The Wonderful Apple and Fall Fair

Sunday began dark, damp and so after I fed the brood and lit the fire, I went back to bed. When I got up, the sky looked slightly brighter and it gave me hope that by noon, when the Apple Festival opens, the weather, and the crowd, would be better. 

By 9:00, I felt ready to walk with Her Highness, so off we went to the short trail we both like. I was not feeling up to a long walk. Besides, I planned to take Sheba with me to the Fair. But once outside and walking, I took pleasure in every moment. Nothing beats being out in nature to lift your spirits. We had a great walk and came home to a nice warm house.

The apple Fest was a blast. Sheba and I had a very good time. There were zillions of dogs because there was a wonderful (and very informal) dog show. She had a million anuses to smell, and the best ones were Molly’s and Minjou’s because she knows and loves them both. There were zillions of booths (that’s Gabriola zillions), many offering food, others offering information on Gabriola non-profit organizations, but the best part was seeing people that I knew.

Tracy was there. She convinced her caregivers to let her out of the hospital for a few days, and she came to the fair with Keith. Poor Trace was just diagnosed with bone cancer, and she is not in good shape. She sneezed and broke three ribs; that’s how she found out about her condition. Soon she starts on Thalidomide! She is going to become very sick from the treatment. All my fellow dog walkers were there, friends from the arts council, neighbours, and lots and lots of dogs. I had a fabulous time.

When we got back home, a rest was in order. I was beat from the walk and all the excitement of the festival. Later in the afternoon, Pete came by with plants for me from his garden. We had a great visit, and he is coming back today to do more work on my faucet.

I am looking forward to this week because I have not one single meeting or Zoom call on my schedule. I have an entire week to myself here at home. Heaven!

Apples for juicing. They were selling glasses of fresh juice.

The juicers.

Chess on the Commons grounds.

Apple fritters, donuts and other Apple goodies. I, of course,
could not resist a fritter.

Dogs await their turn in the 'show off' ring.

They have a flower competition, and there are also 
vegetable competitions. This is the marijuana
competition table.

Today is My Day

The day of promised sunshine became a day of overcast skies, light wind and cool temperatures. My motivation to do some garden work dissipated like the shadows. We walked together on our short trail, and then I came home to do chores. However, Pete arrived with supplies to fix my kitchen faucet.

He was here for a couple of hours and the faucet is more stable than it was, but it’s still not entirely properly set to the counter. It wobbles. So, Pete has taken home the instructions to read, and he will come back again to see if he can do a better job. He’s such a mensch! When he left, I put all the tools away and returned all the stuff that I keep under the sink to their places. And then Her Highness and I went for our afternoon walk between the raindrops.

The evening was very pleasant because I lit a small fire. Lately, all I have needed for warmth is a morning fire. Last night’s fire was an indulgence, not a necessity. For a lark, I tuned in to Saturday Night Live; I haven’t watched that show for ages, and clearly, I have not missed anything. I lasted two minutes. What dreadful nonsense. I went to bed early.

Today is our Apple Fair. Sadly, the weather looks unwelcoming, but I’ll be going.

Pistachios

A Weak Day

It was dark and soaking wet when I awakened yesterday. It was pouring rain, and it was 6:30 am. By 9:00, when it was time to leave to meet our friends to walk with our doggers, the sky was clearing up. There were massive patches of blue sky, and so uplifted by the change in the weather, everyone had a wonderful walk. But not me.

I found it challenging to do the walk, yesterday. Not the hill. The hill is at the beginning, and I went up very slowly, and I started up several minutes before the rest had assembled and started up the trail. It was after about ten minutes of walking. For the rest of our 50-minute walk, I was struggling to keep up.

After our walk, I headed into the village for supplies, and then we came home. We got home at 11:00 and I fed the brood, and then I went to bed and slept almost until 2:00 when it was time to Zoom with Dianne. We found many things to talk about, but my primary concern was planning for the Thanksgiving meal.

