Our city-neighbour, R, got in last night.  That is a sure sign of spring.  When R comes, the winter is over for the rest of us.

Winter usually hangs around a bit longer for him, though.  He is a bit of a Joe Btfsplk, the Al Capp character always drawn with the rain cloud over his head.  JBk is actually a cartoon character who represents bad luck and my neighbour does just fine in the luck department.  It is the little raincloud over his head that he is cursed with.

He had written us prior.  We knew he was on his way.  Late on the day of arrival, the sun disappeared and a lone rain cloud formed down the channel.  “Well, R must be on his way!  Rain down channel and heading slowly this way.  My guess is that he is in the middle of it.”

“Of course he is.  Whenever he gets in his boat it rains, the poor sod.  Unbelievable, eh?  But you can’t write about it!”

“Why not?  It is the eighth wonder of the world.  The UN should send him to drought stricken areas.  The guy is a rain-man!  He’d turn Ethiopia and Somalia green in a week!  Saudi Arabia? One month. Tops!”

“Not quite.  He needs to be in a boat for the curse to work.  Preferably coming or going to town.  If you are going to write it, get it right!”

R dropped by our place on his way to his place.  (Yes, it was raining.)  I jumped in to his boat and we headed over to unload his stuff.  Normally he doesn’t need me but we had to wrestle his new genset out of his  small aluminum skiff along with a ton of supplies.  Like me, R lands on a rocky beach/cliff.  High tide is a critical logistical factor. So is a strong second back when the load is heavy.

This, by the way, is a lesson that no one seems to get right away – you are only as useful as your boat.  Really.  Should you consider getting off-the-grid and by way of a remote island, do not think that you only need a small rowboat or a little skiff.  Many people make do with that, of course, but little skiffs are extremely limiting.  I know.  I have one.

The ideal island service boat is a fast, stable, shallow-ish boat in the 20 foot range.  A Boston Whaler-type from 18 to 22 feet would be ideal.  It should be ‘beachable’ even if you have a dock (so many places to go where there isn’t one) and it should have a very small ‘house’ or, better yet, a centre console with a little roof and windshield.  You don’t need a cabin. But you do need open deck space to put the inevitable load of stuff and supplies.  Mind you, a little shelter from the weather is good.  Remember, most of your ‘shelter’ takes the form of wet weather gear.

Anyway…………

R is not really a city feller who goes to the country for the summer.  Not really.  He is a country feller who goes to the city for the winter.  Big difference.  You see, he is here from April through to late October.  That is almost seven months.  He is pretty much evenly divided between his two homes but he is happier here so he is a country feller.  Kinda.  Put another way: he is eager to get here, his wife has to drag him kicking and screaming to leave.

She’s a city gal.

Typically the divided households or summer residents are just that – here for the good weather.  They are in the city the rest of the time.  We have part-timers from the States, from Toronto and, of course from the lower mainland and western Canada.  Population swells by about a third in the summer, I am guessing – from 60 to 80.

First R.  Then the geese.  Then the pigeon guillemots and then the ‘hordes’.  Then it is summer.

A very illuminating and interesting aspect of leaving the city years ago was the getting rid of stuff.  And we had loads of stuff to get rid of.

Of course, we offered a smorgasbord of collected junk to our kids and close friends but the kids were still living like students and the friends had all the stuff they wanted.  The exercise of ‘shedding’ our urban trappings was to provide a cognitive shift in our thinking.

I guess you always need some stuff.  But you don’t need much stuff.  Thoreau on Walden had virtually no stuff.  Stuff is a drag.

I have never been tied to merchandise, chattel or things material much anyways.  And neither has Sal.  We just didn’t covet enough, I guess.  We had (I think) quite a few nice things in the last house including antiques and Persian carpets, art and bric a brac plus the required amount of TVs, VCRs (then) and BBQs, bicycles, computers and assorted crap, junk and detritus.  But we didn’t think of it all like the ‘treasure’ that the insurance company did: ‘worth X thousands to replace!’

Thank God for that!

The first thing Sal did was call in an antiques dealer.  She pointed out a number of lovely things (furniture, mostly) that could go and asked if he was interested.  “I am. he said.  “I’ll give you $300 for the lot!”  Sal was shocked.  She thought it was worth ten times that and that we might get half of that. At least a third.  He offered ten cents on the her very already low estimated dollar.  But her resolve was strong.  She took it and the dealer took it.  And we were a thousand pounds lighter.

