So yeah, I'm still alive. Spike had a visit to the emergency vet last night, and I am about a gallon short on sleep. Longwinded version below. I will extract a few highlights on Mastodon (@thatdawnperson@toot.cat) later today when I'm less wiped out.

Spike Spiegel, an orange and white DSH born in a barn 11 years ago, is on the mend. The cat does not die or become tragically ill at this time.

There are many goings on at Sanctuary, home to me and S and cats Spike and Greg (18 months). Yesterday morning, the humans made an expedition to a suburban Ikea store for research purposes. Unlike many Saturday mornings, the cats were unsupervised for about four hours after breakfast. We got home in the early afternoon and all was well within parameters.

A few days ago, Greg had tagged Spike while frolicking. This happens sometimes, and the wound we had noted was not a concern beyond normal vigilance. We keep an eye on physical state, inputs, outputs, and behaviours routinely because that’s part of pets in the family.

We usually check both cats’ front claws regularly to keep damage to a minimum. We have 3 cat trees, all well used by both for stropping and play. Checking and trimming Greg’s claws was on our list of this weekend’s to dos.

About half an hour into watching a movie yesterday evening, I didn’t notice anything odd but S did. Spike was in the top cat hammock, a ceiling-level place where he likes to chill. He suddenly shook his head, and dashed off to a different one of his regular haunts, a windowsill that gets excellent sunlight. S went to investigate and we stopped the movie. Greg noticed something was happening and trotted along to make sure she was involved. S indicated there was a concern with Spike’s eye.

Spike ran back into the room after the brief examination. He hid in the circular cat tunnel that sits on the floor behind where we had been watching the movie. Greg wanted to interact but I waved her off. I kept an eye on the hiding spot where Spike had hunkered down. If we needed to check him out further or bundle him into a carrier for transport, it would be much easier to do that from here than wherever he might dash to next. Spike’s eye had a concerning discharge and the surrounding skin appeared red and a little swollen.

Eye infections can get bad very quickly, so we agreed to divert all energy to getting medical care for our suddenly unhappy cat. I looked up the affiliated emergency clinics from our regular vet’s web site. The closest is about 1km away. S called them and described the situation and symptoms. Bring him in, expect a minimum fee and a few hours waiting time. Emergency clinics are busier on late weekend evenings, whoever they’re treating.

I wrangled Spike into the carrier as gently as I could while Greg wanted to help and S looked for an available vehicle. Weekend evening: of course there were none. We took turns carrying and speaking softly to Spike on the walk down. Aside from the usual piteous cries when starting a trip to the vet and using the elevator, he was quietly interested in the passing scenery. The air was heavy with humidity and some particulate matter.

I was still unable to deal with speaking to strangers, so the burden of registering fell to S. I added details where I thought them relevant, but mostly just settled in to a chair to wait with as little movement as possible, Spike in the soft-sided carrier with a good view around him on my lap.

The waiting room was empty of people, though it didn’t remain so. In addition to black plastic chairs fixed in place, there was snack vending machine, a coffee station, a bathroom, a poster summarizing clinic policy, a fish tank built into one wall, a TV showing CP24 news, and a TV showing a “pet TV” video loop of facts, trivia, tips, ads related to dogs and cats, and “meet our staff” pages. It was a comfort to have the light topical infotainment to draw focus away from anxiety, even the sixth and seventh time through.

A cat with a history of heart  problems came in. A dog who had eaten some string and not thrown all of it up.  A dog who had landed badly from a jump. Others, each with a problem they’d go to the vet for if their regular clinic were open. A triage clinician spoke to each, not in order of arrival but based on the severity of the issue. Pet names were used throughout conversations. Pets were taken into the clinic area when it was their time to be seen. Humans went into the clinic only when called, generally briefly.

From time to time, a staff person brought a dog through the waiting room to outside for a short walk, then back in to the clinic. The dogs I saw mostly had leg bandages. One had what looked like hotter monitor patches. One had a cap tied around their head. One was carried out and back, with a second person wheeling a gas cylinder attached to the dog. That dog left a spot of blood on the floor, which someone came and mopped up after several minutes.

One blind person with a working dog and a human companion came out at one point, asking when they could go home. Something about not eaten since breakfast, when will we be allowed to leave. They had to wait, and eventually they left with meds and instructions. Other people paid their bills, received discharge information, and took their patient home.

