Hank The Tank, Part I

 No sooner than I finished my last writing here, our microwave blew up and we had to get a $600 mass-removal surgery done on Maggie.

For the third time for both of these things.

Maggie had a giant lump on her head we removed last fall. This past spring, she grew another one right next to her nose, and that needed to come off too. Over the past several weeks, she developed a third right under her left eye, and it very quickly doubled in size over the course of ten days or so. We took her in to get it checked out, and they offered to do it right there and then -- so we let them do so before it got any bigger. She got stitches that were removed two weeks later, but she's otherwise fine.

The microwave...sigh...we've had it worked on twice to fix it before, by the appliance repair people we can get to come out for $100 each time under our home warranty. Both times it was fixed, both times it worked fine for quite a while before eventually blowing out again. Instead of dumping more money into something that is clearly failing, Daisy just went online and bought a new one from Nebraska Furniture Mart, and it was delivered and installed last week. Yes, installed, because the one it was replacing was one of the big over-the-range microwaves, and they're far more expensive and much larger than a regular tabletop model. If I wanted a regular tabletop model I could have gotten one of those on Amazon for about $50 for a basic model that would do the job -- we didn't want that, we wanted the big one that fit into the spot over our stove, with a light/timer/vent fan, etc. 

Anyway, they came and installed that in twenty-five minutes and hauled the old one away since it was junk. I believe there was something like a $30 disposal/recycling fee; whatever it was, Daisy paid it and we were done with that foolishness. 

So, moral of the story -- there's always something stupid or expensive (or stupid expensive) awaiting around the corner if you're foolish enough to be like "yeah, stuff's really good right now." Heed my warnings and never say that aloud or even write it down, apparently.

So, on with the story.

About six weeks ago, Daisy's parents went to Nova Scotia to visit the family -- shortly after we returned from there (see previous posts here). We'd been taking care of their cats while they were gone, much like they always do for us when we're out of town. Daisy's parents have a black cat, a brown tabby, and a little orange and white tabby. Conversely, we have a black cat, a gray tabby, and a gray and white cat. They were gone for almost three weeks, so we were over there constantly to make sure the cats had enough water and food, Daisy made sure the litter was scooped and cat puke was cleaned off the floors, etc. Most of the time their cats are fairly skittish -- their big black boy is an asshole and doesn't really like anyone but the parents (despite our best, sweetest efforts to always love him and be kind to him) and their little orange cat they call their "upstairs kitty" because she so very rarely will come downstairs when we're there -- even when/if the parents are home. She is finally warming up to us, after about six years, and will come hang out a little bit, even letting us touch her on occasion, but she is still the most skittish cat I've ever met. Their big brown tabby is very sweet and loving and is the most "normal" of their three, and doesn't give a single shit about me and Daisy being in her space. She, in fact, wants the most attention, food, and treats, and will climb up on your chest to get rubs. 

So, the pattern on a lot of these days while the parents were out of town -- especially on my own days off, both over the July 4 holiday and normal weekends off -- was that we'd get up and do our own normal around-the-house stuff, then eventually go over to the parents', where we'd feed the cats, check on them and make sure they had some love and attention, and make sure the house was overall in order. On my/our working days, Daisy would go over there on her lunch hour (as it's about ten minutes away from her office) and would do the cat care then, or she'd stop by on her way home from work. Daisy also mowed the lawn at least once while they were gone, and every time we were there together she'd tend to Dad's garden, pulling in all of the new produce that was growing while they were away. Daisy is a very good daughter.

For some time, Daisy has wanted to add another cat to our household. Our three cats are old -- all three are sixteen -- and while they're in relatively good health overall, Maggie is in the beginning stages of kidney failure, and Pete and Sadie, while we love them, are definitely not going to be around forever either. As Pete ages, it is very apparent that he is not the spry, super-active hellion of a cat he was in his younger years, like he was when I started this site in 2007 (16 years ago this month, actually), and Sadie, while she remains my shadow and little old lady, is very clearly also showing her age and becoming crotchety at that. Sixteen year old cats are the equivalent human age of 80, so I've got three very senior citizens living with us.