Our next effort at reducing weight was a garage sale.  We advertised like mad and, on the appointed weekend day, looked out to see hordes of people.  We had loaded the driveway and the garage.  Stuff was piled deep.  And the sale went like this: “How much do you want for the BBQ?”

“Figure out half the value that it has as a used BBQ and cut that value in half.  Then cut that value in half again.  Give yourself a deal.  What do figure?”

“I have a dollar and sixty seven cents in my pocket.”  He left with the BBQ.

One person stole the lawnmower!  Wild, eh? It was a good, well-running Honda lawnmower with a $15.00 price tag on it and they stole it!  I am still shocked over that.  Getting out was looking better all the time.

When it was all said and done, we had sold just about everything we had on offer for just over $400.00.  I rented a truck and packed away the things we were going to keep.  Then I took the truck while Sal took the car and our trailer with a few more items up Vancouver Island to Campbell River.  We unloaded it all into a storage unit.  And I then gave the truck back to BUDGET.  The cost of moving stuff to Campbell River (not counting storage) was just over $400.00.  The majority of our belongings were valued, it seemed, at much the same amount as transporting about 20% of them a few hundred miles.

The storage guy asked us how long we would need the unit.  “Well, said Sal, “we are going to build our own house up on a remote island further up the coast.  That’ll take us a while.  Say, six months?”

“You are building your own house?  Constructing it yourselves?  On a remote island?  Hahaha.  I’ll write you down for 18 months and you can give me a few months notice if you need more.  Hahahaha.” 

He was right.

Admittedly, he had just watched us unload our remaining stuff and we rationalized that must have given him a mistaken impression of incompetence (we were tired) and so we just shook off the insult and vowed to pack up when the time came with speed and cooler efficiency. Even if we died in the effort.

Eighteen months later, we were $1800 poorer for the storage fees and we knew that our remaining belongings weren’t even worth that.  But worse, we weren’t ready even then to take them home.  Our stuff was becoming a burden.

It is the yin and yang of stuff.

“To hell with it!  the roof is on.  The place is dry.  The floor is down.  Let’s get our stuff out of storage and move it in anyway.  We’ll just finish around it all.  I really don’t want to pay that guy for more storage!”

“Deal!  Just one thing………….let’s blitz that unit and get everything out like our last name is Bekins!”

You may have noticed a bit of a shift in the blogs lately?  I am not so sure there has been one but I think there has. I am getting signs.

The major indicator?  My wife has recently turned against me.

Sal is the editor and, as my wife, is supposed to be supportive and nurturing. Encouraging would be nice.   Actually, NOT being yelled at is usually good enough for me to consider that as adequate spousal support but even that just  changed (we’re still negotiating nurturing).  The other day she said, “Sorry.  This blog you just wrote can’t go up.  Not good enough.  Try again!”

“What?”

“You heard me.  I have decided that, if this is going to eventually turn into a book or something and will have my name attached to it, you have to kick it up a notch.  I want better.  Sorry.  But I am going to get harder on you.  The bar has just been raised.  And I don’t want to have to tell you this again.” 

“What are you saying?  Have I gotten worse?  Or are you getting tougher?  And by ‘tougher’ I mean ‘horribler’!”

“Well, I do think you are fading, somewhat.  Frankly, I have been disappointed lately.  Not enough laughs, ya know?  You better get funny, man! 

“But really, it is not just about fading, getting duller, losing your charm.  Boring.  Not really.  It is also about mediocrity.  And then there is bland to consider, too.  Really, it’s about NOT growing.  The blog is just NOT growing!  Look at your numbers, for Gawd’s sake!!  Who reads you?  Like, a dozen or so?  Honestly, you have to get better or get a new hobby.  The old crap just won’t do.  Now I want more.  We all want more!” 

“So, it’s me!?”

“Yep.  You’re boring me. You are boring us all!  People are phoning me, asking me questions about your mental state.  Basically, you suck!  But it is also me.  I have been too lax until now.  Too easy on you.   I let you get away with crap.  No longer gonna happen, mister.  We have to get serious.  It is time to put your words where your mouth is.  No more Ms Nice Gal.  Not here.  Not now.  The editor says, suck it up!”

