I’ll blame Gus the cat for my slowness in getting into any kind of Christmas spirit this year. A few weeks after his pretty speed recovery from the injury above his eye, he suddenly come down with something… He stopped eating, grooming, or doing anything other than shuffling uncomfortably from one sleeping spot to another. It was a weekend, and the vet was open only for supplies, not medical appointments. They suggested taking Gus to the emergency veterinary hospital.
There he got tested for everything imaginable. He had some neurological symptoms—asymmetrical eye pupils, inconsistent results on the “knuckling” test—and few slightly abnormal results on the blood test. Could be infection, could be tumors… He was admitted and hydrated, appetite stimulated, given pain killers, and started on antibiotics. I went home to fret.
Gus responded quite well to the various ministrations, though, and we were able to take him home the next day. He seemed pretty good from that point, though lower energy, and with the uneven pupils persisting a while. We continued the antibiotics for seven days, and a few days later, the eyes improved, the energy back. I brought him in for a final check from our vet, who found that all seemed good, except for the eye on the injured side looking a little irritated.
Gus feeling better
So she suggested a week of twice daily eye drops. Gus was much better about letting us give him those than we expected. What seemed much more upsetting to him was if we had to chase him down first; he’d sometimes hide for hours afterwards. So we took to surprising him with eye drops. Those done, he continued to seem quite fine.
Jean’s Mom, who’d never been quite the same after a stroke in February, passed away in late August. The family decided to have a small memorial service. The date selected was Saturday, November 5.
Wednesday
We left around 10:15 AM, intending to stop over in Sudbury on the way to Timmins. The drive started uneventfully enough; we were diverted by the audiobook of State of Terror, by Hillary Rodham Clinton and Louise Penny.
But after an hour and a half or so, Jean noted that the car seemed to be losing power periodically, during which it was quite reluctant to accelerate. Maybe just gas quality? he suggested. As we Googled to find the nearest gas station, I suggested options. We still had time before we really had to be anywhere. Maybe we could get the car looked at. Maybe we could rent a car for this trip.
Well, let’s just try gas first, Jean suggested.
And indeed, filling it up did make it run smoother.
For another couple hours, anyway. But then it started doing the losing power thing again. Hills were a problem.
Remember when a place being a hot spot was a good thing? Lively and exciting? (Or possibly a way to connect to wifi?) Now it’s describing villages with abnormally hot temperatures caused by global warming “heat domes”, and in COVID terms, regions with a large number of cases.
Ontario so far is having a relatively normal summer weather-wise, with a mix of hot, sticky days and cool, rainy ones—along with a few exciting thunderstorms, sometimes with hail. (Ontario is not the place for people who enjoy weather constancy.) And COVID-wise, Ontario—with definitely the slowest reopening plan in North America—is doing pretty well. Except for a few hot spots.
One of these was my original home town of Timmins, which until recently had weathered the pandemic really well. But the Delta variant just tore through the place—and more alarmingly, through the remote northern villages up there—in May / June time frame.
We nevertheless decided to visit. Their plight had led to an extensive local vaccination effort, and as a result, almost all our family ended up fully vaccinated sooner than expected. And we hadn’t been there in nearly a year. Felt like time.
Also felt like a bit of déjà vu of last summer’s July visit…
This year, like most other people, we weren’t able to do what we normally do at Christmas time. A chance to develop our new traditions, perhaps? Except… Will we really want to nostalgically recall anything from 2020?
So hey, best to focus on the now, and on the “what you can do” vs. what you can’t. In 2021 and subsequent, we’ll see if anything sticks.
The Christmas season started with a lot of dancing. Mid-December, our dance class event in community centre gym was very well-attended. For Jean and I, it was one of those nights where our dancing was just clicking and we were able to move around the floor with ease. (Which we could bottle that.) We also enjoyed the music choices (our dance instructor played DJ), which included a slow-fox version of Prince’s “Purple Rain” and a strict-tempo jive of Queen’s “Crazy Little Thing Called Love.”
