phenomenon is known as infantile amnesia. While some individuals might recall isolated fragments or emotionally charged events from as early as age 2 or 3, these memories are often vague and may be influenced by stories told by others. (Google AI — emphasis mine)

Still I do sometimes wonder if my brain has retained some sort of impression of the actual episode. Meanwhile, I do remember that my mother telling me of it certainly struck a chord for some reason. Why do I remember so clearly, or at least I think I do, her telling me of something in passing, possibly more than 65 years ago?

Why did an image like the one above evoke so much? Did that long-ago conversation with my mother somehow implant a false memory? But then, why do I remember the offhand conversation so much?

I'll never know for sure, will I?

And where is Mom when I need answers, like how old was I at the time, and what sort of door and latch was it?

Caturday 87: Reflections and the Mosaic Cat

On Thursday morning last week (as in 9 days ago), we resumed our little walks after missing a few days. Although it has been a little cooler lately, we still had to walk early then to beat the heat, and we'd had other things going on for a few mornings. We chose to drive to our main street to visit the pet store. Lacey's spa groomer had suggested that a staggered tooth comb was required for our girl's coat, so off we went. 

We walked the street before the shops opened and even then found ourselves waiting for the pet store to open at 10. While we sat on the bench looking at the store window, Sue remarked on the poster showing a mosaic cat. It was picture-worthy, but there were reflections that would ruin a photo.

Nice as it was, I wasn't so much taken with the poster, but it did occur to me to take a photo regardless, for it would give me a chance to see what Lightroom's new reflection removal tool might do with it. I will let you be the judge.

The photo ↑ is straight our of the camera. No editing has been done apart from cropping because I had shot too wide to focus on the poster. There are a ton of reflections, including right below the cats mouth from the pizzeria across the street. 

After applying the filter, it image looked like this ↓ . Some reflections have, indeed, been reduced, including that of the pizza joint. The reflections are lessened but still somewhat present in the blank space to the sides of the poster, but the poster is looking much better.

I decided to crop the image down to just the poster. I also adjusted both the strength of the algorithm as well as the contrast. I think the result is pretty good considering.

It's not a 100% magical feature, but it is pretty darn good. It's a tool that can help reclaim a photo with problem reflections: probably not perfectly, but usefully.

Wondering

I have been wondering about this very thing. ← ←

Do they? Should they? On dates, I mean.

I know that I once did, at least on early dates, but that was in another time. What would be the right thing to do now?

We have clicky things to unlock doors from a distance, and times have also changed. Would women even want a man to open a door for her nowadays?

It's just as well that I am not on the dating scene because I do not have an actual clue.

It's awkward. I'm awkward.

Symptoms of What

Believe it or not, I was back in the ER yesterday. If it hadn't been for the previous episode on Sunday night, I don't think I would have bothered. But my doc wasn't in, so I thought that I should err on the side of prudence.

When I had been playing my usual Sudoku early in the morning, I found myself missing a few squares and activating nearby ones. Hmm . . . I then realized that the tips of the fingers on my right hand were feeling a bit numb, for want of a better word. I did carry on with the game and was certainly able to activate the correct squares, but it felt like it required concentration.

Also, during the night I had sat upon the commode on one occasion rather than standing because I was feeling a little . . .  perhaps woozy is the word or at least close to it. It had been just a hint of wooziness, but after the previous episode, I was being cautious.

Later, as I sat waiting in the ER, I also felt as though I had a band around my head. It didn't hurt but also felt numb. Once again, I fail to find good descriptors, for I don't know if a head can truly feel numb.

The young ER doc saw me reasonably promptly and put me though all of my paces, touching this and that and gripping the other thing, and even having me prove that my brain was still working by answering a few questions. Of course, they also had the results from the previous recent visit.

After they sent me on my way, it seemed like a good day to have a coffee in the park.

We carried on with our day by picking up groceries at two different locations, but I still feel a sort of band around my head, just over the ears and around and above. I get the weirdest symptoms, don't I? I just don't know what they are symptoms of, and no one else seems to either.

I think these episodes have been harder on Sue because all that she can do is to worry, which is something that she does quite well.

High Efficiency with not the Best Outcome

Yesterday was the follow-up to my June 09 prostate surgery. The Civic is a city hospital without a ton of parking. Shauna takes time off work to get us there so that I don't have to navigate the traffic and then search for elusive parking. We go by expressway, but it does get quite busy the farther we drive into Ottawa. With the dearth of parking, she drops us and heads to the mall.

This was to be a flow test. I was instructed to come with a full bladder and to bring water with me. Timing a full bladder isn't easy, so I began consuming water in the car. I left it that long because I didn't want to drink too early and arrive in dire straits. As it turned out, they took me right in, but I only had a small dribble. Back in the waiting room, I drank the container that I had brought with me and filled it twice more. About a half hour later, I was ready to try again, and a nurse came to escort me to urinate into the cone-shaped device that metered my output.