“Whoa!  Way harsh!  I am reeling.  Gasping, actually.  You just ripped my heart out!”

“It is for your own good.  Think of it as tough love.”

“I think of it already as horrible love.”

So, since everyone likes to kick a man when he is down, I thought I’d ask you, the reader:  If all the previous posts were assembled and put into book form, the theme of which still kind of eludes me but which Sal assures me is something like ‘old city guy goes to the country’ or ‘it is never to late to follow a dream’ or ‘learning and growing while greying’, what components are missing for you?  What do you want to hear?  What would make all the gibberish gell?

And how do I get Sal to be nice to me again?

Our neighbour dropped six prawn traps for us yesterday before he left for his city home.  We get to pull ’em and then re-set them as needed.  For a bit.  He’ll be back to take over again in a few days.  It was a nice gesture.  But we weren’t too excited.  The prawning has been poor.

Usually we just set two of our own traps and that has provided enough for a few meals and we are content with that.  Better the prawns should have fun and stay fresh down there while we have pizza or chicken.  Or whatever.  We’ll call on them when the occasion requires it.

Last year, with guests and all, we went through about 300 prawns.  About a five gallon pail.  Approximately ten Zip-Lok bags.  It was plenty.  More than enough.  If it was just Sal and I, a third of that would have been good.  Sal makes a mean prawn linguini in cream sauce and they are always good with garlic butter and some tomato-based sauce as an appetizer.  I sometimes add them to sushi with avocado slices.  I think of prawns like I do bacon – more than a garnish, less than an entrée.

And we needed a few entrées.  So, we did a town-day lite today.  Just over to the next island.  They have a store there and a recycling depot.  Plus I needed a couple of bits of hardware for the woodwork shop.  And there was the chocolate mandate to be filled, too.  We ambled over.  Did our thing.  And ambled back.  Pretty laid back.

Then we went to pull the traps.

The first trap came up empty but for a single prawn!  The next two on the string lifted the haul to about a dozen.  Twenty four hours on one of the best areas at the beginning of the season and I am not sure if we had a dozen!  That was not good.

We went to the next string.  Started to haul.   The traps were not coming up right.  It is hard to say what pulling a weight from the depths is supposed to feel like but I had done it enough to know that it just didn’t feel right.  I imagined that there were octopi in there.  That happens.

We kept pulling.

Eventually, I could see a problem as the traps came up.  They had somehow set on themselves.  They were tangled.  Each trap was ensnared with the other two.  It was a jumble of traps.

Of course, you keep pulling.  Have to.  We had to clear the tangle at the very least.

But as they came up, we began to see prawns in the traps.  Within the next five minutes we had filled a five gallon bucket!  Three hundred and fifty prawns!  And all of them captured in a pile, a jumble, a veritable rat’s nest of nets and ropes.

Wow!  A new prawning technique!

When we were done processing the little sweeties, we had our yearly allotment!  One haul!

It was a good day.

A Mess of Prawns

My son and his partner K are in eastern Europe.  They are having a good time.  But, of course, not all their conversation revolves around just traveling.  Sometimes they talk about other things:  K wrote to tell me of one conversation……..

Killer whales yesterday.  Killer whales all last week, too.  All heading south.  Strange.

We see Orcas, of course.  But it is not like we ‘track’ them or anything.  They just go by every now and then.  Sometimes up channel.  Sometimes down.  It is always ‘attention-getting’ but as a rule it is just commuting neighbours writ black and white, wet and large.  We enjoy the sight but don’t think too much about it.

Having said that, I don’t ever recall three separate pods all heading south within days of one another.  And, yes, we can tell the difference between pods.  The dorsal fins of the bulls are usually distinctly different and the numbers in the pod vary.

Ravens are acting a bit different, too.  Typically Liz is on the nest right about now and only Jack forages.  If we see her, we don’t see him.  Trade-off time.  But yesterday, we saw them both.  Odd.  Doesn’t bode well for the eggs unless they have hatched.  And that doesn’t seem likely.  Not yet.

It’s prawning season again.  My neighbour dropped a couple of traps.  Usually, the first traps of the season get good results.  Not this year.  Meagre is the word.  Minimal.  Not a good sign.