S and I mostly put ourselves into standby mode. Some people used their phones. Some left and returned. After Spike was taken into the clinic for his examination, I pulled up my phone two or three times to work on a crossword puzzle. Metta/maitri was easier than distracting my mind: meditating benevolence to others and self.

All the staff were thoughtful, comfortably and practically dressed, empathetic, actively paying attention to the needs of human and quadruped clients. The cleaner only ran the vacuum in a space when it was empty of animals.

Not long after Spike was carried in, about as long as you’d spend for a well-cat checkup including the wait for the vet, his people were called in. It could be a wound to the eye or surrounding face, or a dental abscess (I need to get dental care going consistently). We answered questions, shared possible factors, and discussed the treatment plan the vet proposed.  Stain the eyeball to check for injury, 3 daily doses of NSAID for pain and swelling, a week of twice-daily antibiotic. Total bill would be ~$600, copy of their report to be sent to our vet.

I was a little confused when the carrier came out empty, but I took it. After about a full loop of Vet TV, someone came and took the carrier back in.

A small eternity later, while S took a walk around the block many times, I got the results with a paper bag containing Spike’s report and meds and paid the bill. No eyeball or eye injury, administer one syringe and 1.5 pills with food as prescribed. I texted S the info, though doubted they’d read the messages because it was past our bedtimes. S appeared at the door just as I was on the way to the exit with Spike. I wished the human whose cat was experiencing possible heart failure a good outcome.

I provided S the details just outside, Spike sitting in his carrier on a raised garden bed in front of us. We talked through the medication and food stuff, hemming and hawing on how to deal with a midnight first dose and 8am being the likely second dose. We started walking home, mostly S carrying Spike because I was too unsteady from fatigue. It would be good to wash the salt anxiety humidity sweat off.

Spike was a bit less actively engaged but still alert on the walk home. He didn’t yowl in the elevator, though he usually does. Walking up that one block of Church (heart of the gay village) near midnight on a Saturday night was not the best choice given the crowds but all arrived home without incident. That drag queen in the bar we passed was not my idea of a Swiftie but she was rocking her impressively muscular booty to something I recognized.

I put Spike’s carrier on the kitchen counter and monitored Greg’s curious interest while S got ready to administer his meds. I prepped the usual bedtime wet food (oh no! nothing but kibbles were left and few of those!) but did not put it down, to Greg’s quiet annoyance. I got the pills ready. S dealt with the troublesome bottle and syringe. Dose. Swallow. Dose. Swallow, no really swallow, okay I saw a gulp. Mouth is empty.

I didn’t have to encourage Greg away from the food. It was harder, though to keep her from getting her nose all up in Spike’s business with the unfamiliar scents he’d brought home. Fortunately, he ate a good portion (enough to satisfy, not so much as to risk vomiting) despite her persistent cat scan around his back, sides, and butt.

We trimmed Greg's claws. Dang those things get sharp, but it's quick to take care of.

Shower was a palpable relief. I washed about four times as much as usual. Did I fall asleep right away? I don’t remember. I woke up to stay awake 5 hours and 17 minutes later to start fetching water, feeding cats, cleaning, chores.

Spike has been more skittish than usual since coming home, understandably so. He's demanding more than double the usual attention and purring strongly. We’re doing our best to provide. This was going to be the weekend I rest up to get ready for my big medical adventure near the end of the month. Oh, and helping K move again before that, and preparing to hand over work deliverables, and and...

From each according to their ability, and get some gorram rest so we can keep on keeping on.

It's being a bit of a year.

I'm 53 years old and have three kids.  Not that they're really "kids" any more--the youngest (who tentatively identifies as non-binary) is 16, and the others are Simon (24) and Luke (22).  What with Covid, and the job/housing market, Simon, although he has graduated, is still living at home, as is Luke, who has been going to university.  Though he's taking a year off at the moment.

Luke in some ways is the classic middle child, being the one who's been most likely to help out around the house, which is helpful in this likely undiagnosed-ADHD-ridden household.  He has had his ADHD diagnosed, and anxiety, and has gotten his own medications for those.  He got a part-time job as a parking attendant, which is more than Simon has managed.  (Simon took a Comp.Sci. degree and wants to get into game development, and has been fruitlessly job-hunting since he graduated, but has been largely unwilling to apply for jobs outside of software development.)

