Who needs A/C?

The doctor made his rounds this morning. He sent one lady home. He forgot to check on Jannie. So, four hours later, he had a phone conversation with the head nurse and signed off on her well being from where ever he was calling from. Jannie could go home.

At 2pm, we headed for the exit, Jannie in the wheel chair, and I was driving. We stopped in the lobby. I went to get the car, and pulled up out front. It was a hot day in the high desert conditions of Kamloops as we headed home.

The A/C went out on our car years before we even bought it. Open windows helped some, but really, when somebody is feeling sick or recovering from surgery, or both; a one hour hot ride home isn't the best experience. I really wished I had A/C for Jannie's sake.

Anyway, we made it home. Not long after we travelled that road, a serious accident closed the road for the usual eight hours, of the typical serious accident processing time of the RCMP.
I would like to see how they do it...I used to work traffic accidents when I was a cop. We could process a fatal accident in an hour, and the road was open again. I don't understand how the RCMP can take eight hours to do the same job as I did in one. Things that make you go Hhhmmmmm.

She's Resting at Hospital

The love of my life made it through surgery. Seeing the scar, the tubes, and all were a reality check for me. I could have called friends in Kamloops to spend the night, but I chose to drive back home because I needed quiet time. I needed time alone to process the trail that God has placed our feet on.

So, Jannie is resting in hospital. I hope to bring her home tomorrow. I am going to be busy with new duties as Jannie's nurse. (I hope she doesn't expect me to wear a little uniform).

Hair cuts

If God doesn't choose to miraculously heal Jannie in the next couple of days, we are looking at surgery about 11:00am on Friday. She went to the hair stylist yesterday afternoon for a major hair cut. It would be easier to manage hair loss due to chemo therapy if her hair were shorter, so she is planning ahead.

Since it seems to be a time of change for us, so I cut off my moustache. I am now clean shaven. Haven't seen my upper lip in 30+ years. My back is doing great. All the exercise I have been getting with the move really toned my back. Last weekend, I went skin diving with Tim in a local river. That was quite a work out. I had trouble with my face mask sealing properly, and probably due to the moustache. So, I had a little practical reasoning for the change.

Fell off the face of the Earth?

It has been a full five weeks without internet. Our account with Telus ended on June 14. We signed up with Xplornet on June 5 so we wouldn't have any lapse in internest services. They promised service in a week. Just today, in the evening, we finally got the satelite system installed, five weeks later.

I don't have email yet, since I am missing some info necessary to register with my new ISP. But I am hopeful that I will be able to get email going on Wednesday.

In the past five weeks, we got the surprise call from my wife's doctor. There was a little problem with the recent mamogram. That has led to followup trips to hospitals. She went for a MRI on Monday, and will go again to Kamloops on Thursday for a biopsy.

We have been moving in at the new house. We have some new flooring in a couple of rooms. Jannie got new cabinets for the kitchen. They should be fully installed tomorrow.

So, lot's has been happening. There is lot's to thank God for, and still room to intercede with God for Jannie.

I'll have my new email up here as soon as I get it worked out.

Still Trusting, Howard

Renovating

One thing leads to another. We wanted to change the floor covering in a room from carpet to linoleum. Lift the carpet and you discover the flooring beneath the carpet isn't all the same. That would take some plywood to remedy that, but if you do the plywood, then you change the height where it meets the ceramic tile. When it was all said and done, we realized that if you had lots of money and time, you could switch to linoleum, but carpeting was much easier to work with. So, in the end, we opted to go with carpeting after all.

A friend from church volunteered to help with the kitchen work. By work, I mean removing the 30 year old cabinetry. I sure appreciated his know-how. He got all the cabinets out, and safely disconnected plumbing and electrical connections.

I have been painting. That is something I know about. The whole house is getting new paint inside. The former occupants liked very bold and dark colors. That just made the rooms appear smaller. It also required two coats of primer paint to subdue the bold colors.

Today or tomorrow, I get the job of going under the house in the crawl space. When I was a kid, I would have enjoyed the adventure of going in the dark confined space under the house. As someone who is much older than a kid, I don't find the job so fun. I hope I don't meet up with snakes or Black Widow spiders down there.

Surprise!

Buying a house in Canada is much different than what I knew from the USA. The vocabulary is different. In the States, the final meeting where the keys are exchanged and papers signed, is called a "closing." I suppose it comes from the sales marketing lingo for closing the deal. In Canada, it is a "completion."

In the States, all the parties involved meet together and the seller and buyer get writers cramp from signing a huge stack of official forms, that you have no idea of the contents. You just trust your attorney and sign, sign, and sign. Finally, it is over, and every one sighs, and keys are surrendered.

In Canada, the buyer does more "foot work" for individual tasks. The buyer has to secure the insurance on the new dwelling. In the States, that is done for you...(maybe because they don't trust you to do it?)

Today, I got a shock when I learned that the bank did not request a transfer of certain funds. The closing/completion date is only 7 days away. I thought they would do that, as the mortgage provider. They assumed I would do it. So, with my blood pressure surging, I Faxed the forms into cyber-space where I hope they safely arrived into the loving hands of a clerk at the other end, who would devote themselves wholly to a speedy processing of my request.

In seven days, if all goes alright, we will meet at our attorneys office and sign a few forms, hand over some money, and that is the completion. No inch thick pile of documents to sign.
The whole thing ought to be done in 15 minutes. The attorney then files a new registration certificate for the property. Two days later, the realtor hands us the house keys.

I just hope there are no more surprises, even though in reality, the experience of buying a house in Canada is a new one. I hope my surprises are good ones then.

Illustration

I went bear hunting with a joung friend recently. It was 12:45 in the afternoon when we noticed a bear on a area below us, about 100 yards away. The bear looked up at us in the truck as we eased to a halt. I put the truck in reverse and quietly backed away the same way we had come. I stopped about 200 yards away and parked.

My friend took his bow and arrows and quietly went down the raod again to see if mr. bear was still there. He was. So, I brought a range finder and judged the range at 54 yards, downhill. That was well within the range of my muzzle loader matchlock rifle, but I would only take the shot if my friend said that he couldn't try it with the bow and arrow. I thought it was a pretty good chance that I would soon get a chance, when my friend hunched over to get lower, and off he went down the road.

He went another 200 yards and then turned off the road onto a trail that would bring him back to the bear. The wind was not good. It was blowing past the hunter and nearly straight to the bear. Still, the archer pressed on, with me watching from a perfect vantage point above.

The archer closed to within 50 yards of the bear, and the animal hadn't seen or sented him. Then, to my amazement, the bear actually began slowly walking towards the hunter. I noted the range at 30 yards, well within the range of the archer, but he kept stalking closer.
The bear kept walking closing the range, too!

At less than 20 yards, I saw the archer stop, and draw the bow string back. The bear raised his head and noticed the archer motionless before him. A milli-second later, I heard the bow string twang, and at the same time, the bear fell to the ground without a twitch.

I thought, how often do we face what may seem like long odds on success and simply give up without even trying? This hunt was clearly a long shot on success, but it did work out.