I've always been mostly opposed to any new cats entering the household, primarily because of the relationship we have with our old farts as well as the dynamic they have with each other. Pete will always be Daisy's baby -- no matter how old he gets -- and she loves him the most. Likewise, in the eleven years that Daisy and I have been together, I've never seen an animal more closely bonded to a human than Pete is to her. She absolutely is his mother and he knows it. Pete has always been very close with me as well, as I had him first and he's been with me through everything, but he has an absolutely special bond with Daisy that now surpasses, and has surpassed for years now, the bond he's had with me. I didn't want any new cats entering the household that would disrupt that bond with us or make him feel threatened, like he was being replaced, or like he was losing territory in the household. The girls I was even more concerned about, as Sadie is already incredibly skittish and doesn't like other people, let alone animals. She'll hiss and growl at Pete and Maggie sometimes if they get too close to her and she doesn't want them around. She only wants me, and occasionally wants Daisy's attention too -- but mostly me. 

Maggie is a fat loaf of a cat who doesn't move much and doesn't want to, and she mostly gets along fine with Pete and Sadie, but never really chose a favorite "parent" between me and Daisy. She loves us both equally and just wants to be acknowledged and loved, and if we give her that in abundance, and she's generally fine.

I will stress that Daisy wanting another cat is not a new thing -- she's wanted one for many years, ever since likely before we got married. We tried adopting one once and it didn't work out -- when we were still in the apartment -- so we were kind of apprehensive about trying it again. Once we bought the house and had much more space to work with, and especially once I went work from home full time and she went work from home part time, we have been continually reassessing the situation. I have still been mostly opposed to getting a new cat, partially because of anxiety and stress, and because of the trauma I remember in trying to raise Pete from 6-7 weeks old to the point where he finally became a somewhat calmer adult cat. 

I cannot stress enough how much of an absolute asshole demon Pete was when he was a kitten. He had undying, infernal energy. He got into absolutely everything. He tore up furniture, rugs, and clothes. He destroyed window blinds and tried to destroy screens. He climbed curtains like a monkey climbing a tree. He ran up walls, knocked stuff off counters, was on the stove and in the sink/toilet/tub constantly. He bit, scratched, clawed, howled, sprayed, would dash for every door and would wreck every closet. He would find his bag of food, no matter where I hid it, and would tear it open and gorge himself on it -- I eventually had to keep it in a room he couldn't get into. I had scars on my hands for years from his claws and teeth. This is the cat who gave me a black eye while I was sleeping, because he decided that he wanted to run straight up the wall above the head of the bed, and landed on my eye when the laws of gravity took back over. He was not a good cat -- he was a demon from the depths of hell, and he didn't really start to settle down and become the Pete he is today until he was about two or three. I told Daisy that I absolutely could not put enough emphasis on how horrible it was to take care of him when he was a kitten, and got the sense that she really didn't believe me or that I was exaggerating my stories. 

I was far younger and had far more energy when I raised Pete. I am much older now and do not have the energy or patience to do that again, not that the old farts we have now (including much older, slower, old-man-Pete) would allow or want that sort of behavior in a new cat in the household anyway. 

Daisy and I follow the Nebraska Humane Society's postings on their website as well as on social media, and I don't think she's ever stopped looking for new kittens, to be honest with you. I've long said that I never want to live without a big black cat, so when Pete goes (as he will, eventually) I want to get another big black boy. I want a long-haired seal-point Himalayan-looking cat -- like Sassy in Homeward Bound -- and I've also always wanted a big orange cat. 

My influences on cats I like come from what I grew up with and the cats I've lived with and experienced. I grew up with orange cats -- the first cat that I had as adult was when I was still living at home and my parents took in a peaches-and-cream old girl named Kittybell, who showed up on our porch during a snowstorm and came and went for another year or so before my parents formally brought her in and made her part of the family. She was the sweetest little girl and was likely already well into her senior years before we adopted her, and lived up until a few years ago when she peacefully died of old age. My parents had another big orange cat named Digger as well -- he showed up shortly after Kittybell and seemed like he knew her. He had a hard life and had gotten the shit kicked out of him by wild animals at some point (we don't know what it was, but it was bad) and my parents nursed him back to health with many vet visits and surgeries. He lived long after Kittybell and my dad had to take care of his passing just last month when the vets found that he was riddled with tumors and was suffering. My parents also had Sam, who was, well, the seal-point Himalayan cat I'd always dreamed of, who also showed up as a stray sometime after I'd moved out of the house. He died some time ago too, but he was also a very sweet boy, and I got to spend time with him when visiting home. With the passing of Digger last month, my parents no longer have any cats. 