Late in the afternoon, I went over to visit Dave, and he has almost the entire living/dining/kitchen area floor down. Ursula’s been helping on her days off from the daycare, and they are progressing at an amazing pace. Dave had hoped to be in by Thanksgiving, but he’s not going to make it. But soon, they’ll be living in their new home.

Today’s plan is to draft a strategy to grow our UK support group, but I’ll also do some yard work because today is likely to be bright and sunny.

Zooming; Neglect

Thursday flew by because I lead my UK FND group. I’d leading next month as well, and John has asked that we and STAMMA do something to expand awareness of our group. He is willing to help, and he’s really a great fellow. So, I’m going to draft my idea for a first step, and see what people think, and then we can get on with executing the plan. 

It would be exciting to do this together, assuming I do the writing for the group, and not the researching contact data of our targets. It’s easier for them to so the research, as they all live in the UK, and that’s where our targets are.

We walked, of course, and I kept busy all day and I can’t, for the life of me, remember anything I did. I frittered the day away. The one interesting thing I did, was to visit Dave in his yurt. He’s been working very hard on his own, doing all the interior work. He hired people and machines to do a lot of the work, but he’s been doing all the interior finishing, laying the floors, installing all the appliances, hanging doors and fitting handles, and innumerable other things. 

Finishing is the longest, slowest part of a new build. Dave is my hero. He’s done a great job. I visit him often. Today, when I went over, he said that I hadn’t been over for a few days and that he missed me. He doesn’t have any friends here, I don’t think, so I get a warm welcome every time I visit. I always have questions, and he loves answering them. He’s learned a hell of a lot over the past year—he had to take a course and pass and exam to earn the right to self-build—and he loves sharing what he’s learned. More than what he does, though, he is a warm, open and happy man. We really get on, and there are always lots of laughs. 

•

Beth wrote to me, provoked by my last post. I wrote about my profound experience in response to Dr. Shoja referring to me as neglected. Her brief email revealed that, for her, ‘abuse’ is a more damning word.

I’d realized and accepted that I was abused. That word featured infrequently in my sessions with Dr. Shoja. I accepted it and I ‘understood’ it, but that understanding was more intellectual, and not emotional. Plus, it seems everybody and their dog and PTSD and has suffered abuse. Having my diagnoses, I knew I was abused. 

But when I heard that word, ‘neglect,’ I feel things in my gut every time I write it, hear it, or think of it. That’s what I felt ALL the time, but I called it indifference. But that was my word, and it was only used in the thoughts when I was alone. I never used the word out loud with anyone.

I didn’t choose to have an immediate and visceral response to that word when she first said it. It just happened. It’s a word that is almost only ever used for a child or a pet, and when I heard it, it brought images of my childhood to mind, of particularly painful scenes of my aloneness. I didn’t feel abused, I felt alone all those years, and that lead to me feeling deep pity and sympathy for that child I once was. I’d never done anything like that before, and that changed me. It was a minor epiphany, all triggered by a particular word.

I had another when I heard a CBC announcer introduce something with a reference to Oliver Sacks, whom he called a ‘world famous neurologist.’ As most of my friends know, I fell in love with the man’s writing early in my life. My introduction was his book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. I read everything he wrote. I loved how he viewed his patients. He always and only saw them as persons. He was a magnificent doctor.

And I must have read that he was a neurologist, but I hadn’t read anything by him since the onset of FND, so when I heard that introduction, I suddenly took great pride in being ‘one of his people.’ That book I read, and a subsequent one, An Anthropologist on Mars, described different patients with neurological conditions, all of them much worse than mine. And as strange as each one is, Dr. Sacks revels in the wonders that often come with neurological malfunction.

Ever since these experiences, I am at peace with my condition. I have made my life very small, and it has proven to be very good for me. 

•

We’re walking in the wet, wet forest this morning, and then we’ll go into the village for hardware so that I can do some repairs to two doors, and I’ll get some groceries. Today will be an indoor day. Hello ASL!