It is just April.  Usually by now the sun is shining and doing so at least half the time.  March this year came in like a lion and left like a raging bull. Blew like hell last night.   Blowing like hell right now.  Winter just hasn’t quite let go it’s nasty grip.  There are a few signs of spring but it still doesn’t feel like spring-is-in-the-air. Not quite.

People are snapping, too.  Happens every year, they say.  A bit-too-long-a-winter and the darkness catches up with folks.  They get a bit crabby, a bit snappish.  Tensions run a bit high.  Sometimes they call that state one of being ‘bushed’ but really, that term should be reserved for the more extremely isolated and antisocial characters.  Real hermits.  Not us.  I think it is mostly just some variant on Spring fever or maybe SADs (Seasonal Affective Disorder), sunlight deprivation.  Whatever it is, it is real.  People are a bit grumpy.

Still, I think a few nice long days of sunshine would help plants and animals alike.

We got all the fibreglass done on Sal’s boat despite the bad weather.  A judiciously applied source of heat at just the right time and just the right place made the job do-able.  The weather was not good but we prevailed.  A bit more ‘messin’ about’ painting and fixing and we’ll launch it again.  Probably next week.  Sal is happy.  Almost.

We have to go to town.  Probably tomorrow.  Haven’t been in two weeks.  Getting a bit low on things like milk and chocolate.  We can do without the milk, tho.  But some things are just way too important.  Sal has decided to go to town regardless of the weather.  And Sal said, “THERE WILL BE CHOCOLATE!”

All in all, I’d have to say that we are on the down side of a number of naturally occurring, mood-affecting cycles – foodstuffs, movies, chocolate inventory, weather, sunshine and, most importantly for me, frequency of communication.

It is not that bad but this is the time of year that seems the loneliest to me.  All the busy working people are busy working.  All the non-working people are still ‘holed up’ and hunkered down.  Family is away.  Writers and callers are fewer (We definitely get more attractive to our friends as the weather gets sunnier.  Maybe it is the tan I get?). 

In the dead of winter, I expect to be ‘cut off’ from people (I am not always cut off.  Sometimes we travel and are busy interacting but I expect otherwise when I am home.  A neighbour likens it to human hibernation.  Anyway you describe it, less people in winter is just fine with me).  In the middle of the summer, there are always too many people (they tend to cluster, to bunch up, ya know?)  It is usually just right in the autumn.

It all reminds me of the Chinese curse and blessing, “May you live in interesting times.”

And we do.  Right now is just a smidge more interesting than other times.

Leaving the city wasn’t so hard.  As I said, my heart wasn’t in it.  Not anymore.  For some reason, the family trip across the continent and the month in Europe had disconnected me from the cul de sac and I just wasn’t ‘fully there’ anymore.  So contemplating leaving was not hard for me.

Bit of a leap for Sal, tho.  She did not go unhesitating into that small inflatable dream-boat to travel to the wilds with not even a house in which to create a semblance of a home.  She couldn’t even visualize it.  Neither could I. That took some time.  That took some faith.  Lots of research, too.  And it took not just a few promises to sweeten the slowly simmering pot of her interest.

Commitment would have to wait for awhile.

Even making it an interesting idea wasn’t an easy sell.  To be fair to her, it was a bit ‘early’ by the standard rules of retirement.  In fact, we hadn’t even thought of it as such yet.  So far, it was just loose talk.  Sally had a good job, good pay and the kids were mostly fledged.  And talk was cheap.  It was really just exploring an idea.

But it was also true that Sal (and I) was emerging from the GIANT ‘take-good-care-of-all-the-family’ responsibility phase and passing into the ‘got-your-back’ phase of parenting.  We were going from the full-time press to the emergency response team and the pressures were reducing.  There was a bit of room for dreaming, anyway.

And, I confess, I was on that dreaming-about-retirement-thing a bit sooner than most.

And it was all going smoothly.  Pretty much.  My son, more naturally independent than a baby turtle – right from the start – was well established in his routine, going to university and being a young man.  He was doing good.  ‘Specially at snowboarding, surfing and making twenty bucks last a month.

My daughter, naturally a bit more inclined to family and the ‘pack’ had a scholarship to York University in Ontario and, not in the least intimidated by the distance, eagerly headed east to further her education.  Though the tentacles are still stretched thin-and-will-always-be-connected, she has been independent since 17.