A couple of years ago (not quite sure when it started, but as of last August it had definitely been a thing for a while) Luke started getting lower back pains.  So he started trying to fix his posture (he's quite tall, so probably had a bit of a tendency to slouch), he tried to be more active, and of course he went to doctors.  They couldn't figure out what it was; one of them thought maybe it was a problem with his gluteal nerve being inflamed or something, and there were some plans to try to deal with that.  They did an MRI.

Then they did a biopsy.  And apparently this is a more loaded word than I had thought, because this was when my wife started getting anxious but I remained clueless.

Because what they found was cancer.

They weren't 100% sure about it, but it looked like something called a "Ewing sarcoma", a rare bone/soft tissue cancer which often appears in the teens.  Apparently in Luke's case it had shown up in his sacral area.

My wife had a cousin (once removed) who got cancer young and did not make it.  My mom went through breast cancer a few years ago and came out of it okay, but her husband's bout with it a few years later was not as successful.

So we went in to the Cross Cancer Institute, a local institution which is pretty state-of-the-art, to talk to the oncologist and her team.  They had to do some more scans to try to see if it had metastasized, which is of course always the big question mark and a major determiner in how screwed you are.  They didn't find much except a tiny spot on one lung, which they eventually concluded was nothing to worry about.  Which was a relief, given how long it had been since the pains started, and we started to relax a little bit.

In about March they started him on an aggressive chemotherapy schedule--chemo every two weeks, alternating between a week with a half day of treatment and a week with three full days of treatment.  Which got to be a bit of a grind, especially for a one-vehicle household in a city that doesn't have the greatest public transit infrastructure in the world.  And of course after a full day of getting toxic substances pumped into his veins, Luke didn't particularly want to have to get home on his own anyway, so we tried to juggle things so that one of us could pick him up.  I'd been back in the office since October 2022, but I started taking more WFH days, with the approval of my immediate bosses who are, luckily, entirely sympathetic.

Luke's hair fell out; he wore a wig briefly while it was still patchy, but has pretty much given that up by now.  He had to get some pricy medications, which were generally covered by the Blue Cross plan I have through work or by his student healthcare plan (Canada healthcare is good enough that we weren't even charged for anything apart from that, but our pharmacare is still vestigial), and they have "drug coordinators" to help fill in the gaps.  He quite his job right away, and finished his university year in April but didn't sign up for the next year, because that had been enough of a struggle.  One of the drugs, Lapelga, was designed to try to help his white blood cell count, because of course the cancer-fighting drugs also beat those down too.  (My mom's white blood cells apparently got really low during her treatments.)

We're now into the second half of the treatment.  His white blood cells have also gotten low; he started off by getting an actual blood transfusion to try to bring them up, and he's now on chemo every three weeks to give him more recovery time.  But the cancer is getting beaten back.  He's now starting on radiation treatments as well (anecdotally, radiation is supposed to do quite well against Ewing sarcomas, so here's hoping), but that schedule looks like it'll be even more grueling: treatments every day (well, every weekday) for six weeks.  (What happens when they overlap with the chemo days, I'm not sure yet.)  His energy levels are up and down--chemo weeks he'll spend more time sleeping, but he still tries to hang out with his friends from time to time, often online.  I'm sure he understands that his job right now is just fighting cancer (or hanging on while the cancer is being fought, at least).  And presumably when the chemo and radiation are done, what's left will be a tiny thing they can surgically remove.

Apart from when we first got the news, the mood in the house has been generally positive.  The doctors seem optimistic (though of course maybe they always do that, to keep people's hopes up), they do seem to be making progress, it doesn't seem to have metastasized...  It's a lot of effort, but maybe it'll just be One Bad Year and after that things will be Okay.  I am a little vague on what the cancer is actually doing to his bones--are they going to need to be repaired somehow once the tumour is gone?  Will he still suffer pain there for the rest of his life?  And, of course, the lingering question of...will the cancer come back?

One of the books I'm reading right now is Risk, a.k.a. The Science of Fear, by Dan Gardner.  At one point he's talking about how people often deliberately exaggerate numbers to make something sound worse than it is, because that way they can convince more people to do something about it.  And cancer is one of those things.  A lot of work has been done on treating cancer, and it's not an automatic death sentence by any means.  And one reason we're getting better at treating it is because it's been treated as a serious problem...but the better we get at treating it, the less serious the problem becomes?  I'm glad that chemo and radiation treatments are getting as effective as they are.  I'd heard a thing recently about using these newfangled mRNA vaccines to get someone's immune system to attack cancer cells; sounds like that might work better with someone whose white blood cell count was up to the task, but it sounds promising.

