Grousing

There have been times lately when I should have dragged myself out to make photos of Christmassy things or at least of wintry things, but the desire for creature comfort is strong, so I didn't went when I shoulda went. That would have been when the snow was pristine. Then the rain came, and it got yucky all over again. As of now much snow remains, and I rather expect it to stay for the whole dadgum winter.

But JJ had another game at ten o'clock yesterday morn, and even though my photographic ennui remained strong, I ported my camera to the frigid arena. The boys were back in the larger arena, which oddly enough, is not quite as brightly lit as the smaller one. I clicked and clicked for the hour – which is more like 32 minutes of actual playing time. 

I begin with two photos of Jonathan. I like the one with the players bench behind. That one was across the rink, so it is well cropped, as are many others.

This ↓ young fellow has been on JJ's team for a number of years. They both play defence, but they are not often on the ice at the same time. One of my memorable moments occurred when an opposing player was giving JJ some grief. This somewhat larger friend just skated between them, and the opponent soon thought better of his intentions.

This ↓ is an action photo of one of our boys rushing up the ice with the puck. I kept my finger of the shutter and got 6 or 7 shots of the sequence. I will spare you the rest. Indeed. I take many many hockey photos that either get trashed or shelved as I try with failing shutter finger to keep up with the action.

These ↓ are of the goalie doing his thing. He's a good one, often better than his opponent. This has helped the team win their last few games after quite a losing start to the season. The face in the background belongs to JJ.

I took a photo of the bench from across the way. There must have been a few absentees as we see only 4 boys. Of course, there were 6 players on the ice, but I am sure there are more than 10 on the team.

I am glad that I made the effort. Sue did cajole me somewhat, but I woulda anyway. I just wanted to grouse a bit yesterday morning.

Grouse is a verb that my dad used. I don't think I've heard anyone else use it in decades. I am pleased that it sprang to mind, for thinking upon it brings memories and feelings to the fore.

Mask Adaptations

I was not going to blog today. I couldn't think of anything. This morning, I read comments that came in overnight. Mary G wrote this:

The over the ear ones are great but watch out for them pulling off when you take off your mask. I lost one that way a while back. Now I wait until I am in the car before I take the mask off, so that if the hearing aid does pull off, I can find it. I have three bags full of extras with these.

I had a trial pair of these hearing aids for a month, so I've had some time to fuss about masks. I wrote about our adaptation here.

Sue worked on making it a little better ↑↑ and it worked pretty well. But then I had the bright idea of finding the kind with the double strand.

I ordered Balancing Crane (left) and Steady Toad (right) ↑↑ from Old Tribes which is Native Spirit on Facebook. They look like the double strand type, but I contacted them to be sure.

When they arrived, they were the single strand, over the ear type. They haven't replied to my query on from either the email address I got from their website or from messaging them on Facebook.

Oh well.

We have no fabric store nearby, but Sue found elastic on Amazon and has remedied the situation as she tends to do. While we would have preferred black elastic, she could only get white. It's a mask. White will do.

Oddly enough, two masks that I ordered previously came with the double loop, but I was wearing in-the-ear aids at the time, so Sue converted them to over-the-ears. She has since reconverted them.

This is how life goes in these strange times.

Cheated in My Own Wild Dream

I don't know when I last had a s.exual dream (writing it that way with the period, so I don't get stupid visits). In fact, I am not sure that I have ever had one of those dreams. Surely, I must have. I was once young ,after all. Nothing springs to mind, however.

Actually, I still haven't had one in a way, despite the fact that I am writing as though I had. Let me explain.

In my dream, I was about to take a shower. I don't know where I was exactly but maybe in a rec centre. A lady decided to join me, for she was in hot pursuit of my body. I swear it was her idea. 

Oddly enough, I knew this lady a little bit in real life. She was a teacher in far flung corner of my big school. I really only knew to see, hardly ever to interact with. In actual life, she wasn't my type. In actual life, she was gay. So why she showed up in a dream, 20 years after I last saw her, I cannot begin to fathom.

Subsequent to the shower episode with her, I found myself in great demand by quite a few women. Apparently the word of my wonderfulness had gotten out, and they all wanted me. This took place in another venue, not the shower.

I didn't know these other, mysterious ladies, or at least I don't have a clear picture of any of them. Apparently, I did the deed with a few of them. I remember wondering in my dream, how I was managing to keep my stamina. So, my dream was keeping it real to some small extent. 

Here's the thing. My dream never revealed the really good parts. It was like I knew that I was going to have s.ex and then I knew that I had had it. But it never happened in the present if you know what I mean. I never experienced the glory of the actual deed. 

Sigh. I think I was cheated.

In these dreams as in most of mine, even all of the family-rated ones, I am always young with hair. I am protected from being the old, bald guy that is my reality. I have never, as far as I can best recall, ever dreamed of me as I presently am. 

One more thing: I seldom seem to dream of me actually being me, for I am often some other character. I guess I'll take those options: either me being a young man or me being someone else. The mirror is my daytime reality. It doesn't have to be my nighttime reality too.

Poorer but with Richer Hearing

AC is thousands of dollars poorer today after bringing home his latest hearing aids yesterday. They cost quite a bit more than his first car and that is after a Black Friday sale (which is when  I ordered them) plus another discount because of my membership with CARP (Canadian Association of Retired Persons. Or is it People, and not Persons? Their website doesn't specify. I could carp on over that omission, but I am not that kind of guy. Unfortunately for you, I am the kind of guy who finds it difficult to resist an opportunity to pun.)

These tiny things, pictured on top of the lower centre box ↓↓ came in/with four boxes. (I am sure that my first pair came in one little package.)