The following night was a fancier dinner/dance at The Victorian Park Pavilion, which is a beautiful venue. We forgot to request seating with people we knew, though the people we ended up with were fine—until one lady started bending Jean’s ear about the wonders of raw-food veganism, or some such.
The meal served was not raw-food vegan, though, but a traditional turkey dinner—and quite good, particularly considering the $35 per person fee. No booze on offer, though! Since we couldn’t bottle it, our dancing didn’t click quite as well that night. Music was a bit more “traditional” as well. But still a nice night out overall.
Finally on this theme, one couple in our dance class hosted a house party that did not feature dancing, but was still a very enjoyable evening of food and conversation. Amazing what these dance classes have done for our social life.
Jean and I did not do a gift exchange with each other this year—though a few new kitchen gadgets still trickled in, as Jean had planned ahead in case, and figured we needed them anyway. But we did do a Christmas dinner à deux, featuring roast duck, wasabi mashed potatoes, broccoli with tahini, and cranberry-pear sauce. Served with a nice California Pinot noir. Then, sugar pie for dessert.
Though we haven’t had the greatest luck with Christmas air travel in the past, we decided to book flights to Timmins this year. Our departure was set for 11 pm the night of December 21—we thought that the airport would be less busy at that time. I had that day off, but Jean was working. Or, he was until about 10 am. At that point he called me to come pick him up at the office, as he was experiencing the serious low back and abdominal pain that indicated kidney stones.
At home, he sat in the tub and drank tea until the worst of it passed. It would still be a few more days, though, until he really felt right again.
It was snowing, and Christmas, so we allowed for a lot of time to get to the airport and check our baggage. Everything went really well, though, so we had a lot of time to wait. At least I got plenty of reading done.
We boarded the plane pretty much on time, but then had to wait in a lineup on the runway for de-icing, for what turned out to be an hour. After about 45 minutes I finally turned airplane mode off on my phone so I could email Dad that we were still in Toronto, so maybe he didn’t want to wait up for us. He agreed that he didn’t.
Ornament from Dad’s tree
Timmins was nippy when we arrived, but our rental car was already running and setting out front of the airport exit. (And boy was the rental guy happy to see us. We were his last customers, at about 1:30 am, and he’d started at 7 am that day.) Dad didn’t even hear us arrive; the next morning, he wondered if we even had, until he noticed that the guest bedroom door was closed.
Friday and Saturday were pretty mellow, partly because Jean still wasn’t feeling up to snuff yet. We did visit with his Mom, of course, and saw some of his other siblings at her house. And Neal and Sarah-Simone came over to Dad’s for a visit on Saturday. We also tested out the Skype connection with Joanne and Jon ahead of Christmas morning, and ran an errand at the LCBO (booze store, for non-Ontarians). But that was about all the excitement.
Though this might have provided some excitement, had Dad’s brownies actually contained the ingredient suggested on the lid! (Hilarously, Dad stores his homebaked brownies in a container that previously contained hemp products.)
Christmas Eve morning Michelle, Jackson, and John arrived—Hugh decided to stay in Toronto for the Macphie family Christmas this year. That livened up the house a bit. And in the afternoon we paid a visit to our friends Paul and Sylvie, which is always nice. We got tales of their new cottage, and Jean and Sylvie exchanged photography tips that Paul and I pretended to understand.
We had a nice salmon Christmas Eve dinner at Dad’s that night, then they went to church while we got ourselves (eventually; we did get a bit lost) to my cousin’s for Réveillon #1. Fewer people in attendance this year; my uncle Gilles, for one, was not feeling up to going. But that made for a nice opportunity to talk to those that were there—my cousins, their kids, and their kid’s kids, and my aunt and uncle.
We did have to leave before the game portion of the evening to get to Réveillon #2, at the Lefebvre’s. And now I have to apologize because Jean was kept so busy at this event—first playing Santa to hand out the kids’s gifts, then reciting the left/right story for the random gift exchange—that he didn’t take any pictures. And it just didn’t occur to me to do that instead.
Ornament from Jean’s Mom’s tree. Not taken on Christmas Eve.