The point: having your kids go ‘adult’ on you before the age of 19 is freeing but it comes with a ‘worry’ component.  But we honestly didn’t worry too much.  Having them successfully ‘go adult’ is quite a release of everyday responsibility but even that comes with a ‘stand-by’ mode attached.  Our ‘stand-by’ role was rarely activated and never relied on.

Having established themselves as adults for a good long while is absolutely, positively liberating.  You never stop being a parent but we are now very much free to also be ourselves again.

Their independence, competence, ability, health and sanity are a huge credit to them but they are also huge gifts to us.  They allowed us to leave and do what we wanted to do.

We just had to figure out what that was.

But, of course, Sal was dragging her feet a smidge.  To be fair, I was not putting much pressure on her.  She was happy doing what she was doing and I didn’t really have any plans so what would be the point in pushing?  I had no idea where to go or what to do next.  It was mostly just ‘doing the next thing’ to see where that led me.

Well, I had an idea.  But, honestly, I was not ready.  Not even close.  I didn’t know what we might get into.  Not in the least.  I was still trying to wrap my head around the process of leaving.  I had not really addressed the issue of arriving somewhere else at all.  There was a lot to think about.  A lot of preparation.

And, of course, you never know what it is that you don’t know.

I had, admittedly, wandered through salvage yards and second hand stores, garage sales and recycling depots unconsciously picking up ‘finds’ and ‘treasures’ for a while.  Maybe as long as a year or two.  But, I had no plan.  No shopping list. I was really in the day-dream stage still.

Whenever Sally would ask with a sigh and a tone of resignation, “OK, sweetie, what that hell is that for?  What does it do?  Why do we need it?” My usual answer was an embarrassed, “Well, I don’t know, actually.  But I am sure it will come in handy.  And it is cheap.  I am only paying $40.00 for this old winch and I am sure that I’ll have to winch something someday. That’s what people do out in the bush!”

“They winch?”

“Yep.  All day long.  I am sure of it.  Winch, winch, winch.”

Our garage filled up.  Our cul de sac runneth over.  It was a great time of searching and finding things we had no previous idea even existed but that looked like things one might need. Someday.  Maybe.  To go with the winch, perhaps?

I distinctly recall the one night Sal arrived home late from work.  It was pouring with rain.  She was all dolled up and looking cute in her little business attire complete with fashionable briefcase.  She came to the front door and called for me to get a coat and follow.

“What’s up?”

“It’s BIG garbage day in a few days, ya know?  And people are putting junk out for the spring-cleaning collection.  Some guy has a bunch of winches on his lawn!  He’s throwing out winches!  And there are lots!  Big ones, small ones and a whole bunch with gears on them!”  The rain was pouring down her face.  her hair was plastered flat from being wet and the weather was fierce.  She was excited and had a grin on her face. “C’mon!”.

We went down the street and, sure enough, there were a lot of geared winches on the lawn.  We checked with the owner.  They were free for the taking.  From 1/2 horsepower to 5 hp.  The ‘five’ weighed so much that Sal and I had to lift it together to get it into the trunk of her car.  She was in a skirt and business shoes.  Not easy.  We took about eight or ten winches and then, soaking wet with the car dragging it’s rear end, we made our way home to the garage and unloaded our treasures.

I knew then that Sal was getting on-side even if we didn’t quite know what game we were going to play.  It is great when a team starts to gell, isn’t it?

I think my daughter was 12 and my son was 15.  My contract with the Provincial government was over and I was feeling free and footloose.  Felt like traveling.

I rationalized that the kids were at that age where they were going to be making most of their own decisions soon and I wanted them to have some perspective from which to make them.  So Sal and I decided to take them out of school and drive across Canada, go to Europe for a month or so and then drive back across the United States.  It was 1998.  I was 50.

On our way back and, as we approached the junction with Interstate 5 somewhere around Bellingham, I realized that I had no desire to go home.  “Ya know………….it is just as easy for me to turn left at Bellingham rather than turn right.  We could go to Mexico and kill a few months driving around down there.  Waddya all think?” 

“What!!  What kind of irresponsible parent are you?  We’re just kids, for Gawds sake!  We have school to go to.  Lives to lead.  Classes to attend.  We gotta get an education.  Stop already with the hippy thing, dad! And get us home!”

