You’ll recall I ended my last blog with a lament about a painful knee.  This has now gone on since and it’s really making me mad, though just like the pandemic, in some ways I have to admit it’s been wonderful.  Sometimes it takes a major event to slap you across the face and wake you up.

Because of the stabbing pain in my inner knee I’ve had to withdraw from life given everything, especially driving, has been too painful.  As a result I had to find something to do, other than haunt the local thrift stores looking for treasures.  Thanks to prior thrift shopping I have a library at home, so I thought, hey, I’ll read.

Well.  Once I started it was hard to stop and now I’ve read several excellent memoirs and learned something valuable at the same time.  I don’t need to be doing something all of the time, and it’s actually okay and morally correct to spend days and even weeks doing very little. Or is that the lazy person’s guide to excusing your laziness?

I like watching survival documentaries on You Tube and saw one about a guy who was stranded on a log in a marsh, unable to get to his anchored boat.  He had no shelter so cursed the terrible winds and rain that would torture him day and night.  Because of the rain he had water as the marsh was salty.

But due to the wind the boat was torn loose and disappeared, and so of course he was in deep despair the morning he realized it.  However, because of that his boat was found by the Coast Guard who soon started a search and rescued him.  He said the wind and rain, which were his enemies, turned out to be his salvation.  Not that knee pain makes anyone say hallelujah, but the slowing-down does feel nice at times.

You know how we wait all winter for a lovely summer?  I used to love summers but now I long for the other three seasons as the forest fire smoke and heat, plus the incessant garden watering are getting tiresome.  I’ll take Kelowna over Kabul any day, don’t get me wrong, but we’ve made such a mess of the environment that summers are basically ruined.

And speaking of watering, I guess people in this neighbourhood have been getting some whopping bills now that the area’s been put on water meters.  My electricity bill scared me a bit as it’s now up a hundred a month for the pump that runs the well, so no matter what you do, you pay and pay and pay.

Another thing that I dislike about summer is the shape of the male cat’s coat due to his hunting.  His throat was one big scab which is now healing, and he has smaller scabs on his back, I guess all from his nest-raiding.  Because Frieda’s such a dirty little dog she loves to nibble at George’s scabs and the cat loves it, purring away.

My friend Patricia was over for lunch last month and of course Iris the female cat decided it’d be so amusing to jump onto the table.  I had to do that ‘oh my God, the cat never, ever does that’ routine, though she didn’t fall for it.  Living with animals is a dirty business, for sure.