And this year’s gift theme was hats, so that would have made for a lot of amusing photos! Jean, for one, got right into it and provided a whole collection of ridiculous hats: a poop emoji mask, three pucks in a nylons (a hat trick! Think about it), and so on. I supplied this book:
Which did greatly amuse the recipient, niece Natasha.
A large-format version of the following photo from our anniversary party was provided as a family Christmas gift to Jean’s Mom.
The Lefebvre family (with part of the McNair family in the background)
The McNair Christmas gift exchange was still the stealing game, but with a couple differences this year: The price limit was set at $30, and the number of gifts to be bought was divided up such that Neal and Michelle didn’t have to buy extra just because they had kids. So each family bought three and Dad bought two, and that covered everyone…
(Except that Michelle was so busy she didn’t quite read all the rules, so she caught the $30 limit but not the fact that she didn’t have to buy as many as item, so we had a couple extras, but that’s OK.)
So we Skyped in Joanne and Jon for the whole thing. Jackson got Hugh in on Facebook on his phone, but only as required—that is, only when Hugh had to pick or was involved in a steal. Otherwise Jackson would just hang up on him. This turned out pretty funny, because I don’t think anyone was involved in more steals than Hugh! So he kept have to be reconnected and then brought up to speed on what exciting new items had arrived since he had last been with us.
The most laughs, though, were courtesy of Jean’s contribution, a leftover ridiculous hat.
Jackson modelling the hat along with a VR headset, another contributed item
Also somewhat amusing was that Thérèse had accidentally grabbed an individualized gift (slippers for her grandmother) instead of one for the exchange. So we had to imaginarily include what was intended.
Isaac with his “invisible” hammock
Some of the kids, mid-play
Caleb’s cozy gift ends up with Michelle
And there were a few “Godchildren” gifts to hand out at the end
That afternoon, the temperature hadn’t quite plunged to the depths it was about to in the coming days, so we finally got outside. The snowshoe trails weren’t open at the Ski Club (not enough snow!) so we just walked on Carium Road.
Outside!
Winter wonderland, I guess?
The rest of the afternoon was mostly about food prep. Late afternoon Jean headed to the Lefebvre family dinner. Happily, Gilles had recovered enough to join the McNair supper, along with Terrie.
After dinner and cleanup, we played a game of Telestrations, which was one of the items Jean and I had contributed to the McNair gift exchange. It’s like the telephone game, except that you had to draw what the word was and then the next person had to guess what you had drawn. Very simple, but absolutely hilarious, some of the results. (Though should be noted that Neal’s family has enough talented artists that a number of items got through 8 people successfully.)
Boxing Day we were scheduled to fly out at 10:20 am; Jean had to work on the 27th. All seemed good as we boarded the plane and took off on schedule. It didn’t seem we were elevating as much as usual, and drink service seemed a bit slow, but I didn’t think too much of that until the captain came on and said: “I’m sorry for what I’m about to tell you.”
There was a mechanical problem with the plane. The good news was, we weren’t all about to die. The bad news was, we had to fly back to Timmins. The wheels of the airplane weren’t elevating into the plane as they needed to. The drag that caused on the plane meant there wasn’t enough fuel to get us to Toronto.
Then it was a waiting game. They did first try to see if the plane’s problems could quickly be repaired, but that turned out to be a no, and then it was flight cancellation and rebooking time. We recalled that we had purchased On My Way travel assistance for this flight, which was supposed to give us priority in being rebooked. When we called that number, and they suggested that we should be able to get on the 4:00 pm flight that day, but weren’t able to do that immediately as the flight was “frozen” while all passengers were processed. When we finally got our rebooking email, though, had us on a 5:20 am (AM!) flight the next day. We called again, and they said there was nothing they could do.
So we’re following up with Air Canada about that.
Meanwhile, we took a taxi back to Dad’s (who then had to dash out to the grocery to get more food for his now larger number of dinner guests). One upside is that it did give me a chance to visit with my Aunt Irene, who is 88, and my cousin Monique and daughter Simone. They dropped by at Dad’s on their way to bringing Simone to the airport. It was also nice having more time with Dad, Michelle, Jackson, and John. And the lasagna dinner was very delicious.