Before you ask (or did you already?), let me splain, [Lucy].

One box was for the hearing aids themselves along with a manual and other things such as wax guards. 

A second contained the recharging base and cord. 

The long white one held the Connecting Clip which can connect me the Bluetooth devices such as my phone and computer, although once initialized I can hear future output from my phone without the clip. But the clip allows me both to remotely answer the phone and to speak directly through it. This will be very handy while driving although this introvert receives very few phone calls at any time. While I can and have answered the phone on my watch, it does involve more concertation as well as lifting the wrist, which may or may not be illegal. The watch doesn't always transmit the finest of sound either: sometimes, but not always.

The final package, the soft pouch, contains a medium to help dry the hearing aids if and when needed.

All my previous aids went directly in the ear, but these tiny over-the-ear devices are the preferred format now. I tried this type once before when they were also small but still a little bigger than these but couldn't get them to work without that squealing feedback. But they're even smaller now and insert into the ear differently and better.

Hearing aids have a lifespan of about 5 years, but I am hoping that these will last longer because they don't go into the moist and sometimes waxy ear (although I don't have the wax buildup that some have). They are also more easily repairable, and they are rechargeable. The capacity will diminish over time but I am told that the batteries usually last well for those five years, and they can then be changed although I don't know at what cost.

Fiddling Styles

I found a clip about fiddling when I was ... um ... fiddling around on YouTube on that snowy morn that I posted about yesterday. The fiddler, Carol Ann Wheeler, won this competition by playing different styles of fiddling.

What I hear at our Celtfest tends to be a bit of Old Time fiddling but perhaps more of the Celtic styles of her Irish, Scottish, and Cape Breton variations. I put those three style together like that because I don't have the ear to tell which I am hearing when. I do prefer these Celtic styles to Old Time fiddling, but some of that is okay too. I am telling you this before you get to the clip, so you can watch for those parts in particular because she also plays several other styles. 

I was a little puzzled by what she called Canadian fiddling because I have never heard of it. When I noticed her playlist, however, I thought that by choosing Frenchie's Reel, she might have meant French Canadian or Quebecois.

Speaking of Quebecois music, this ↓ is Le Vent du Nord (The Northwind), a group that has played twice at our Almonte Celtfest. There's more than fiddling here, but they are a very upbeat and energetic band that some of you might enjoy.

Yucky

First item on the agenda on Monday morning was to click into the school bus site. As we feared but rather expected, the buses were cancelled.

It was not the first snow, but it was the first Snow Day. Sue and I have called it a Snow Day when buses were cancelled and particularly when schools were also cancelled. However, and sadly for me back in the day, schools tend to remain officially open unless it is really bad, even though students don't bother to go when buses are cancelled. Not even the pedestrian kids go because they're not stupid. Teachers still have to show up though, which always drove me crazy, especially when I had to travel out to a country school in poor weather to sit in a school devoid of students.

But in these days of retirement, you would be forgiven for wondering how school buses might affect a pair of seniors. Well, a few years ago, it would have meant extra child-minding duties, but now, with the kids pretty self sufficient, it just means no exercise class for us. This isn't our call, but how the authorities ... um ... authorize it: No Buses, No Exercise Sessions. 

I did take a few crappy snaps out our windows. While it briefly crossed my mind to go out, it wasn't a good snow, and it also may have been raining at the time, and I was still in my PJ's. The rain was likely the main reason for the bus cancellation, as it was freezing rain when the buses would have been rolling. Freezing rain on top of snow just isn't good. Come to think of it, freezing rain ain't actually the cat's pyjamas at any time.

That's right American spellcheck, I spelled pyjamas the Canadian/British way. Take that will ya.

This was not a pretty snow for, as the temperatures were warming, it was already turning to regular rain, and that just makes it yucky. 

First out back, then looking out front.

As I already wrote – Yucky! And I am going to make it the title too.

Little Gadgets and Christmas Afghans

Who doesn't love a helpful little gadget?

Sue has always been taken with gadgets, but she really got it right this time.

Background

The lady crochets a lot in winter and has done four peppermint creations over the past few years: one for Shauna, one for us (I guess to eventually go to PJ someday if she wants one), and two for the cat lady to raise money in her auctions. Shauna purchased one of those back from cat lady and gave it to a friend.

Sue wrote a guest blog for me way back in 2017 where she explained the rather involved process: The Afghan Explained.

She has the wool for a fifth peppermint throw and actually began it, but she has shifted to a different pattern for the sake of variety.

Now that I have filled in the background, let us return to the gadget thingie.

Lighting is a problem. It seems that there is never enough of it in her work spaces. I mean I have recently told you that she sees brighter than the rest of us, but her work corners aren't all that well lit, and her aging eyes begin to struggle with close work.

She has tried my photography headlamps, but one is heavy, and even I don't like it. While I love my other lightweight one, Sue still doesn't prefer to wrap it around her tresses.

You can see the solution below.

It a lightweight gadget thingie that hangs around her neck to illuminate her work perfectly. And it's pink too. Bonus.

Bur hark! What is this new pattern? It's not peppermint.

It is another poinsettia themed pattern, developed by the same person who designed the peppermint throw. Like the other, Sue has to follow the involved video tutorial until she has it in her head. These two blocks ↑ are number 35 and 36, the final ones of this type to go into the ultimate creation.

So that is step 1 with many more to go to get to this result. Cute kid not included.

Following are two current photos of our peppermint afghan in situ: one at ours (with the cat who is not supposed to be there), the other at Shauna's. Wanting a bit of a change from bright, Christmas red after three jobs, she switched more of a wine red on last winter's project (ours).