​Most families have traditions of being together for the major holidays. Yesterday our family assembled under one roof in Harrison to apparently celebrate International Dog Day.

Our daughter Lauren has spent the summer working at various one week postings coordinating day camps at various United Churches including in Whitehorse Yukon. Weekends of late she has spent at her new independant residence in Abbotsford. Last night was somewhat of an abberation for us to be all together. The photo below shows Lauren’s reunion with Griffin, one of our two dogs celebrating International Dog Day. Lauren may be Griffin’s favourite person. The photo is posted with her paid consent.

She leaves today. Adam leaves today as part of his trip to Whistler, a planned trip that was cancelled for Pam and myself because of Andrews summertime injury.

Andrew plans that he and his mother will return on Tuesday to Abbotsford to shorten the three times per week trip to Vancouver General Hospital for ongoing treatment of his injury. People may recall that that in July, I posted of a household accident that almost took his life or his arm and left part of our house looking like an abbatoir. His arm is slowly healing and his hand function is slowly recovering. We hope for a full recovery but he has months of healing and rehab ahead of him. His attitude is fantastic.
​
Some will return for the Labour day weekend, but as of Wednesday our family will be split in four different locations. Such is the modern family.

Not me. Or I wouldn’t be posting this. Although Pam thinks that on my death I will try to post about it. Although I haven’t figured out the logistics yet, I would try to put a positive spin on it (positive step for the environment ?) and use a flattering photo   
(if in fact one exists).

Lately I have been inundated with Facebook and Messenger posts with that intro, with the ghoulish belief that I will immediately click the link to find out who I have outlived. Usually up to ten people are tagged. I have not clicked yet. But these constant Facebook phishing and fraud exercises are becoming tiresome. And worse.
A friend with an elderly husband told me how he was being successfully targeted by Facebook frauds. The more isolated you are, the more you depend on social media.

I just reviewed my profile for the last few years and noticed that the few news items that I had attached to a post in the past have now been deleted by Facebook, even if a couple of years old. I am impressed by the efficiency of the petulant algorithms that are carrying out Facebook’s threat to remove items and avoid paying for professional journalist prepared content. The Facebook model is to make a fortune selling advertising (immense amounts) attached to other people’s content, without paying. No need to respect copyright or intellectual property rights or a moral recognition that some of the content has been prepared at a cost to some other form of media. Everything is free in the Metaverse, except of course advertising. Well played Mr Zuckerberg. And no, I don’t want a cage match.

But I digress. It was not my intention to make a political statement. My point is simply this: If Facebook and the algorithm gods can so efficiently and quickly remove attached news articles, even from the past, why are they unable to remove the various fraud and phishing posts that seemingly only get removed when reported. The news items don’t need to be reported.
​
We need Mr Zuckerberg to have the same hissy fit about fraud and privacy that he has had over the Federal “ Online News Act”. Time to clean up Facebook Mr. Z.

Today is a potentially momentous day for our family as it is the day that Lauren will sleep her first night in the house that she will share with two roommates for the duration of her UFV attendance. In order to facilitate our little bird leaving our Abbotsford nest, my wife, Pam, and I headed off to Abbotsford from Harrison Hot Springs this morning to assist her in moving her bed and some other items to her new abode. In typical Palmer fashion we both went in our own vehicles. I have posted before about our mutual discomfort with each other’s driving.

The plan was to put a trailer on the back of Pam‘s van and move the items over in the trailer. I have mentioned before that I am a bit of a vehicle hoarder and that we have six vehicles spread between the houses in Abbotsford and Harrison. Our two biggest vehicles have been sitting on the Abbotsford driveway because of their propensity to consume vast quantities of gasoline. Those are the vehicles, however, best suited to pull trailers and move beds and other items.

When I arrived this morning, Pam was standing with Lauren beside Pam’s van, and I could only see the look of disgust as they discovered mouse faeces throughout Pam’s van. Pam then spent the next significant period of time cleaning and vacuuming her van. Lauren was not prepared to go into the van once the mouse droppings were discovered. I made a dismissive comment to Lauren, which was intentionally not audible to Pam, about the consequences of leaving food in a vehicle. My courage in expressing my opinions in such matters is legendary. But then Karma intervened.

Lauren and I then decided to put the items into my Lincoln with its backseat down and the mattress put in through the back hatch. We then loaded the back of the car, and when we were ready to head off to our destination Lauren noticed mouse feces on the passenger seat in the Lincoln. A fast vacuuming, and my reassurance that any mouse would only have been in the Lincoln for a short time resulted in her acceding to getting into the car to drive the contents to her new residence.

Unfortunately as we unloaded the car, we discovered a lot of mouse feces in the car. Lauren found this revolting, particularly that her items had been on it. I was surprised at her reaction and her reaction to my suggestion to just ignore the mice droppings. Actually if she is in fact really going to run the world someday she is going to have to learn to deal with mouse droppings, spiders, etc, in a different manner. I’m sure she will now be cleaning her mattress and all of the contents ( formerly said “continents” in error) that were carried over with great vigour.

A conversation about whether or not a dining room table of her deceased grandmother that was now in storage might be appropriate in her new residence caused us to visit one of the units in which we store items in downtown Abbotsford. As she looked through the items to see what might be useful in her new residence she found…….. well, you can guess. Mice are apparently everywhere this summer.
​
I wish my little bird well in her new residence and I expect she will enjoy her first night of total independance. Unless of course she finds a mouse……