I think that was part of what finally made me a little more open to getting another cat -- mortality. My babies, even though they've been with me for over 16 years, will not live forever. As much as my cats are a giant part of my life and an institution of my household, they're not immortal. They will age, they will get old and maybe sick and eventually die. I don't want to replace them -- that's not my intention. But the thought of not having them, and watching them die one by one, leaving holes in my life where they once were, is almost too much to bear. Also, because they're now quite old, I thought that they'd put up less of a fight if a new kitten was brought into the household. They're not gonna go on the warpath like they would have done (and did) years ago -- I figured they'd be more likely to be like "Oh, how cute, a new toy. Oh, that thing is alive. Well, still cute" and go back to sleep.

Daisy has always wanted a flame point or seal point Siamese cat, though she does gravitate more towards the flame points. She has always wanted a big brown tabby too, a fluffball with Maine Coon characteristics. I wasn't opposed to either breed. I have my preferences too, like I mentioned above. I also like Torties too, for example. I think Torties are gorgeous. But really, for me, it's a personality thing. I don't care what a cat looks like if I can't connect to its personality, or if I don't think its personality would connect well with our old farts. We've gone to the Humane Society many times over the years -- mostly just to look or for what we call "kitten therapy" after a bad day at work or what-have you -- and many times have I liked the way a cat looks only to find out it doesn't like to be held, or petted, or growls and hisses around other cats, or bites or claws, or tries to hide when Daisy and I both pay attention to it at the same time...and sadly many times I have been like "well, not a good fit for us, but maybe for someone else."

The Humane Society always gets a lot of cats in the late spring and summer months. Kittens especially, as they're picked up off the streets or fostered kittens become ready for adoption. They always have a giant variety -- I'm guessing probably 20-30 new kittens are on the website every week -- and they are all adopted very quickly, within a day or three of being made available. This gave me some hope about the world -- that these cats were getting good homes, there was good turnaround on adoptions, and that cats weren't just sitting in kennels languishing around forever because nobody wanted them. 

While the parents were out of town, we began visiting the Humane Society fairly frequently again. I was still very apprehensive about any new additions to the household, but long ago Daisy and I had made a pact that we would have to both be onboard, all-in, on any kitten we were interested in. If one of us was unsure or wasn't completely in or comfortable, then it would be a no. I'd said no many times over the years; I wanted to have an open mind now for the first time in a long time. 

There was a brown tabby that Daisy was very interested in. He had a sweet personality, was lively and excitable, and was a little fluffball of cuteness, but at the time neither of us were all in. Well, maybe Daisy was, I don't know for sure. But I wasn't yet sold. We left him there, thought about it for a few hours, and decided to go back to get him. When we did, he had already been adopted. This devastated Daisy, and it actually affected me far more than I thought it would at the time. I liked that little guy a lot, but at the time when we should've pulled the trigger, I wasn't all in. I regretted it. His listed name on the humane society website (they give them all placeholder names so that there's something for recordkeeping) was Edward, which we weren't a huge fan of. During the time we were thinking about it for a few hours, we decided we were going to call him Edward Henry "Hank, the Tank" [surname]. When he was gone upon our return, having the name picked out made it feel like more of a visceral loss.

Keep this in mind, as it will be important moving forward.

Another week came and went, and on the following Thursday night, we went back to look at a fresh set of kittens who had just become available. There was a long-haired little gray cat, who looked very similar to Sadie (and acted like it; she did not want to really be held or be around other cats), and a little medium-haired black kitten named "Spooks" who was very sweet and loved attention, wanted to be held, etc. There was also a medium-haired female tortie who was just gorgeous and loved attention just as much. We had gotten some good vibes from them, but none of them had that "all-in" feeling. That "Hank" feeling.

"[Daisy]," I said, "here's the thing. We can't keep comparing every kitten we meet to Hank. We're going to see cats with many different personalities, and not all of them will have personalities that are completely readily apparent upon a first impression."

She agreed, if a little begrudgingly.

It's a hard thing to describe, really. It's a feeling, a connection, a spark. Some cats we looked at had a little of it, some had a lot, but none of them were enough to light the flame. 

When we went upstairs (the secondary cat/kitten area) we saw a few more cute little babies, including what appeared to be a brother-and-sister pair of orange cats -- a male with orange-and-white markings, and his "sister," who was mottled peaches-and-cream throughout her entire coat. The girl seemed like a little snot, continually pouncing on her brother, but the male was genuinely curious, wanted attention, stood on the side of the cage and cried for love, and would look at you with his big blue/green/gold eyes. Their shelter names were Otis and Delilah. 

