Those who regularly torture themselves by reading my weekly posts, will know that recently our dog, Griffin, has had some difficult days and last week a visit to the vet disclosed what previous visits had not, and that was that Griffin had cancer in several places in his body. There was an initial discussion in the family as to whether Griffin should be euthanized, but based on the vets assurances that he was not in any great discomfort or pain, the family decided that Griffin would continue on and hopefully die peacefully at home. This morning, our beloved eleven year old puppy took a turn for the worst and was taken to the vet and was peacefully put down. So ends the life of a beloved furry family member who was one of the calmest, best behaved dogs that I have ever experienced. The photo below shows Griffin, the brown Labradoodle riding in the back of a convertible with his constant companion, Uma, our white poodle. Griffin had confided in me that whenever he was driving in the back of the convertible, he felt particularly attractive to female dogs (perhaps his own midlife crisis). He also confided that at those times he felt particularly resentful of having been neutered. Death has been on my mind lately, whether by reason of knowing of the impending death of our family dog, or our oldest son's near fatal accident in the summer. When I was a child, death was a tragedy to be feared. The worst thing that could happen. Growing up in a company mining town, my experience was that when one of my friend's fathers died of a heart attack not only did they lose their father but they were also forced to leave the community no later than the end of the school year, so that their house could be freed up for another mining employee. My observation was that on the death of a father my friends would lose not only a beloved family member, but all of their friends and the stability of living in the community in which they were born. But over time as I've aged, I recognize that death is not to be feared, and is a natural part of life. In fact, it is perhaps death that makes life meaningful. Unlike in previous centuries where people died at home, and death was a family event, our society has been inclined to remove the person, and quite often they die on their own in a hospital. We do the same thing with pets when we take them to be euthanized. When my mother died at the age of 90, having required a second operation within a week that she was not able to survive, it was some comfort that when she died we were all able to spend the morning holding her hand and talking to her. Somehow that felt much better than simply being told of a death, as in the case of my father, 15 years earlier. Although I certainly don't equate the death of our dog with the death of my mother, I do see the benefit of the dog, having spent a week at our house clearly dying, and the children hand feeding him steak and other delectables, and hugging him, and cuddling him at all times. He truly seemed to enjoy his last week, and I believe it was healthy for our teen aged children. I think our society has removed us from death, and weakened our understanding that it is a natural part of life, and not necessarily even a bad part of life, although, obviously, the death of a young person is tragic. But for people and animals that have lived a full life, of course one grieves, but that is not necessarily the absolute tragedy that I viewed it to be when I was a child. I have slowly developed the accepting attitude that my father exhibited all of his life. That allowed him to joke about death, particularly his own, and not fear it. We all learn about death in our own ways from our own experiences. I'm trusting that the death of our beloved puppy helped provide my children with a healthy understanding of death. Rest in peace, Griffin. I’m unsure if it’s the 24th or the 25th of September, but I don’t want to miss celebrating my daughters. I’m using this memory to do so. The photos are a little out of date but at least I don’t have to pay them money for consent to use new ones. Lauren is a tough negotiator.
Run the world, girls! The end of summer in so many ways and a last long weekend before we return to all of the normal work and school activities that cause us to run around like hamsters on a wheel.