So, I turned right and wondered who their real father was.  But Sal made me feel much better by assuring me that she was 100% sure that they were hers and that that should be good enough.  And so we returned to the cul-de-sac.  Physically, anyway.

I had left my heart somewhere on the road.  I just couldn’t ‘plug back in’.  Not like I had before.  I worked, of course.  Had to.  I made money like a good husband.  I was a responsible parent.  And I didn’t buy a red sports car and try to find a secretary.  But, despite the adherence to normal suburban behaviour, my mind started to wander.  I was looking for something.   I had no idea what.

The only hint I had was a bit of nostalgia for the 60’s.  It wasn’t that I was much of a hippy back then.  I wasn’t.  I liked to play sports.  Didn’t do drugs.  And I didn’t smoke.  Not anything.  And I wasn’t inclined to live communally either.  Well, better put, no community-of-free-love wanted me.  Same thing.  Still, there was something idealistic about the hippy era that still appealed to me.  There was something good and healthy and interesting about it all. Back to the land?

I found my old Whole Earth catalogue.

Then I discovered the Mother Earth News forum on the internet.  Back in the old days – around the year 2000 – it was a really good forum.  Lots of daily writers, lots of give-and-take, lots of people talking and writing about living off the grid.  I was hooked.

And that is where it all started.  At step four.

Step one had to be the somewhat nomadic existence I had always lived.  My upbringing and my early adult years were always changing and, in a way, were a preparation for developing a lifetime attitude of becoming comfortable with change.  Had to be – there was lots of it.  So, step one was being groomed to expect and to want change in my life.

Step two was stone-cold bloody LUCK.  It was like winning the lottery.  I got into some kind of hormonal-like frenzy when I was around 25 about needing to buy a piece of land.  Since I had no money, I borrowed all that I could and went as far as I had to go so as to afford a piece of dirt.  Any dirt.  I found acreage on a remote island up the coast and bought it.  How crazy is that?  I didn’t even like dirt.  And I hated bugs.  But I bought it anyway.  And then put it out of my mind for the next 25 years.

This was not, at the time, a rational thing to do by any definition.

Step three was mentally drifting out of the rat race and the cul-de-sac.  Step three started at the Bellingham junction.  Honestly?  I think a lot of people would feel step three if they got off the merry-go-round long enough to feel.  We had been gone almost four months.  It takes awhile for the numbness from the daily grind to subside.

Did you know a lot of big law firms won’t allow lengthy leave-of-absences for young lawyers because they found that once they get off the tracks, they wouldn’t get back on?

Anyway, step four was when I started daydreaming seriously.  Imagining.  Reading.  Learning.  Buying junk from salvage yards for no particular purpose.  Getting into alternative energy.  Learning about construction.  Buying tools.  From about the year 2000 til we left in 2004, I found myself spending every free moment thinking about and preparing to live off the grid.  Step four looked like the beginning.  It was step four.

I can’t explain any of that anyway.  Gail Sheehan wrote in PASSAGES that everyone continues to go through phases as they live their lives.  Maybe it is just a phase? The world was learning about pollution, Globalization, Monsanto, Bush politics, Big Oil and various other major institutions in decay around the time I was tapping into Mother Earth News…………maybe it was just a timing thing?  Maybe it was just a fear thing?  Fight or flight?  And I was choosing flight?

Maybe it was the time when Sal and I went up to see our land of ‘rocks and Christmas trees’ one summer and it all struck me as being so incredibly beautiful?

I really don’t know how it happened.  But it did.  There was no plan.  Not really.  But, after turning 50, there was a definite wandering in a certain direction.  Actions were taken.  Decisions were made.  Things were put in place.  We made it happen.  Somehow.  But, honestly, we were not in control.  There was some kind of gentle influence nudging, guiding and helping us along.

We got here with a lot of mysterious help.

C’mon?!  That is kinda weird, don’t you think?

When I was younger the doctor I was seeing asked me about my family history.  He was speaking, of course, about our family medical history.  Genes.  Heredity.  That kind of thing.  As I recall, it was because I had relatively high blood pressure for a guy in his twenties.  300 over 250 or something.  High.

So, I asked my mom, “Do we have any history of heart disease in the family?”

“No dear.” she smiled.

But then I got to thinking………….“Well, what did aunt Hilda die from?”

“Well, She had a heart attack, dear.”

“And, auntie Joan?”