Last summer we lost our cat (to what I believe was lillium poisoning after we stupidly got a stupid free bouquet from the store).  We've talked about getting a new one, and maybe now is the time.  Bring some cheer back into the house.  (Which means, of course, we'll probably be biased in favour of getting a cute kitten rather than a mature or elderly cat which may have its own health problems.)

Did y'all go to Betsons or something? 

So. Went for a hike a couple days ago. Target: the Motion Path portion of the East Coast Trail, a 13.8k “moderate to difficult” hike from Petty Harbour to Bay Bulls. (Or is it?...)

We’ve had a dry spell: terrific for hiking, as most of the nearby woodland trails include “prominent water features” (low areas that with a drop of rain become virtual ponds due to adjacent bogs) requiring waterproof-to-shin-height footwear, off-roading into thick, pointy brush to skirt the flooded patches, or the soul of a duck to endure. And the “heat” had broken, with an expected high of 22C/72F. Dry! Cool! Nice! Perfect, even!

I’m a soft old man, but I do likes a hike. Even the trails closest to town don’t disappoint. I’ve done the Quidi Vidi (southern) half of the Sugarloaf Path (view here) and the South Side Hills (western) half of the Deadmans Bay Path a few times. But why “halfsies”? Ah.

For those out for casual day hikes, the main concern is transportation to/from the trailheads. Metrobus (the only regional service) is limited to the St. John’s and Mount Pearl areas, so for trails that go beyond you must be willing to hike a round trip to your car or arrange private transportation to/from at least one end. I’ve gotten around this a bit by exploiting the Route 18 bus, which does dip its toe out of the metro area, specifically with stops in Kilbride and The Goulds. (I’ve also done the easternmost portion of the tRailway walk a few times, as far as the Double Ice Complex in Paradise, where I can get a Rte 30 home; this bus only runs in the early morning and late afternoon, so I have to time my walks appropriately. West of this, there’s no public transit option.)

I learned to use the Kilbride stop after my first attempt at walking Old Petty Harbour Rd down to, you guessed it, Petty Harbour, with the intention of having a mooseburger and beer at Chafe’s Landing, then either reversing the trip or walking the main road out to the highway, both of which get me to the bus. Of course, I didn’t use the bus that time, but instead walked from our old address to the trail, adding six uphill kms. The first and last thirds of the trail are kinda groomed, more like access roads. The middle part, what I call the Mud Flats, a brown patch visible from space that is a lot of fun for ATVs and zero fun for hikers, is where I lost the trail. (Even now, after making the walk a few times, it’s still hard to find the proper way through that muck.) Not believing they’d “force” anyone to cross that barren oozing zone, I stayed west and climbed a ridge, learning too late that I had found a beautiful dead end. (The ending “dot” here is where I wound up, but the blue line wasn’t how; I followed the trail between the dot and the start of the blue line to the north.) Very tired, kinda frustrated and hungry, and realizing that doubling back would cost at least forty minutes, I decided it would be "better" to get down off that ridge through the “wilderness”. Oy. It took me an hour of pushing downhill through brush, jumping across the same stream more than once, ducking branches, and some light bouldering to get to the bottom, then almost going on all fours under that big pipe, then a scramble up to the road. That still left 5k (gently uphill) to the highway bus stop. It was around 3:30pm by then, and the sun was barely over the hills. Did I mention this was December and the temp was just above freezing? I almost called Michele for a rescue. I was soaked through with sweat (undershirt, shirt, jacket liner, and jacket), and by the time I got to the bus stop I had trouble walking and was shivering uncontrollably, possibly entering hypothermia. Can't imagine how I smelled. Total distance about 17.5k, total elevation gain about 280m, duration around 6 hours, calories burned approaching 1400 thanks to the pioneering, total IQ loss about 8, also thanks to the pioneering.

