My Day Was Wonderful

Sunday was gorgeous. We walked early in the morning, and the highlight of the walk was encountering Lily, a gorgeous Doberman, and her owner, Grant. We’ve met on the trails several times, and Lily gets very excited, but yesterday she was calm and very loving towards me. I was thrilled to be able to pat her and cuddle with her while she was calm.

Once back home, the day was all about weeding and watering. Today will be the same. I want to leave everything in good shape when I go to Nanoose tomorrow to visit with Dianne. The best part of yesterday afternoon was picking another very large bowl full of raspberries. I had two bowls full for dessert last night. My raspberries are rather tart little deliciousness, so I sprinkle my feast with icing sugar.

Our afternoon walk was along the Elder Cedar trail. We saw Eoin and François there, but they were just finishing their walk when I arrived. It was very warm yesterday, so we were happy to come home to our log house that stays so lovely and cool when it gets hot.

I’ve still to hear about when I shall start on Tezpire. After hearing from Julie about ten days ago, I am hoping that my training session will be next week. Regardless, I am still feeling the benefits of the Prednisone. I am walking quicker than I was before the Prednisone, and I just feel stronger. I’m hoping Tezpire has a similar effect.

It's another glorious day. Stacy is visiting the island so she will walk with us this morning and tonight, I will dine with her, her sister Kris, and Kris’s hubby, Steve. They are all wonderful friends.

"Magic Dogwood" is an unusual Mexican subspecies of
Cornus Florida. Not all bloom like this, but ain't it grand!

Triggers

Saturday was a great day! It was gorgeous and sunny, but not too warm. We walked early in the morning and then went into the pharmacy for a refill of my inhalers, and then we went to the market to see Kenny. I got two orders of pad Thai, and one mango salad. My God, I love his food!

When we got home, it wasn’t long before it was lunchtime. Lunchtime comes early when breakfast is at five. There followed a brief nap in the sun and then I got busy weeding, but weeding is very hard on my back, and every time I stand up after doing a lot of pulling, I was dizzy. So, I didn’t last long. Besides, who cares? No one is ever in the backyard except me—except Pete and Ali from down the street. 

After a couple of rounds of weeding and resting, I had a nap in the sun. I love doing that when it is cool enough to sustain the heat of the sun. And then Her Highness and I did a long walk along a shady trail. At the entrance we met a gentleman and Sheba barked at him. She barks at everyone, and I hate it, and I apologise to everyone. 

But this gentleman liked dogs, I could tell, and we fell into a conversation. And suddenly I thought he stammered, and I asked him if he had a speech impediment. He said he did and that he had noticed mine. His name is Charlie, and I hope I see him again. I was so happy to meet a fellow stutterer—and here on the island. 

The weed fields are dying, so I don’t think that I’ll do more weeding. The great browning has begun, and since the foreseeable forecast is only sunshine, the transition will be quick. Watering responsibilities will be ramping up. I’ll be doing a thorough job both today and tomorrow because on Tuesday, I’m going to visit Dianne at Nanoose Bay. She rents a seaside cabin there every summer.

Friday night, I was watching a movie that contained a scene wherein the chef of a restaurant comes out of the kitchen and yells angrily at two employees. For this scene, the camera is close in on the chef; his upper body and face fill the frame. And he yells, and I had a seizure.

My father would spanker me like most other fathers at the time did. But sometimes he would lose control, and I learned to fear those times because his anger gave him strength. There was a time I remembered those events. The memory of them had me learn the alarm: his footsteps on the stairs and he came down to punish me became my cue to hide or flee. His steps were different when he was mad and coming for me. They were hard and I could hear the anger in them. But there was no getting away from him, I remember that.

But now, I can’t for the life of me remember the beatings. I can only remember the steps on the stairs and the panic the sound would instill in me. My downward mental spiral began, I think, when I suddenly remembered long forgotten memories of how alone and ignored I was.

The point of the story here, is that my mind somehow put all the bad memories of my past out of reach to me for the first 40 years of my life. Then a bunch came back, but not all. And I don’t remember the beatings.

What I understand from Dr. Shoja I s that the memories are there, and I believe that my seizure on Friday night is due to my past experiences even though I can’t remember those experiences. I have autonomic responses to a shitload of things. My speech reflects anxiety, just as my seizures do, and people being angry is a HUGE trigger for me. Dogs being angry triggers me.

And it’s all out of my control—whatever ‘my’ means. I separate ‘myself’ from my mental illness/my subconscious.

Today is bright and sunny. I shall water and we’ll likely go to Silva Bay to have lunch at the food truck. It’s My Day. We shall enjoy it!

Back to Summer!

thursday

Thursday, the sky was filled with a high, thin cloud layer. We went on a short but inspiring morning walk. I will never forget these magnificent forest fragrances I’ve learned to love since moving here and becoming an avid trail walker.