“Well, that was a heart attack, too, sweetie.”

Uncle Sammy?  Gwyneth?  Granpa?”

“They were heart attacks, too, dear.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE HAVE NO HISTORY OF HEART DISEASE!!”

“We don’t, sweetie.  There was no history.  It was bam!  They just dropped dead on the spot!”

And so it goes in my family.  I have no real idea about them.  It is not like we are close.  Plus, my parents have passed.  But I think those of us who are left love each other plenty.  Kinda.  You know, if there is nothing else going on at the time.  No appointments to keep or something.  We’re good.

But we live outside each other’s sphere.  I don’t really know my brother and sister as well as I would like.  Not on a day to day or even month to month basis.  Sometimes not even on a year year basis.  They get busy, ya know?  Still, I get a call now and then.

The one good thing?  We do seem to understand each other.

My brother called.  We got to talking about eyes.  His have never been very good and now I have to see to mine.  “Yeah, I said, seems I have cataracts.  Need an operation.  Hate that.  Hospitals are places where you get sicker than you were when you went in.  Don’t wanna go there.”

“Yeah.  Feel the same way.  Had cataract surgery myself a year or so ago.  They almost made me permanently blind.  Not good.” 

Seems he had high eye pressure and, if it gets too high, it kills your eye.  His was beyond eye-killing levels but the doctor who had operated wouldn’t bother seeing him after the operation.  “If you have any problems, go to emergency.”

All this is by way of saying that I am not overly impressed with the current state of our health care system.  ‘Course, I am not alone on that.  Still, I can ignore the system’s problems when I am well.  I really only focus on the damn thing when I need it.  Pathetic.

It’s like politics.  You only think about it when it is too late to do anything about it.

For the record: best health care experience I ever experienced was in Thailand.  Sal fell ill.  We went in an ambulance to the hospital and a doctor greeted her at the emergency entrance and didn’t leave her side until every thing that needed to be done was done.  Then she was sent to a hospital room that was better than our hotel.  Came with a kitchenette and a bed for me.  All the nurses were really cute, wore white high heels and tight uniforms and worked like little bees to keep Sal comfortable.  And every once in awhile a nurse would make sure I was doing OK, too.  I actually had a good time!

Service?  Like the Ritz.  Skills and proficiency?  Like NASA.  Cuteness factor: almost equal to that of the patient.  Cost?  Less than dinner out in Vancouver.

I am thinking of going to Thailand for eye surgery.

How weird is that?

Got some clams today.  From the lagoon behind the house.  They are currently sitting and sifting sand in a bucket of water on the porch.  Should be clear of grit by tomorrow afternoon.  Their eventual fate: clam chowder.

Clams!

OHMYGAWD, Sal makes good clam chowder!

Picked up a dozen oysters while we were down there digging around in the  mud.  Result: muddy feet and paws (dogs like to help in the hunt) and oysters and Caesar salad tonight.  Picked up another pearl in one of them as a bonus, too.  Sometimes the oysters make pearls and we picked up a large misshapen one today.  Sal has a few little ones in a jar from previous oyster hunts.

Pearl!

If we keep this up, someday we’ll have a worthless little pile of misshapen pearls to show people.  Sorta like we have now……..but only more of them.

Storm last night brought in a beach full of seaweed.  We are likely to go get some for the garden tomorrow.  And, if I am up for it, we may cut a few logs up that also floated by and that we retrieved and tied up.  As you know from previous blogs, wood gathering is a constant chore out here.  But not an unpleasant one.  Kinda fun, most of the time.  I especially like it when the W’fers come to do the chopping.  I enjoy watching w’fers chop wood.

Sal does most of the log fetching and wrangling.  She just can’t help herself.  She’s like a cat on a mouse when it comes to drifting logs.  My role is mostly cutting them into manageable lengths, hauling them up the hill and then cutting them into rounds.  I ‘split’ sometimes but I have managed to pull the ol’ Tom Sawyer white-washing-the-fence trick on most of the w’fers and guests so far.  And the Chinese kids, too.

Couldn’t fool my own kids, tho.

So, there you have it.  Counting the couple of hours working on Sal’s boat, we only ventured about five hundred feet from home.  Got in some boat repairs, two dinners, garden fertilizer, potential jewelry and some winter wood.

And you thought living in the city was a life of convenience!