This wasn’t the first dumbass hiking move I’d made. No, that would be the “easier” round trip that was closest to our house, part of the Deadmans Bay Path. Eagle-eyed folks clicking that link will note that the total elevation gain is 419m; this is actually two climbs of 210m, and two descents. I went north first, to the trailhead by Fort Amherst, from where it’s a whole lot of rocky wooded steepness up to the top of Cahill Point and the Big Dam (spoiler: it’s not very big). The descent to Freshwater Bay is just as steep, almost treacherous in places, and maybe harder to navigate down than up (as I would learn later, when I did this trip in reverse). I didn’t go further than the Bay because, again, there’d be no convenient transportation back, so I headed up toward Shea Heights, a distinct neighbourhood on a ridge above the city, an easier leg and not so steep, but uphill all the way. This was summer, so no hypothermia, but I wasn’t prepared for the climb, the UV, or the heat (it was more like 25C/77F; I’m sensitive, okay!); by the time I reached the base of our street, looking at that slope, I pretty much figured I’d call a cab for that last half block. This excursion taught me the value of naproxen. But it didn’t teach me much else, it seemed.

(Technically, the first stupid hike would be fifteen years ago, an ill-conceived all-day walk in new shoes. I lost two toenails. But I’m much better now.)

I’m often guilty of overthinking, over-packing, and over-preparing; every trip to the States is an exercise in stuffing my soft suitcase until it's rigid. But, weirdly, I’m also often guilty of misunderestimating (“For Buddhism, see Buddhism”) the difficulty or scope of an exercise, especially when it’s, you know, exercise. Despite carrying too many pounds and not pumping great cardio, I look at the mileage and think, “No problem!” I pack a light bag that could be lighter if I didn’t overthink it (did I really need to bring a poncho? An emergency whistle? A change of shirt and socks? Mints?), but not pragmatic stuff like, oh, say, a hat, sunscreen or bug repellent. Really, do I need a hat when it’s cool out? Like: the fuck, guy. Enjoying your first visit to Earth?

These were several years ago. Before Covid, in fact. Since then I’ve done the proper trek to Chafe’s Landing, and the reverse Deadmans Bay, without ado. I’ve driven to Bay Bulls a few times to make a round trip to the lighthouse (which Google can’t calculate because much of the East Coast trail isn’t on the map for some reason). I push myself a little because it's good for me, and I enjoy hiking, but have managed to not go too far again.

That was, until...

There was no real hike last year; I was involved in an occupational training program and short-term work contract that kept me at a desk seventy hrs/week from the end of June through mid-November. Immediately afterwards we were getting ready to move to our new digs, so my time was spent packing and organizing. Then there was the move itself before winter reamed us, so my exercise until March was moving boxes and literal tons of snow. I did get a few walks in mid-June 2023, but nothing big. I’ve been jonesin’ for an excursion, and had one specifically in mind: the Motion Path.

I’d gotten close before. I’ve taken the 18 bus to the Goulds and walked both Shoal Bay Rd and Pipeline Rd to the coast to pick up the trail northeast, heading toward Petty Harbour and my mooseburger. But I haven’t been able to spot the Trail from there. Looking north there are rocky cliffs, so the trail must go up, not around the point at sea level. Where did it connect? I know it does, ‘cause the East Coast Trail people mention these roads as ways for folks to enter the Trail. Even Google notes it, though it doesn’t map the Trail itself. Did I miss a branch somewhere uphill? There aren’t any markers around the rocks, so...huh? I never did find it. So I figured the only way to work it is to start in Petty Harbour where the trailhead is grandly stated, and head south to Pipeline Rd.; thereafter, I’d know how it’s done, so I could start south next time. Cool!

Per the East Coast Trail site, the Motion Path to Bay Bulls is a “moderate to difficult” 13.8km. But I’d only be doing about 40% of that. Pipeline Rd itself is about 5.5km, half of which is up, but okay. I could take the bus to the road that leads to Petty Harbour, then walk the 5km in, but walking the roadside is kinda dull, and I already know the 8km Old Petty Harbour Rd, which is a bit more interesting and pretty easy. So I figure the real trick will be that climb from sea level up to the top of the hills at Petty Harbour (200m or so), which is about 90 mins into the trip. That’ll be tough, but I’ve got all day. Then it’s roughly, what, 6km of coastal highland vistas before descending to sea level and the Pipeline Rd. Roughly 20km total, much of it easy, only some of which is ascent, including one steeper climb. Okay! I got this!