Sandi, is a neighbour. She is also a trained horticulturalist, and she has the cutest, most wonderful Airedale named Baxter. I proposed an exchange of garden tours, so in two weeks, I’ll go to her place to tour her garden with her on Monday, and she’ll come here to see mine on Thursday. And I’ll make tea and cookies or a cake.

When we got home from the walk, I discovered I had all the materials that I needed to make a batch of Ranger cookies. I wanted to bake something to take to share with my fellow dog walkers this morning. It’s something we used to do infrequently, but no one had brought any baking for about eight months. Human treats are overdue!

When the cookies were done, we all had lunch and then I took Her Highness to play fetch at Rollo Park so that afterwards, I could read for a while without guilt while she rested. As I read, the skies darkened and soon it was lightly raining. Sheba had no interest in an afternoon walk because by the time came to go, it was raining quite hard, and she hates being wet.

The night, as usual, was a delight. Dinner and a movie while comfortably ensconced on the chaise.

friday

Friday dawned overcast. I was thrilled to know that the day would be my third in a row without garden watering obligations. I putzed away the early morning and then we went to walk with our friends and their dogs. All my friends were thrilled to have treats as we walked; I’d brought a big bag of cookies with me in my backpack.

As we came home, the rain started but it didn’t last long. However, I chose to light a small fire to heat up the house and because it was a day with absolutely no obligations. I had every minute to do as I pleased, and it pleased me to nap, read and eat cookies. Late in the afternoon, we went to Rollo Park to play fetch. Then my day was done. It was couch time.

When we got home, I realized that the couch would have to wait. I saw work that needed to be done. I went into the kitchen, got a bowl, and went out into the edible garden and filled the bowl with raspberries. Now, I have raspberries for dessert after dinner every night.

This is a first, and there are a bazillion new shoots growing amongst last year’s shoots that are fruiting now. And abundantly! I’ve never made a proper full dessert with fruit I’ve grown before. And the blueberry harvest is going to be even more abundant. I love Pinecone Park even more now!

saturday

Woo hoo! It’s market day and that means I get. A mango salad and pad Thai for today’s meals. Kenny is why I love Saturdays. It’s a glorious day and, unfortunately, there is naught but warm temperatures and bright sunshine in the forecast. We’ll have walks, of course, and I’ll be at the gardens and yard later.

We’re back in Summer!

Baking Day

Wednesday began early. Fred was on top of me howling at 4:30. I got up and 5:00 fed the pets and went back to bed, not to sleep, but to enjoy the morning warm and cozy. I could tell it was overcast by the lack of light coming in my open window.

I got up at 6:00 and got immediately to doing chores, and then, at 9:15, we left to meet our friends to walk out dogs. It was beautiful out, warm but not hot, and with the Ocean Spray blooming right now, the forest smells like a courtesan’s boudoir (not that I have any experience with one; I’ve just a vivid imagination). 

After our walk, we went shopping and then came home for lunch. After lunch, I cleaned up the kitchen and thoroughly cleaned all the implements that I’d be using to make meringue. I got very busy making a lemon/mint rolled meringue cake for Colleen next door to thank her for shoveling paths in the snow for me back in January.

It's a hard and time consuming ‘cake’ to make. It’s barely a cake. I make a big flat and thick sheet of meringue on a cookie sheet. When it’s baked and cooled, I flip it and cover the side that was on the pan with a mixture of cream cheese, sugar, diced mint, corn starch and whipping cream. Then I pipe lemon curd generously across it and then I roll the whole thing up in parchment paper and I put it in the fridge to set.

It was my second meringue roll cake, and this one was better than my first try in some ways, and not as great in others. But I know it will taste good and Colleen and her friend, Lynn, went ape shit over the cake when they saw it. I whipped up some whipping cream to which I added yellow food colouring, and I put 8 golden yellow buds of cream on the top of the cake, and into each one I inserted tiny mint leaves from the very top of the plant.

Then Her Highness and I went to walk the trail in the Elder Cedar reserve. It’s lovely and cool inside the park and it only takes about 40 minutes to walk the circuit. Then we came home for dinner and a movie after I walked the cake over to Colleen.

It took me three hours to make the cake. I was pooped, but duty called. Sheba and I went for our afternoon walk, and I have to say, these trails are magical, especially at this time of year. Your cares disappear somehow. I suppose it doesn’t work for everyone, but it does fore me. I see so many things. I am the one always pointing things out to our group. And I never brag. Right now, there are these beautiful little ground-cover plants blooming. Their blooms are little delicate bells hanging down. They are tiny. I want to dig some up and hope that they will grow in my garden.

It's probably illegal but I like living on the edge, baby!