They were a "bonded pair" and needed to be adopted together, so we didn't think much of it other than oh, what a sweet little boy and left for the night. One cat would be pushing it for interactions with our old farts. Two would likely set off a kitty race war in our home. 

The next night, when we saw that all of the kittens we looked at were still there 24 hours later, Daisy wanted to go back, just to double-check the vibe levels and to look at a few new ones who had arrived and became available that day. We got there with an hour or so left before close, but it was still fairly busy in the facility, with lots of people looking at cats and kittens. Spooks was still there, as well as the little gray girl and the little tortie.

When we went upstairs, we found that Delilah had apparently been adopted earlier in the day without her brother Otis, so apparently they weren't as bonded of a pair as we thought. Otis was in his kennel cage alone, and he was upset. He wanted companionship and love and attention, and it seemed as if people were looking at him like "oh, orange cat" and dismissing him outright. Daisy and I felt bad for him, as he was so adorable.

We went downstairs again and then came back upstairs again one last time before leaving for the night. By this time the crowd had thinned out and there were only a few people around, so Daisy made the bold decision to open the cage containing Otis and pull him out to hold and love on him. He purred and mewed and graciously accepted the love. I held him for a few minutes too, stroking his soft kitten fur before handing him back to Daisy.

It was at about this point when a girl in her twenties approached us and said something along the lines of "oh, so you're playing with my cat, huh?"

The audacity. Like, bitch be gone. Who does something like that? I didn't even know what to say to her. What I wanted to say was "I don't see your name on him anywhere, lady."

In Daisy's arms, Otis purred and wanted all the love, nestled in, kissed her face, etc. 

I believe it was sometime around this point where Daisy was "all in."

We put him back in his kennel and he looked so sad that we were leaving him behind. We immediately went downstairs and asked if we could get a private room visit with Otis. The staff told us that adoption hours were done for the day, but we could fill out the application and submit it, and would be able to come back in the morning when they opened at 10am and get in the queue for viewings/visits.

Daisy immediately filled out the application on her phone and submitted it, and we went home for the night, with plans to be back as they opened the next morning at 10.

In a whirlwind of passionate "that bitch isn't getting my cat" energy, I was stunned when Daisy was up, excited, caffeinated, and waiting outside the doors of the humane society twenty minutes before they opened the next morning. It was Saturday, July 15th. There was a line to get in. We were second in line -- first was a lady who wanted to go in and get a big dog, as we found out while talking to her while we waited.

Daisy is never on time for anything, and I can count on one hand the number of times she's ever been early for anything. 

The lady from the night before was nowhere to be seen, even as the line got longer and longer behind us while we watched for the staff to open the doors.

In the interim between leaving the night before and the following morning, I was about 80% in on this little orange cat. Now, mind you, as I mentioned above I have always wanted a big orange cat. But it couldn't just be looks, it was definitely a personality thing. And Otis, as they called him, had it in spades. He was immediately lovey, was playful and active, and he had giant feet. This signified to me that he would likely grow up and become monstrous in size. I knew before we went back there was a much greater chance that day that we'd be leaving with him than not. And I was okay with that. Was I "all in" at that point? No. But I was okay with it. 

When they finally opened and we got inside, the lady in front of us who wanted a dog was first up, and we checked in, had our application approved, and were told we were in queue to meet the animals. They made us pick three to look at. Daisy chose Otis, Spooks, and some other cat, I can't remember. Of course, we picked Otis first, and we must have been the only people who had come that early to look at cats, because the "cat wing" of the shelter was deserted -- with nobody walking around in it anywhere but us and the humane society lady who had the paperwork and who was apparently our designated chaperone.

I will never forget the events that transpired next.

As we went back upstairs to where Otis's cage was, far at the end of the hall, as we approached him, his eyes lit up and he stood up on the cage door and mewed, as if to say you came back! you DO love me! It was very clear that he remembered us and recognized us. The shelter lady opened the door and he practically leapt into our arms to love and be loved. 

The visiting room was across the hall from his cage, and it's where we learned more about his history. He had been rescued off the streets of Omaha as a stray, at the approximate age of four weeks, in a really bad part of town. He had been fostered in a home with other cats and had therefore been litter-trained, socialized with other cats and people, and had been cleaned up. When he got to the shelter he'd been neutered and given some parasite-cleansing meds, including treatment to get rid of a particularly bad case of ear mites, and in his treatment he'd accidentally been overdosed on Ivermectin, which he had recovered from with no ill effects. He'd just been neutered a few days before and was still too young to get his rabies shot, but he was otherwise good to go -- his first day at the shelter had been the first night we'd seen him, Thursday. He was approximately 8-9 weeks old at that point. That would've put his birthday, roughly, a week before we went to Nova Scotia -- to put that into perspective.

