It’s kind of cruel for Mother Nature to be throwing all of this fire at us during the Covid situation.  Those of us in the West are choking on American smoke from the fires south of us.  Yesterday I felt a bit nauseated and headachy from the filth in he air.

But my pal Marie brilliantly figured out we could still do our walk as it could be done inside the mall which has a secret door unlocked for mall walkers.  We got there at 9:00 on Sunday morning and all the stores were closed and we could easily lap Orchard Park Mall three times to come in at just under three kilometres.

A lot of the stores now require masks, so I went into Dollarama and found your basic black model.  However then I noticed people (women) wearing adorable masks and decided I want to have a cute mask wardrobe.  To that end I purchased a navy floral one for more casual occasions and will continue to be on the lookout for spiffy masks.

You may find this hard to believe, but my car is still being repaired after the “tire incident.”  It was going to be ready last week, and then they called to say surprise, we found a dent in the transmission oil panel, so it has to be towed to Volkswagen for them to fix that, then back to the body shop for painting.

Before they discovered that mechanical fault, the bill was $9500, so I can imagine Volkswagen’s bill will be adding a good amount onto the final bill.  I sure hope my car’s returned in mint operating condition after all that time and money.

And then I had to fight like a maniac to get a loaner vehicle through BCAA.  They had okayed $1000 worth of car rental, which I’d used up, but I had been told by the body shop my BCAA person hadn’t okayed the repair for a good week or more.  I brought this up to a manager at BCAA who kindly okayed another week of a loaner for me.

So one would think the car, the forest fire smoke, and the overall Covid stuff would be enough angst, but no.  My washing machine broke, and I had one delivered from Best Buy.  Sadly, the young man driving the gigantic truck wasn’t aware of how tall the vehicle was and tore a huge branch off one of my ponderosa pines.

Prior to this the septic needed pumping, several drains were plugged and needed snaking, and the people digging the well for me discovered we could’ve all been blown up as the gas line runs right under the area where they were going to dig.

As one must be 100 feet from the septic tank and obviously not on City property or on a gas line, there’s a teeny tiny X where a well could be drilled, and it’s now necessary for them to get a shorter drill truck in there as they had to move their project up a metre and my fence is an impediment.

A harder well drilling project could never be envisioned so I’ll be quite surprised if I do get my own well.  But given what I’ve learned in life if I don’t, it means the fates decided one wasn’t necessary.

Plus from all the strange things that’ve occurred so far in 2020 just surviving is good, never mind getting anything extraneous.