Getting up at 3:00 am for our next flight was less delicious, particularly as it was -35C at that point, but we did it. Dad very kindly drove us to the airport at 4:00 am. And yes, that flight took off in time, and managed to get all the way to Toronto. Where it had snowed considerably and was pretty darn chilly!
Mocha’s actual date of birth is a mystery. All we know of her origins is that she and her kittens were found in the backyard of our MP at the time. The Pet Patrol organization rescued her, had her spayed, and she was taken in by a foster family. One day she was the featured cat for adoption at Pet Value, which is where Jean and I first met her.
No matter her actual age (and one vet we saw early on suspected she was a few years older than our other cats, based on the state of her teeth compared to theirs), she was always taken to be younger, because she was so tiny. Mocha never really stopped looking like a kitten. It was great, really. All the adorable-ness of kitten-hood without all the work of dealing with an actual baby cat.
Mocha in 2006; apologies for the freaky eye which I don’t know how to fix in editing
Mocha at the pet store was the sweetest thing. You could pick her up and she’d just nestle into your arms and purr. I was smitten. Jean, meantime, was smitten with another, apparently shyer male cat that we met at a foster home. We resolved our differences by adopting both. Mocha and McSteamy took to each other immediately, finding comfort in proximity to each other. Their bond was to endure for a lifetime.
McSteamy and Mocha had an enduring (though platonic) love affair
We soon learned, however, that Mocha’s pet store response was just her reaction to being in a strange, stressful environment: she seemed to feel her best option was to become as placid and sweet as possible. Once in a calm house, though, she reverted to nervous suspicion, and joined the shy McSteamy in hiding under furniture.
In fact, McSteamy was the quicker to warm to us, and within about two weeks had basically concluded we were the best people ever. Whereas Mocha spent months hiding behind cabinets and under furniture, taking advantage of her tiny size to limit contact as much as possible. I even called the Pet Patrol people seeking advice. Just give it time, they said. She will become a loving, affectionate pet.
They were right.
Mocha “climbing mount Jean”, as I like to call it
She eventually stopped hiding, and especially took to Jean. I was the main feeder, which went a long way in putting me in the good graces of the other cats in the house, but Mocha was a nervous eater who seemed to view food as more of a necessary evil than a source of pleasure. So that wasn’t gaining me points with her.
In fact, at one point she seemed to view mainly as Jean competition, tending to take off in a bit of a huff when I deigned to join the two of them in their cuddle-fest. But, I did gain some advantage in not tending to take off for one- or two-week canoe trips. Facing the choice of no pets versus pets from me, she was all in for pets from me. And thereafter seemed to stop seeing me as competition, but more as an acceptable secondary source of affection.
You see, most cats will lie calmly and purr while you pet them, maybe flip around to get a belly rub, relax into sleep. But for Mocha, petting was a serious, intense business. She would rise up to meet your hand. She would rub her face on your face. It wasn’t enough to be pet; she needed, somehow, to pet back.
For Mocha, petting is serious business
And the purr. My gosh, such a big sound from such a tiny cat. We even recorded it once:
And conversely, her mews were quiet to the point of inaudible: You’d only know she was trying to tell you something if you happened to be looking to see her open her mouth.
She had her own rituals, as cats do. In the morning, she liked to sharpen her nails on the corner of the bed (replaced with a scratching post when we got a new bed), then run around and jump on the bed for the first pets of the day.
She was fascinated by flushing toilets.
“One day I will figure out this phenomenon”
After work (our work—cats don’t work), she loved to join Jean in his office to get the evening’s round of petting underway. This was not always conducive to Jean being able to accomplish whatever he was in his office to do: “Girl!” he’d exclaim. “Too intense!”
During TV time, her spot was the back of the couch, just behind our heads.
And at any time, she enjoyed windows, and sunlight (though had no interest in going outdoors), and even better if she could enjoy both with her best friend.