The shelter lady said she'd leave us alone for a few minutes so we could get to know him better privately, and left.

I held him for a while and he melted into my chest and arms -- Daisy has a picture of this somewhere -- before I looked at her in the eyes and said, aloud, "I want him." That soul connection was there. He was loving and cuddly and playful. He was vocal with his mews and purrs, and ran back and forth across the floor of the room on his giant paws, chasing and playing with toys. His body, excluding tail, was maybe the size of my hand, just a little fuzzy orange-and-white blur of fur with eyes and legs. 

When the lady returned, we told her in no uncertain terms that we wanted him, and she began getting the paperwork ready as well as the cardboard carrier box that would be his transporter for the day. 

"He should be okay, but we strongly recommend you get him to the vet for a checkup within 72 hours," she said. "As in most shelters, we have upper respiratory infections in cats and kittens that run rampant throughout this place. He doesn't have any of those symptoms because he's been pretty isolated, but you probably want to get him checked out anyway just in case."

The adoption fee was $150(!) for this little man, plus tax and whatever licensing fees and etc etc there were tacked onto the bill. We were happy to pay it, and walked out of there with a giant cardboard box with a little confused cat inside. 

When we got to the car and were inside, away from any other hearing ears, I turned to Daisy and said, "Haha bitch, we win -- 'your' cat. Please. You snooze you lose!" In reference to the lady the night before. 

We now had a new son. 

Everything's All Right

 Stability.

It's a big thing for me. When I feel stable I am far more relaxed, my stress levels are at a minimum, and I am happy and comfortable. 

Do you ever just have one of those days where you wake up and feel...at peace? I don't know how else I can describe it, honestly. I also don't know that it happens very often anymore. Your bills are paid (or paid enough), you have food in the house, you have some cash in your wallet and bank account, there are no outright stressors pressing on you, you feel like you're in relatively good health, etc.

Well, I woke up this morning (well, late morning, it's a Sunday and I return to work tonight) feeling quite stable for the first time in a long time. 

I'm going to visit my parents in about two months.

All of the laundry is done.

There is a large amount of mostly healthy food in the house.

I'm still losing weight, slowly but noticeably.

I'm drinking a ton of water/liquids every day and I'm far more active than I have been in months.

The weather has been wonderful for July in Omaha -- lots of rain and low, rumbly summer storms, and high temperatures mostly in the high 70s to low 80s.

Daisy and I have been spending a lot of time together, and that makes me very happy and at ease with myself -- I feel peaceful.

Gas prices are down.

The car is running well.

The cats are in good health.

I myself seem to be in good health, body is working well and doing what it should, and I just got a refill of my meds -- with enough to last me through September at the very least (thank you, Amazon Pharmacy). 

I've been getting some decent, if not outright good or great sleep on most days.

Work has not been terrible as of late.

Our garden has exploded in productivity and we should be getting our first haul of good vegetables within the next week or two at most. 

There's nothing wrong with the house or the appliances in it, for once (that we know of). 

After six months of T-Mobile wireless internet I can safely say I would never go back to using internet from a local cable provider ever again. Ever again. 

I just got a new tattoo, which I love. 

I just got a bunch of new glasses, which I also love. 

Related: my prescription hasn't changed so much to where the old glasses are unusable.

There's a new Marvel series on Disney+ (Secret Invasion) and there's a new season of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds both happening at the same time and currently running.

I'm coming up with new story ideas almost every day.

I went through my closet and filled three giant garbage bags with clothing to donate, which (if all goes well) we'll drop off at the donation center today.

Many of you are probably thinking "why are you tempting the fates, Brandon?"

I'm not exactly waiting for the other shoe to drop. Everyone in life has bad times and good times. Most people only acknowledge or focus on the bad times. I, for once, would like to take a moment and focus on the good. 

June, July, and the Hereafter

 Welcome back, all.

So, in the time since we returned from Canada, there's been a lot going on -- as there usually is during any given summer. I'd like to chronicle the larger events here to catch up as we move forward. Since our return, we have:

• Gone to the eye doctor and have gotten new prescriptions
• Had our yearly physicals and bloodwork done
• Had a past-life reading done with a psychic (with Daisy's parents, and no, I'm not kidding)
• Set up a trip to visit my parents in NC
• I've gotten a new tattoo
• Gotten back into the swing of going to the gym 2-3 times a week
• Found out that my entire company is now work-from-home permanently
• I've been working on my writing/brainstorming new story ideas 
• Enjoyed July 4th vacation days

Amongst some other less important things.

