Chris the Guide

I had a great day yesterday! I felt so good to be free of the headaches that plagued me for several days earlier in the week. Plus, I had slept really well Sunday night by hogging the bed and shoving Sheba to her side of the bed. 

I got my guide status yesterday. For the first time since living here and being part of my dog walking group, I chose the trail and led us through the dreaded 707 Park where there are so many trails that people easily get lost.

When I led everyone back to our cars, Donna found herself without her long lead for Hank. So, I offered to accompany her and Di to retrace our steps along the trails. We found the leash about half-way back, so we enjoyed a long walk under dark but rainless skies and in unseasonal warmth.

Sheba and I had a second outing in the afternoon, but the rest of my day I was deep into my current book and a challenging essay on stuttering. Idiopathic Stuttering Onset in Adults by Margaret Leahy (Trinity College) and Trudy Stewart is a heavy read. I’m reading it at my desk where I have quick access to online dictionaries—regular and medical. 

I’m constantly searching the meaning of a mysterious word, usually medical jargon, but the insights gained are worth my effort. It’s an academic research paper that one of the speech researchers who made a presentation at the Canadian Suttering Association conference emailed to me. It’s a hundred and forty pages of densely scientific text. What it is telling me, more than anything, is that Dr. Shoja knows her stuff.

As the resident psychiatrist of the Pacific Speech Clinic, she has to know both how to counsel patients and the workings of human psychology as well as the complexity of speech. That’s a lot to master; my reading and experience with her tell me that I’m in superlative hands. All I am reading reinforces the wisdom of her diagnosis and her competency. 

•

The cats are bored. They are committed to doing damage to my furniture. Their behavior is another reason to be impatient for Summer when they can spend all their time in the screened-in porch watching birds and dreaming of a capture. In the meantime, I await the arrival of an anti-cat spray that I ordered from Amazon that I plan to use to use in abundance on my couches and chair.

•

Perhaps the backlog in the postal system is clearing. I hope so. There are three packages awaiting me at our local office that I’ll get later today. My books, I wonder. And I’ll be checking for diet cola at the grocery store and if there isn’t any, I’ll be heading to Nanaimo tomorrow unless one of the packages is my caffeine pills. It’s predicted to be decent weather tomorrow, so a change of scene would be welcome.