I certainly flowed this time: more copiously than usual and at what seemed to me to be at a greater rate.

I was then taken to a nearby, small and very cool, as in cold, room where they administered an ultrasound to determine how much water I had retained after urinating. The nurse seemed to think that was quite a bit, but the doctor later opined that was quite good.

Exit nurse. Enter doctor: not my surgeon but an urologist in training. She asked questions and noted my answers, all with her back turned while banging away on the computer. She asked the usual, such as how many times I got up at night. I replied, perhaps cheekily, that it depends on how long I slept. Lest she think me too impertinent, I hastily added that it was roughly every two hours on average, sometimes only an hour and sometimes three. I told her about my UTI and 'fainting' spell. possibly brought about by straining,. She didn't comment but kept typing.

Out she went and returned minutes later with the surgeon, who said that my flow rate was not great. I replied that it had seemed to me to be one of my more impressive flows. There wasn't much more jabber before he said that he needed to get in there to see what was going on. "No, not today, we'll let you know." Sigh, I will have to do this somewhat major excursion again.

If you haven't picked up on my situation, it is this. After my 4th prostate surgery in June, I had high hopes, but by only 6 weeks, I had regressed to something resembling my previous, sad state.

Things got better at the restaurant for an early supper. Shauna ordered a a barbequed chicken salad sandwich with sweet potato fries. Sue and I opted for a twofer: one appetizer, one desert, and two entrees for one price. Being charitable people, we shared the appetizer with Shauna. I assure you that all was very yummy.

Four Cheese Spinach Dip Appetizer

Chicken Fried Chicken

The dessert was caramel cheesecake, which Sue is still raving about despite the fact that she is not normally a big fan of cheesecake. All three dishes were delicious, which seemed to sooth my prostate grumpiness. As Sue remarks, I am quite healthy apart from this nagging, chronic issue.

Sue's daily photo involved people, and she took this shot in the waiting room. He was a francophone man, and quite frankly, they often dress snappier than we Anglos.

Sue had already removed some distractions from the photo, but I freely liked his look and wanted to do more. I extracted the gentleman, cropped the photo down to his upper body, upscaled it, and then added a new background, still keeping him within a hospital setting.

Back to my experience: the hospital process was built on efficiency. One nurse guided me to the flow test room, and another did the ultrasound right away in a neighbouring room. Only a few minutes later the apprentice doctor entered to ask and record information. She went away and distilled the pertinent information to El Primo surgeon, who quickly advised me about next steps. There wasn't any handholding or reassuring to speak. He was quickly done with me and onto the next poor soul's pathetic prostate issues.
 

I wasn't overly joyful with how the session went and particularly that I would have to return and add one more cystoscopy to my resume.

But the food was so darn good that I couldn't stay peeved for long. It was really nice to have the extended time with Shauna.

I was reminded of my dad having prostate surgery (yes, I follow in his steps in this regard). I took a day or two off work to be with him and cheer him. He told me that the time that we spent together was the his highlight of the year. Imagine surgery being a highlight, but I begin to understand now. I loved sharing that meal with my two ladies.

Likes and Things

I came across this meme not too long ago and parked it for a rainy day because I had many posts in the queue at the time, but I do get to the end of my thoughts sometimes, and here we are. Feel free to use and post.

Before we get to it, however, I would like to thank you for your comments and concern yesterday after the weird episode of the previous night. Although we don't know each other in person, your comments did mean something to me. I did have a good 7-hour sleep last night after just 2 hours on the wild night  

It is odd synchronicity that I have a previously scheduled appointment with my urologist today. Aside from the regular agenda, perhaps he will have something to say about my UTI and about the episode in general and whether it might be related to my difficulty in urinating. It's always an issue, but that was a more difficult occasion than usual, and perhaps it could have triggered what happened to me. I don't know the answer, but perhaps he will.

Onto the meme. Feel free to also pick it up for a post if and when you need one.

• Steak or Seafood: Steak but we don’t indulge often. We are a lowly chicken and burger couple. 
• Italian or Chinese: Italian because it’s easier to cook, but I appreciate Chinese.
• Favourite soda: Diet Coke (and it's pop not soda)
• Chocolate or Vanilla: Duh. Chocolate. 
• How many tattoos: 0
• Ever hit a deer: Yes, near home about 6 years ago. 
• Favourite season: Autumn
• Broken bones: 0
• Beach or mountains: Mountains, but both 
• Dogs or cats: Cats but dogs are okay. 
• Early morning person: Yes, in later life. But I was more of a nighthawk when I was younger.
• Surgeries: 6 — tonsillectomy, hernia, 4 prostate surgeries which should have been 1, but they haven't worked well
• Favourite color: Red
• Have you ever flown in a plane? Yes, both big and small, but not often.
• Mild or hot salsa: Mild
• Waffles or pancakes: Pancakes, but I would usually order a more eggy breakfast. preferably with bacon if I were out.
• Favourite holiday: Christmas
• Smooth or crunchy peanut butter: Crunchy but the ‘just peanuts’ natural type
• Large or small curd cottage cheese: Um … no.
• Mayonnaise or Miracle Whip: Mayo
• Country or Rock: Country, but roots or folk mostly, and much gospel music lingers in my head from my churchy youth.
• Favourite Sport: Hockey to watch in winter. Tennis during Wimbledon and US Open.
• Like to dance: I enjoyed line dancing once upon a time.
• Have you been on a cruise: No
• Fear of heights: Yes, in my older years especially but always to some degree. 