I guess I should start from the beginning and just slowly work down through my list of updates, right?

Before we left, I took the initiative to set up new eye exams for us, and Daisy set up the appointments for our yearly physicals. As a diabetic it is imperative that I have a new eye exam every year now so that they can check for macular degeneration or what-have-you. I don't have any eye problems, of course, other than my normal shitty vision -- but it's good that they actually want to check me for everything on a regular basis, and I'm also a sucker for new glasses frames/styles, so I've never put up a fight about it. An eye exam takes like half an hour and I can do it on a Saturday afternoon without any real problems, so it's an in-out thing for me. The worst part of it is getting my eyes dilated with those drops that sting like hell. 

Well, about halfway through our trip to Nova Scotia, I got a text message (yes, we have full cell service in Canada) that said that our appointments had been abruptly canceled since our doctor would not be in the office on the day we'd chosen.

Normally I'd be like so what? Just schedule us with whoever's there. But apparently I would need to go through the full process of setting up new appointments for us. So, I waited until we were back home and I had access to my computer and keyboard again, and scheduled the exams for the following Saturday. 

My eyes are fine; my prescription is only very slightly different than it was this time last year. I got the new prescription, went home that night and ordered five new pairs of glasses from my favorite glasses website (Payne Glasses, in case any of you were curious), charged to our FSA card. I received them in the mail earlier this week, and honestly cannot tell the difference between my previous prescription and my new one -- that's how close they are. I used this as an opportunity to go through a lot of my older frames with older prescriptions and box them up for donation to the local Lions Club, only keeping the ones I wanted/could not live without. 

Daisy's prescription, however, worsened considerably -- and eventually I'm sure she'll order new glasses with her new prescription. I should probably bug her about that a bit so she does it soon before she puts it off too long and just forgets.

The best part of it all is that they have a new digital imaging machine that you can opt into using -- using it adds some dollars to your co-pay, but the bonus is that you don't have to get your eyes forcibly dilated with the drops anymore. It takes a hi-res picture of your eyes and they can scan that on the computer instead. So this begs the question of it's 2023, where was this a decade ago? If I'd had the opportunity to use this years ago I would have, as the dilation fucks my vision for far longer than it's supposed to, and it burns like hell. 

So, there's that.

My bloodwork at the doctor wasn't great, but it also wasn't terrible. My A1C has gone up slightly, and my fasting glucose levels may as well be chocolate syrup, but everything else remains mostly normal.  Or, well, normal for me, anyway. The statins I'm on have kept my cholesterol down -- in fact, it's a point or two below the lowest end of the normal expected range -- and I've lost a few pounds since I was last in the office. However, the nursing staff there doesn't have a clue about what's actually going on in my charts.

"Hi Brandon," the nurse said when I answered her call. "We wanted to go over your bloodwork with you. Dr. [Name] wants you to continue using the Trulicity--"

"I'mma stop you right there," I said. "I'm not on Trulicity. I've never been on Trulicity. I'm on 2000mg of Metformin per day and I was prescribed Glipizide, which I just picked up but have not started yet."

"Well, I'll have to talk to Dr. [Name] then to go over stuff with him then. He wants you to come back in six weeks to have another blood draw done to check your A1C--"

"Okay," I said, "I'm not doing that. A1C is a 3-month average number." 

You know that and I know that. 

"I can come back in September," I added, "as previously planned, to have it done again so that we can have an accurate, meaningful reading, but six weeks does not work for me."

"It's just a nurse visit," she said, getting snappy with me. "It's an in-and-out blood draw."

"Well, I will be out of town in six weeks," I said. "I can set up the three-month appointment for September."

"Let me talk to him and I'll call you back, okay? Bye." click.

I never got a call back. 

Daisy is going to schedule the follow up appointment for September -- as it should be.

I'm not doing this "every six weeks" blood draw bullshit for the foreseeable future. It's not happening and it's pointless. My diabetes isn't at the point where I'm goddamn dying or anything, I don't have an A1C of 12 or 15 or anything like that -- it's just a point and a half higher than what they deem "ideal." And it varies greatly from time to time based on stress levels, diet, and exercise. I went from getting bloodwork done every six months to every three months to now, where they're trying to get me to do it every six weeks. No. I'm not doing that and it's overkill. I would desperately like to go back to the "see you in six months" plan we had going before. That was a good plan. I liked that plan a lot. 

