Approaching the New Year with Some Trepidation

 We had a great Christmas, lots of visiting, holding Grayden and food food food. Tomorrow we start a new year and I can only hope it is an improvement on 2023. However I ha' me doots. But we'll give it a go and there is always hope!

  

This song, written by Dolly Parton, is covered by two young Ukrainians from Odessa, sixteen-year-old Dasha Butenko singing with fifteen-year-old Nazar Baranov playing guitar. The pictures of Ukrainian children and youths are of those who found hope through www.thischildhere.org and Robert Gamble. Dr Gamble went from Pastor of a huge megachurch in Florida to a man dedicated to serving young Ukrainians in need in Odessa. I do not have rights to this song nor permission to post it on Youtube.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all.

 Shutting down until after Christmas. Have a wonderful Christmas and safe travels. And may your children and grandchildren not give you the flu.

My brother's ode to a beloved cat

My brother does not have a computer. He asked me to post this on Facebook in memory of a cat he dearly loved. The poem is so touching, I am posting it here and on Facebook. Losing a beloved pet can tear the heart out of you.

Merry Christmas Cartoons

 

You will never be asked to bring food to the Church Christmas dinner again

Life, Lucky, Grayden, and All That

 Following the war in Ukraine is depressing. And so are a few other things in my life. So much so I have not looked at anyone's blog posts or even comments on  my own posts for 10 days. For which I apologize.

My head is stuffed with straw but it keeps my ears apart. A few weeks back, Tanya and I came down with something. Cough, flu, or Covid, we don't know. I had my covid shot, Tanya did not. We both had flu shots. She had a dry cough with headaches, I had a dry cough. Both had stuffy noses that cleared up as did the coughs. But we have been tired ever since. We should have checked for Covid but didn't have home tests. One of our friends tested positive, her sister negative. We are gradually over coming tired but I find myself making memory mistakes I should not and it worries me.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/persistent-cough-not-covid_l_656f1f74e4b0f3e5f44aca8f 

 But I keep putting one foot in front of the other and trundling onwards. Lucky needs to be walked and that gets me out of the house at least 5 days per week. We have a dog park a 25 minute walk north of us, across the main West-East CN line. Five blocks to the railway and another three blocks to the dog park. Crossing the tracks can be a challenge as sometimes a 200+ car freight will pull in and stay 15 minutes to 45 minutes. So we have to walk and extra 4 blocks to a proper crossing to go around it. No problem.

Incidentally, the freight trains have a special car in the middle of them that tests and records track conditions as the train travels, even at top speed. The repair crews know exactly where and what repairs are needed. No excuse for derailments caused by track conditions.

The dog park is small and usually attracts no more than 5 or 6 dogs at the times I go there. Sometimes we are the only ones. I'm on a first name basis with the regular dogs and some of the owners. We play fetch the ball, though lately there have been a couple scraps over ownership. Neptune, a year old border collie tried to take the ball out of Lucky's mouth. He settled her hash in a flash. If our house was big enough for two dogs, I'd take Neptune any day.

Lucky posing for his portrait

Patrolling the perimeter 

Waiting for me to try to pick up the ball

Grayden is 16 months old. Books are his passion and 75% of his waking hours are spent reading or being read to. TV cartoons, not so much. His vocabulary is growing. His mom has a shirt from the UK. What does it say? "London", clear as a bell. Other words are sometimes a bit garbled but he works at it. He has a board with the alphabet on it and is learning words that start with letters M - mom, etc. The other 25% of his time he spends getting into trouble. Everything has to be up out of his reach. He ripped the child proof locks off the cupboard doors because he watched his brother install them. 

Grayden goes to day care five days a week. His mom gets him up in the morning, dresses and feeds him breakfast, and drops him off on her way to work because his dad is long gone to work. His dad picks him up, cooks supper for the family (he is a self taught chef), baths Grayden and puts him to bed. Grayden likes music to go to sleep by. For a while it was Waylon Jennings' Luckenbach Texas, then Peter, Paul and Mary Blowing in the Wind and Donovan Catch the Wind. All the oldies. My kids' Grade 8 teacher was also the music teacher and taught all the songs of the 60s.

I'm 16 months old? Wow!

I love to read

Leaving a trail of mischief behind me

Shampooing my hair with spaghetti sauce

If I were a car, I would jack up the radiator cap and drive a new vehicle underneath. Waiting times for non-emergency procedures are incredibly long because the government is starving the health care system of funds so they can privatize as much of it as possible. I'm waiting for an MRI to see why my balance is so bad. Especially if it is dark, I keep wanting to fall over. I would have been dog meat in Abu Ghraib. Waiting time for an MRI is at least a year. There is enough MRI machines to run 3 to 5 times as many in a day but the government will not pay for staff. I can get one tomorrow for $1000.

Christmas is coming. I am looking forward to that.