I packed two granola bars, an apple, a banana, a litre of weakly-flavoured Crystal Light (because plain water sucks) and a half litre of cold coffee (mmm!). There’s a convenience store near the Petty Harbour trailhead, so I can stop for an extra snack or drink if I feel like it. Clear sky, relatively cool with some fog hanging about the coast – what else do I need? Oh, yeah: my prescription sunglasses! (Progressives, so it takes a few minutes to find where my legs end, but it’ll be fine after that.) I took a naproxen before leaving the house, and brought one to take with lunch. Smart, smart. What else... Nothing! Nothing, I say!

No hat. No insect repellent. And this is where misunderestimation and NOT USING MY EYES collide.

See, the 13.8km, 5-8 hour “moderate to difficult” Motion Path from Petty Harbour is NOT all the way to Bay Bulls. No, AS IT’S CLEARLY STATED ON THE EAST COAST TRAIL WEBSITE, it’s only to Shoal Bay Rd; the distinct path from there to Bay Bulls is an “extreme” hike of 16km. Which means I’m not doing 40% of the 13.8km – I’m doing the hardest 90% of it, an extra 6+km. Also, and I can't overstate this, I misunderestimated what was deemed "difficult."

I got off the bus in Kilbride about 10:10am. Ate my apple an hour into the first leg. Had a granola bar, my second naproxen, and the last of my coffee in Petty Harbour (where I got this sample view of the height I was about to climb, and yes, those are wisps of fog there), and set off for the trailhead with a song in my heart and smile in mind, but without stopping at the convenience store. I was fine, after all. The climb wasn’t any worse than the one by Fort Amherst, so okay. After taking this video of the fog-lapped overworld, (please forgive the sketchy tweening text; it’s my first go at Davinci Resolve), where you can hear me huffing and puffing, I took my first swig of “drank” (as Michele calls my artificial flavour crap). It was 12:25pm when I set off south.

The stupid-ass Trail doesn’t stay at the top of the coastal hills; it goes down to just above sea level, again and again. And this goat-humping path isn’t just meandering, it follows every contour of the coastline. This includes ascents and descents through angry, spiky evergreens (at least I wore jeans, not shorts!) and dense brush where you can’t see your feet, but where you do find roots, divots, and sudden steps down disguised by the greenery. I mean, it’s like a fucking hike all of a sudden.

I snapped more pics as I went (soon to be posted to FB and IG), but stopped when I was wearing out and becoming concerned I had made a mistake somewhere in the process; the trail just seemed to keep going and going, Pipeline Rd always beyond the next inlet, and I couldn’t be sure whether I was past the point of no return to Petty Harbour. Down to near the water. Up. Down again. Up. I never noticed my skin turning red, but did put my extra shirt over my head because every time I stopped, which was with increasing frequency, the flies and mosquitoes would pester me. Really, it was the bugs that kept my motivation up. No cell signal. I ate my food, started rationing my “drank”. I thought, “Well, this is where I live now, at the top of the world, eating frogs and drinking whatever rain and dew I can collect until Michele calls 911 for search and rescue.”

When I met two hikers going the opposite way, I put on a brave red face and ensured the length of my penis by saying I was doing great. They seemed impressed that I’d walked from Kilbride – they with their big backpacks and coming from Bay Bulls only what, 8km away (?), those fit young bastards. They had a trail map, and said I was about 1km from Pipeline. Huzzah! But that last kilometre? Sucked. The hardest part since the initial climb; in some places, a dip in the foliage canopy was the only hint of a trail. Mud, fording streams, drops that required hands, the whole shtick. When I made it to Pipeline I could see that the trail really is invisible from there. Consarnit.

I was spent. Breathing hard for the last hour, soaked through, two swallows of “drank” left, leaden feet, sore everything despite the naproxen, somehow famished, 5km to go, half of it uphill another 150m, and two hours behind schedule. And two ponded washouts to avoid via rough woodland passage. I stopped often, and remain surprised that I kept going; I badly wanted to call it. It’s the second most exhausted I’ve been, topped only by that hypothermic experience. Fortune smiled on me then, for the bus arrived minutes after I got to the stop; 6:18pm, sun still high-ish. An unexpectedly eight hour day (minus breaks, obvs).

I felt stupid and shitty. And I’m comically red, including under my thinning hair. Had I not learned? The hell! I know I’m out of practice, but how am I so destroyed when two thirds of this trip were familiar and relatively easy trails? Did I really lose so much stamina, so much health, in the last year? Is this what aging really feel like? ‘Cause fuck this shit.