I have not yet started the Glipizide. It was free; it's covered by my insurance. But, it makes the blood sugar drop really low, you can't skip meals or snacks while you're on it, and one of the side effects of it is weight gain. For someone who has lost fifty pounds in the past five years, the last thing I want is weight gain. I work overnights and eat once, maybe twice a day. I can't go on a medicine where I have to constantly be within arm's reach of something to eat, with the alternative being "pass out from low blood sugar" because I can't be chained to my fridge or pantry 24/7. I have a job, I have to sleep, and I'm not going to start packing weight back on. I would like to discuss it further with my doctor, but...they haven't called me back after they said they were going to.

So, for now, it is what it is. To those ends, Daisy and I have returned to the gym and I've been working out 2-3 days a week. I've also put myself on a fairly strict diet, so that when I do go back into the office in the fall for further bloodwork, maybe my blood won't be so much like gravy. 

In other news...

So as I mentioned above, about three weeks ago we (meaning me, Daisy, and her parents) went to see a psychic medium to get a "past life reading."

Yeah, that's a thing. You sit down with a psychic and he tells you about all of your past lives. Well, most of them, anyway. The ones he can "see."

I know. I know, okay?

I am a skeptic of most things supernatural. Yes, I have seen/heard/felt ghosts. Yes, I have seen UFOs more than once. I'll tell those stories here eventually, I am sure. But, in all my years on this planet, I have never met a real, true psychic. And I've seen many famous ones be debunked or otherwise outright come out and say that what they do is all parlor tricks -- "cold readings" and the like.

I am not one to be impressed by such tactics, or one to be swayed by them. As a lifelong skeptic, I feel that I need to clarify this before I continue forward with this story.

We had to make an appointment to meet with this guy -- named Andy -- a few months in advance. He's apparently famous in the psychic circles for what he does, has hundreds of podcasts, has written multiple bestselling books, etc. I'd never heard of him, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything since I don't really follow or generally even give purported psychics a second thought. So, when Daisy's mother mentioned that we should do the visit together, all of us, I sort of rolled my eyes about it and agreed to it because at the very least, it would be interesting, right?

The group session was $450 and was set for the middle of June. We would pay our half and the parents would pay theirs. Pricey, yes. Ridiculously pricey, yeah, I'll go ahead and say "yes' to that as well. But I thought, in the end, the hell with it -- maybe I'll get a good story idea or two out of it.

I'll also preface this by saying that I don't exactly know what I believe when it comes to "past lives." Do I believe in an "afterlife"? Eh. I don't really know. I do know that ghosts are a thing -- I 100% believe in ghosts because I've seen them and experienced ghostly encounters, but if we're talking about some sort of religious, heaven-and-hell afterlife? Angels and demons and the like? Hell no. 

No pun intended there, of course.

I don't know if our consciousnesses continue to exist somewhere in the ether after we die. I'd like to think they likely do, in some respects, but I even have trouble believing that. I have an open mind about a lot of things, but that openness only goes so far.

"Don't you feel like you've been here before?" Daisy asked me, as I was talking to her about my skepticism. "Or that you somehow know things you shouldn't know?"

"Not really," I said with a shrug. And that's the truth. Not really. "If I have been here before I have no recollection of it, and I absolutely never experience the phenomenon of 'knowing something I shouldn't know' because I...well, I don't. I do not recall any times where I have some strange, unknown knowledge that I just inherently know or feel, without a rational explanation."

So, to be a good sport and for the sheer adventure of it all, I signed the digital consent form and the appointment was set for a Friday morning a few weeks after we would return from Canada.

After the Canada trip, I had no real PTO left remaining. But, the week of the appointment was especially hectic at work, and I did not get a lunch hour the entire week. Due to that, I felt justified in saying "hey y'all, I have a morning appointment that I have to sleep for beforehand, so I'm leaving at 2am on X day." Which I did -- I made sure my team knew in advance, and the night before the reading I turned off my stuff at 2, put up a temporary out-of-office message, and went upstairs to bed.

That morning we arrived at the psychic's "office" of sorts -- which looked like a cult leader's rec room -- he greeted us and we sat down at a conference table. We were told that it was a 90 minute reading, with each of us getting a little more than 20 minutes of individual time. We'd all be in the same room -- as in, nobody would leave the room, we'd all hear each other's readings. Okay. Fair enough, I guess.