And the cat who once spent months in hiding became so comfortable in her home that even the presence of loud, strange repairmen wouldn’t daunt her. She’d just watch them with interest.
I was a little worried about her before going on vacation this fall. I’d like to suggest this was prescient of me, except that it’s a regular habit for me to worry about the cats before going on vacation. My particular worry focus this time was Mocha’s nasal congestion, even though this was a chronic problem of hers and the vet had already declared it didn’t seem to be serious. I resolved to get a second opinion on return from vacation, and watched her like a hawk before leaving. My conclusion was that she seemed to be happily going through all her usual activities and rituals, and that finally—after all these years—she seemed to really be enjoying her food.
The catsitter said that all went well while we were away (just for a week), but on our return, I noticed pretty quickly that something wasn’t right with Mocha. She moving her head strangely and batting at her mouth. She seemed to be having trouble swallowing water, of all things. On petting her, she seemed thinner than when we had left.
I brought her to the vet the first thing the next day, but the news was not good. She had a growth in her mouth that was, indeed, making it hard for her to eat and drink. There was no guarantee it could be treated, and even attempting to do so would likely require her to be fitted with a feeding tube. Instead, we went with the “trying to keep her comfortable” approach: She was rehydrated and sent home with liquid painkiller and a special, soft, high-calorie food that was easier to swallow (and apparently delicious, given that McSteamy and Zoe kept trying to steal it).
So Mocha’s last days were not terrible. She enjoyed the sun.
She continued to marvel at modern plumbing.
She got herself up in her window.
She gave and got pets.
She cuddled in front of the fire with her bestie.
She died peacefully on October 17, surrounded by the people who loved her.
Me: Why do you say that? Because my Dad buys them?
Jean: And my Grandmother. She always had a bowl of those out.
Me: Come to think of it, my Grandmother always had mints like these around, too.
Shit.
But would your Grandmother buy shoes like these?
(Or allow shoes on the couch?)
So the mission here was to get another pair of comfy shoes that weren’t sandals (as it seemed, at the time, that Fall weather was coming). And I did succeed at that:
But then I saw these other shoes, and they were so cute.
The truth is, outside of ballroom dancing—which requires special dance shoes—I have few opportunities to wear heeled shoes. At work I do the stand-up desk thing, and you can’t do that in heels.
But still…. Pretty cute. And on sale!
I have managed to wear them to one party that was mostly a sit-down affair, and have worn them at work as well, for the sit-down parts of the day. For heeled shoes, they’re pretty comfortable: despite the point, they don’t squish the toes, and the back strap doesn’t dig in. And with so few occasions to actually wear them, they should last for years, right?
Anyone want to borrow a T-shirt?
It’s possible I have a T-shirt problem.
The above were all acquired this summer, in Ottawa, Kingston, Toronto, and right here in Waterloo. And it’s not as though I didn’t have any T-shirts to start with.
A double shot
We came home from one vacation to find that the drip coffeemaker was no longer working. A fuse or something, I guess—you’d press the button and nothing would happen. That was a Delonghi dual espresso / regular coffee maker that I’d received as a work gift. Only, the espresso part broke down within weeks. It looked impressive, but for years had supplied only regular coffee, and now couldn’t even do that.
Still, when we put it out with the trash, someone took it away within minutes. Good luck to them in trying to make it useful again.
Meanwhile, we were doing Bodum coffee, which is very good, but presented a timing issue. Jean is more of a morning person that I am. He’d get up and make enough coffee for both of us, but by the time I was up and ready to drink it, it was often more lukewarm than hot.
We started by tasting a single-origin coffee to determine which cheap machine was most acceptable to discerning coffee drinkers, then ran the panel a second time with preground Dunkin’ Donuts house blend from the corner store. The Hamilton Beach 12-Cup Coffee Maker (46201) swept both rounds of testing. It placed second to the Oxo [9-cup coffee maker, a $200 US coffee maker] in Round 1 and actually beat the Oxo during the Dunkin’ round.