I solved the mileage mystery the next day, and realized I had in fact done a lot more than planned, or would have planned: an estimated 28km, an accumulated ascent of 700+m, 1900 calories burned, IQ -12. So now I’m also kinda proud, in a stupid way. This turns out to be the second longest “straight-through” walk/hike of my life. The longest was an 18-mile (29km) charity walk-a-thon when I was 17. FORTY YEARS AGO. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not fit, not even for my age, I think. But goddammit if I didn’t do 17 miles, including some for-realz hiking, after five months on my ass. I’m paying for the lack of prep, but yeah. I did the thing.

Lesson learned? I wish!

However, it does make clear that my to-do list hike from Petty Harbour to Bay Bulls (or reverse, for the mooseburger) is not to be taken lightly or without more conditioning. The combined Motion Path and Spout Path are 30km of moderate to “extreme” trail, estimated travel of 11-16 hours. There’s no bus close to Bay Bulls, and getting to Petty Harbour requires at least a 5k walk from a stop; better to coax Michele into driving my ass to and from. There are two campsites along the way, with no open fires allowed, which would mean toting camp stoves or ready-to-eat food along with a tent, hammock, or whatever. Sounds dreamy, sorta, but I don’t know when I’ll be ready for that commitment.

But I do know: time’s a-wasting.

Now: more moisturizer before my skin comes off in scales.

Video screens and plastic letters on signboards are of no importance to the Menumaeads, regardless of the environmental impact caused by their manufacture.  No, they are only interested in actual paper that was made from the substance of once-living trees.  They inhabit these products, somehow, and they consider it their mission to grant the sacrifice of those trees some meaning, however small.  So whenever you are handed a sheet listing the specials of the day along with the everyday favorites, take a moment to listen for the voices of the Menumaeads.  They probably won't curse you for settling on your usual order, but they will appreciate your thoughtful consideration.  Take time to read each and every offering, and maybe choose the one that pleads to you, the one that no one would ever order if it wasn't printed right there in black and white.  The server may even give you a funny look, but it's okay.  Do it for the Menumaeads.

I came away thinking Biden kind of nailed it, as much as he could have. Except of course for the crazy name transposition in the beginning, but that's kind of classic Biden.

Maybe my standards have been lowered. I heard him making sense so I wasn't really thinking about whether he was meandering too much. 

I think they trained him to slow down, they figured out he makes more sense that way. 

I don't know that it will be possible to remove him after this, unless he really trips over himself between now and the  convention.

I wish he would step down but I no longer think it is likely.

Thank you for reading my op ed 

I *know* I always feel good when I finish a project. Why do I instead sit on my butt most days and let inertia settle in? Dunno. But anyway, today I did a thing.

Sometime back I ordered some fast fashion for next to free from one of those websites. I can't remember if it was Shein, or Ali Express, or Temu or whatever. I have a young teen, who sometimes NEEDS OMG NEEEEEEDS! something or other from such a site. Sometimes I acquiesce to the need, then typically pad the order with several too-cheap-to-be-real items. And sometimes those items are clothes. But sizing is a crapshoot. I used to order off the site's sizing list, but almost always it came in too small. So I size up these days. Of the 5 dresses ordered, 1 went straight to goodwill (cause it felt like it was made from a shower curtain), 2 pretty much fit, 2 were sized for a MUCH heftier body than mine. And the one pair of pants were cut for a 6ft tall person. Ok, maybe a 5'11" person - and I'm 5' even.

And today, a mere 3 weeks after they arrived, and 2 days after retrieving the sewing machine from the depths of my basement, I hemmed the pants and took in the oversized dresses. The fun thing about altering cheap clothes is there is no pressure to get it perfect. I did not get it perfect - but it's perfect enough to wear. Yay me!

Tomorrow I'm hemming some sweatpants I've have for 3 years that I love but are 1" too long. And I also hemmed a pair of shorts for a neighbor. Doing the things!

So I'm feeling good about life just now (despite being stood up for a scheduled call). I think I'll get some wine and play Baldurs Gate.

Checkout the glorious pattern on this pair of $6.81 pants! (I looked it up. SHEIN.) And that straight hem!

Today I did the old-fashioned thing and filled out the good old contact the president form, asking him to please not run for reelection. It was a strange feeling. There is no drop-down choice for "please stop."