Labour Day was much more meaningful for my father’s generation . This hamster has had a relatively soft life and although I worked at lumber mills and brick plants during my university years, after graduation work has had little physical aspect, although I once got a nasty blister from holding a pen. Quite simply, I have enjoyed privilege, and I am indebted to the generation that preceded me. My fathers generation, born before the depression, had a very different view of Labour Day. After riding box cars during the depression working throughout western Canada wherever he could, he got a job in the early 40s as a nickel miner in Levack Ontario, where he laboured underground for 30 years. When my father started his mining career, the wages were pitiful . The mine was 3000 feet deep (over 1 km). Each day my father would appear early in the morning get into a huge cage with several other workers and be lowered a couple thousand feet into the bowels of the earth. There he would drill blast and shovel. When he returned to surface, he was blackened with dirt, which would be resolved by being part of a huge gang shower, and he would come home clean, except what he brought home in his lungs. The next day he would return, put on the same dirty clothes, and be lowered into the earth again. During that time, my father’s working conditions improved drastically. Not from the kindness of his multinational employer, but rather from the hard work, and occasional strike by his union. The rate of mining accidents and deaths was very high in the 1950s. My father’s job was a difficult, dirty, and damaging (to his hearing) life. But he was a very hard worker, and often was the highest bonus earner of the hundreds of workers in that mine. My fathers privilege was to work hard under difficult dirty circumstances, and risk his life every day at work, at the same time as being part of the union to improve those conditions for future workers. You can imagine that my fathers employment contributed heavily to his political views. And that is labour. And that is why I know that Labour Day is more than a simple stat. It is to celebrate those that have worked and built our society, and those that have worked to establish the rights and wages that we have today. My fathers hard life funded my soft life. Oops, I think I’m getting a blister from my keyboard. 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. 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…… This past weekend Pam and I ventured up to Whistler village accompanied by our electric bicycles and no children, being the first time we have ventured out for a couple of nights on our own. Leaving our delinquents 12, 15, 17 and 18 split between Harrison and Abbotsford.
I had posted on this on our way up and I’m sure many of you were checking police reports and news media to find out how our children made out, and more importantly if Pam and I were still together. Well, it was a great success. Firstly our children did fine without us. I don’t even think we were contacted by them whilst in Whistler. Bicycling around Whistler gave me a whole new perspective about Whistler. The bicycle trails are great. There are so many trails and they took me to parks, beaches and lakes that I didn’t know existed. Whistler is way more than skiing and the village stores and restaurants. I always liked Whistler. Now I love it. And Pam and I had a lot of fun together in Whistler. We didn’t spend a lot of time talking about our children (our usual topic). No disagreements! (Although there was that tense moment of back seat driving as I was driving Pam’s van through Squamish). It’s nice to not always spend your time together focused on your children. A great experience. A Spa in Vernon next month. It was nice to know that the kids don’t need our constant attention. And yet in another way, kind of sad…….. Pam and I are on the road. We have left all of our cares behind us. Actually it is our children we have left behind. For the first time ever.
As we head up to the apartment in Whistler we have left our children behind in the Fraser Valley. Not an epic odyssey to compete with Homer, but a childless trip none the less. With our children being 12, 15, 17 and 18 it’s not like we are leaving infants that will be snapped up by a child apprehension officer. No chance of that. The government refused to grab them when they were younger no matter how many times we reported ourselves. Quite simply we are cautious parents. That’s not the same as good parents. We have always worried about them being on their own. So when they have split between Abbotsford and Harrison so have we. Only this week end the family will be split between Whistler, Harrison and Abbotsford. The reason for this odyssey? Cycling. Pam and I are taking our bikes to Whistler like young athletes do with their expensive sports bikes. We are going with our electric bikes. Admittedly not so athletic although it does take a strong manly thumb to push the throttle of an e-bike. Any way it’s a start. Several questions come to mind:
For the answer to these and other such burning questions tune in to future Facebook posts. I try to be positive and to post positive comments. But now I find myself more than just positive in attitude. Our family has been very rigid about Covid exposure, primarily through the consistency of my wife Pam ( I have the attention span of a gnat) We have all been vaccinated as soon as possible, worn masks, avoided most social interactions and taken all the required precautions. We (Pam primarily ) have been hyper careful. Of our family of six she feels that four of us are vulnerable, either for anti immune issues, diabetes, asthma, or in my case my heart attack two years ago. Only our two teen age daughters have no elevated risk. I know that those of you reading this who know me personally would be as surprised as I am at my inclusion in this vulnerable faction. Like you view me, I see myself as vigorous, vibrant , studly, even immortal. In any event, suffice it to say that we have been very careful. Last week Pam was in the Harrison Hot Springs House to bring daughter Jordan Palmer for a sleepover with a friend. Pam developed cold symptoms, the sleepover was canceled and Pam and Jordan isolated in the Harrison house for four days (including New Years) until Pam obtained a negative Covid test and then returned home to the rest of the family in Abbotsford. She says she enjoyed her four days of not leaving the house. I am now doubting her symptoms. In any event, life went on. On this past Wednesday morning I woke up with cold symptoms. Congestion. Coughing. Pam immediately arranged a Covid test for me on the first available date which was Friday (yesterday). She reminded me that in similar circumstances she had isolated herself. What was she saying, I wondered? If I was sick how could she care for me if I was self isolated. Daughter Lauren Palmer quickly opined that I should head to the house in Harrison to self isolate as she did not want to get Covid. I responded that it was just a cold like their mother had the week before and that I probably caught it from her. They were insistent. Not in a forceful way but in a guilt manipulation way. I had already decided that I would self isolate but I quickly and sadly loaded up the car to head to the house in Harrison with only one companion, our dog Griffin. I did feel a little abandoned. You hear the myth of seniors being put on ice flows and pushed off in the ocean to bring their lives to an end. I had that similar feeling only that my family was pushing the ice flow out with their feet and that Lauren was using a hair dryer on that ice chunk to help it melt. In any event that began my days of self isolation. I happily stayed in the house (who wants to be out in this recent weather anyways) until I returned yesterday morning to Abbotsford for my Covid test which of course would be negative because I was triple vaccinated and my cold symptoms were minor and already subsiding and I am, as I wrote earlier, invincible. The test result was positive. Much to my surprise I have Covid. My symptoms were minor. I feel fine and my isolation period, because of my three vaccinations, is five days, which ends tomorrow night. My family has occasionally texted me to find out if I’m still alive. (I assume because not removing a body from a house immediately can be quite expensive for hazardous substances remediation) This morning I found out that Lauren is sick and has a Covid test on Monday. It was determined that she should be brought to this house with me to isolate and be away from more vulnerable family members. This morning I drove to Abbotsford to pick Lauren up. Apparently Jordan was feeling a little off and came as well. It was quite the sight. I drive up in the car with my N99 mask on. Got out to open the doors for the kids to get in. Pam met me with her N99 mask on and stayed ten feet away from me (actually that seems like a normal day) the girls loaded up the car and the Covid Express was gone in five minutes. On the way back to this house Jordan advised that she was feeling fine but was hoping for a few days off school. We are fortunate that our experience has been so minor. I know that all have not been that lucky. And isolation isn’t so bad. It gives you lots of time for Facebook Take care of yourselves Amid all of the extreme weather events surrounding us, I arrived home in our house in Abbotsford Monday afternoon to find that our furnace had stopped working. A call to our furnace repair people indicated that they couldn’t repair it until the next day.
We all had different responses. The house was already cold. Andrew indicated that he had no problem with cold. Lauren seemed fine. Adam was engrossed in electronic games (as usual) and was oblivious to temperature. The dogs whimpered. Jordan showed up downstairs hours later wearing a sweater, toque and earmuffs. A very cute photo was taken. One which she has refused me permission to post. Even though I eventually offered money. My response was to suggest that we all watch tv covered in blankets. I also suggested, looking at Pam , that it might be a night to cuddle close together and share body warmth. I believe Pam rolled her eyes. Pam’s response to the problem? Perhaps spurred on by my response, she headed to UTube to view her favorite Do It Yourself site. (One which she had used in building her She/Shed in the back yard, with trusses and a skylight ) Within no time she had fixed the furnace! The earmuffs were put aside by Jordan. Cuddling was unnecessary. The next day the furnace repair was cancelled with our furnace man jokingly offering Pam a job. UTube (and superPam) saved the day. Do It Yourself saved the day! |
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