Quite a NIght

Good Morning.

It’s 5:40am, and here I am, calm in my chair after a weird and scary night.

The night involved falling, calling paramedics, taking an ambulance to the hospital, and some time in ER.

I got up ~2:30 to unowat. I was blazing hot on a very cold night. Then, I couldn’t get myself back to the bed. After falling onto the bathroom counter more than once, I somehow made it out the bathroom door and to the bedroom door. At that point, I was hanging on the wall, knowing that I couldn’t go any farther without falling.

I woke Sue, and when she tried to put a chair behind me, I fell over. I lay on the floor, knowing that it would be futile to try to get up.

Sue called 911. They came. BP and all was fine. I was coherent and able to answer all of their questions. I was able to eventually get downstairs to the ambulance for the very short ride to the hospital. 

The tested me: BP, heart rate, EKG and so on and so forth. All was good.

The doctor said this kind of episode does happen. People get up in the night, perhaps strain to uriinate, blood pressure drops, and they keel over  

So all was well, but they decided to check my urine before sending me home. It turns out that I have a urinary infection. They started me on meds and gave me a prescription to fill later this morning.   

I was just in my pjs, so I can tell you that my teeth were almost chattering on the ride home as a result of the temperature going down to 7C/45F. The hot spell had just ended, and a cold front had rolled in.

I was home not much longer 2 hours after it all began. I plopped myself in my chair, and here I remain.

Sue brought me toast, and I am doing well enough, but I still don’t feel rock solid.

Two Walkies

We're still getting our walks in early in the day — at least early for us. In cooler weather, we tend to walk before noon, but it's been getting very hot lately, so we try to walk early. It went up to 33C/91F here on Saturday, and since it's is always a humid heat, we really feel it. 

On Friday it was coffee and selfies on a bench in the park before we strolled to the other edge of the park and back. After taking our usual selfie angle, which shows the setting looking upriver, we took a different angle. The advantage of the second is that it shows us on close to the same plane and keeps our proportions better without one of us looking tiny in the background.

There was much activity on the water that day. Sue was looking for colour for her daily photo, and she got some.

The next day, we opted to walk along and around the trail bridge. Just as we were starting to ascend to the bridge from the parking lot, Bob and Barb drove by, so we invited them to join us. We walked and chatted. The highlight was encountering a friendly cat. He lolled in front of us for pets. I did my bit, and then he waddled over to receive attention from the ladies.

The ladies stopped a few times to look at this and that. Bob and I were ahead. Sue took some pics.

The good news is that a cold front has blown through, and it cool this morning. It is also raining, so there may be no walk today, but we shan’t complain. 

Caturday 86: Lacey Becomes HarlyPoo

Oh Lacey! What odious vehicle of human torture hath pulled onto your street‽

Surely your kind and beloved humans would not foist bath, brushing, and shaving upon your exalted body.

Alas! They did.

Poor old Lacey came to stay with we traitorous humans about 6.5 years ago. Between humans and cats, her fur coat was kept up pretty well for five of those years. But in the sixth year, her hind end became very knotted and beyond all three of us to deal with.

Enter the cat groomer lady and her portable spa. She took her time to gently attend to the old puss. She shaved, washed, dried and brushed in a very non-traumatizing fashion.

Here Lacey is resting in the dryer although she was not being actively dried in the photo.

About an hour and a half after being ported to the spa, she was back with us: calm and exhibiting no sign of trauma. She eased out of the carrier, and resumed being just quiet Lacey again.

Washed and brushed with her hindmost quarters shaved.

But she is now more than just Lacey. She is also our little HarlyPoo. I thought that her new do looked poodle-like, and since she is a harlequin tabby, Sue dubbed her our HarlyPoo.

Her back half looks like suede to me, for in most light it looks a little browner and darker that in the photo. I kid that she looks like she is wearing suede pants. Sue chimes in, "With fluffy stockings too."

All is right with the world. She still loves Sue and she has frequently been availing herself of Sue's lap. Lacey was supposed to be my cat since I am more of an ailurophile than Sue, but Lacey HarlyPoo always had a different idea.

Now to work on keeping her ladyship tat-free. Since Sue gets the lap time, it will pretty well up to the two gals to attend to HarlyPoo's very pretty coat.

Me? I get the glare.