That Hamilton Beach unit was more widely available in the US than in Canada, but Amazon could ship it to us from an outfit called Moto Liquidation that warned would be “like new” but “show signs of handling/unpacking and usages, boxes have damage.”
That proved pretty accurate—box was somewhat battered but unit looked new. Only the first day we tried it, we found that we only got about half the amount of coffee requested—the rest of the water spilled out all over the counter.
We contacted Moto Liqidation who said that we could either get a refund, or they would send us another coffeemaker. Either way, they said, we could keep the one we had. And hence:
Unit 2 has a slight wobble, but not one that interferes with coffee making. And if any of the parts ever break or fail, well, we can pillage them from unit 1.
It does make really good coffee.
TV in the kitchen
I believe it’s not so unusual now, but when we got our kitchen renovated 15 or so years ago, our designer considered it very odd that we wanted space for a TV in there. Still, she penciled one in, above the stove top, plenty big enough for TVs of the time.
Fast forward, and the space is just barely big enough for the smallest of today’s TVs. And there’s absolutely nowhere else in the kitchen a TV could go (short of doing another renovation).
Furthermore, at some point I decided I also wanted the option of listening to music in the kitchen, and I don’t mean over headphones. So we got a Sonos Play 5, with the idea that when we bought a small digital TV to replace the old tube one, we could hook it up as the TV speaker.
But the Sonos 5 is large, and trying to find a spot for it near the TV was a challenge. Not just in having enough room, but also in the fact that anything near the stove top gets totally coated in disgusting grease, and I didn’t want that to happen to my nice speaker.
Then Sonos came out with a new speaker that was exactly what we needed. The Playbase is a wide, flat TV (and music) speaker that the TV is meant to sit on. It’s sized to exactly fit in the limited space we have available. The sound quality, by all accounts, incredible. The only problem? It’s a pricey sucker.
[All Sonos Playbase reviews, summarized: Woah, that sounds awesome. … Wait, you want how much for it?]
So I kept dawdling on it til the the September long weekend, when I just decided to go for it.
The only available TV spot in the kitchen is… not wide, and at risk of grease
A better view of the Sonos playbase. The other little box is the Rogers digital adapter.
The new TV took two tries, as the first one had a cracked screen. Figuring out just how to get the cable through was trickier than expected (tip: even it’s a digital TV, you still need a digital adapter to decipher the channels).
But the Sonos was problem-free in hooking into our network of other Sonos units. And it does sound great. And having the Chromecast on the TV opens up new viewing and listening possibilities: Netflix, YouTube, Spotify (even if not paying for Premium), SoundCloud app.
(The neighbourhood scavengers, by the way, had no interest in the tube TV beyond the power cord. But no worries, we properly e-cycled it.)
As for the grease, we’re trying to minimize its effects by using the back burners more. It’s making that back corner kind of gross, but so far so good on keeping the speaker clean.
So I was happy. Until the following Tuesday (i.e. the next business day) when Sonos decided it was time to offer me 15% off a new Playbase. As long as I hadn’t already bought one, of course…
Bah. Good thing I saved money with the on-sale shoes and the cheap coffee maker, eh?
Yes, we were quite late to this one, but Canada Day weekend we finally took in Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. We were both fans of the first one, and had heard generally positive reviews of the sequel, albeit with some debate as to which volume was better.
The first movie was a fun discovery. This one had to meet the expectations raised by that one. It tries to do so in a big hurry, with an amazing opening action sequence that is soon interspersed with a musical interlude featuring a dancing Baby Groot. Shameless, but I loved it anyway.
The whole movie continues along in similar fashion, with more action, more humour, more classic rock, more cute Baby Groot.
But its real strength are its full complement of flawed but lovable characters, who are dealing with various family issues in this one. Peter has a chance to reconnect with the father who abandoned him as a child. Gamora has taken her troublesome sister hostage. Rocket ponders on the consequences of his prickly approach to his teammates (other than Baby Groot). Drax mourns his lost wife and daughter while bonding with a new acquaintance, Mantis.
First one better? Sequel better? I don’t know. I just think the two would make a nice double bill.
Jean: Why are you buying those?
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