There were things I expected him to say -- or, rather, things I "wanted to hear" when it came to my past life reading. I expected him to tell me that I was at one point in time a sailor, a commander/captain/general in some sort of army, a powerful leader, an artist, a musician, a revolutionary, etc. I expected those to be threads throughout my past lives, given my love of the sea, my need to be in authority/control freak-ism, my dream to always live on a coastline, etc.

Those -- at least most of those in some fashion or another -- were things that he said Dad had been in his past lives.

What did he say about me?

Well...

In my past lives I was apparently a wizard, a hermit who had a not-quite-tame hawk as a pet, an antique store dealer named Henry who wrote science fiction stories/novels and had fathered a wonderful daughter with a crazy woman, a court jester in medieval times, a French soldier (I guess during a renaissance-like period, so he said), and one of two leaders of a failing tribe in Africa -- that one I shared with Daisy, who was the other leader. The hawk is my spirit animal (or one of them, anyway -- he didn't tell me about any others), and I have two spirit guides -- Julia, who gets me out of my comfort zone, and Antoine, who tries to make me laugh. I have apparently lived something like 27 lives, though I can't remember the exact number. He can't give you a full rundown of every one of them, but he described what he "sees" as akin to a montage of scenes, events, etc and draws details from those things, and some lives don't show up in what he sees. 

Do I believe any of it? Ehhhhh. I don't know. I really don't know. There are certainly things he touched on that I believe have been long-running threads throughout my life -- the need to make people laugh, my love of writing and science fiction, but there's also things that he could not have possibly known that shook me a bit -- like about the hawk being my spirit animal guide. I have always felt a special kinship of sorts with birds of prey for some reason -- hawks, falcons, eagles -- they've always fascinated me. But I could say the same thing about turtles too, and he didn't bring up anything about turtles. My favorite bird is the Blue Jay, which he also didn't bring up (but I now have a tattoo of, which I'll get to). 

After the reading when we were back at the parents' house, we discussed the amount of stuff that we felt was "possibly accurate" versus things that given enough time and diligent searching, this psychic guy could have pulled from the internet about each of us. There's a lot of publicly-available knowledge out there about a lot of people, and while I try to keep my own online self locked down as much as possible, a lot of people don't care to. Some people have a much larger online presence than others, for example -- about 20 years ago, I was very internet famous for quite some time and had one of the most popular blogs in the world. That's not bragging, a joke, or an exaggeration -- it is true. While that blog was taken down and scoured from the internet about 18 years ago, I don't know what's still out there on some server collecting digital dust. I haven't a clue. 

Adding to the apparent realism of the entire experience is that he could, if he is actually a hack, have told us anything that he would expect we'd want to hear. Because, of course, everyone wants to hear they were a famous rockstar, actor, author, Alexander the Great, Patton, Napoleon, Cleopatra, etc. He didn't do that, for any of us, which made me think okay, perhaps there's a shred of legitimacy here. But as I've said above, I've seen a lot of things in my life, but I have never met an actual psychic with actual, bona-fide psychic abilities. I'm honestly more convinced that they don't exist more than I'm convinced they do, because as the old joke goes, you never see the headline "psychic wins lottery."

So, I left the experience about the same level as skeptical as I entered it. I did find it interesting though that he used to be one of those "talk to the dead" medium people, as in people would come to him and he'd talk to their dead relatives and tell them what they were saying, etc. He apparently stopped doing that because it was too traumatic for him and mentally taxing -- to the point where it's written in bold letters on his website that he does not and will not do it anymore. That is intensely interesting to me.

So yeah, that was a thing we all did. 

In other news, shortly after returning from Canada, we booked a trip to visit my parents this fall in NC. It will be the first time I've seen them in person in six years, and only the second time we will have seen them since Daisy and I were married. As I write this, it is July 5th. The trip is in two months. I am already about 85% packed and ready to go now. 

This is who I am as a person, I suppose.

We've been trying to plan a trip to visit my parents for a few years now. Covid stopped it twice, in 2020 and 2021. Last year we would have been able to do it if Daisy's grandfather hadn't died, which made the trip to Nova Scotia on much shorter notice much more expensive and time-consuming. This year, we had some planning time and the means to actually schedule something in advance, book the plane tickets and rental car, and just do it. Plus, as you know, we've already gone to and returned from Nova Scotia this year already. 

We have never seen my parents' house in North Carolina. My mother has been trying to get us to visit them there for some time, but my pushback was always that I wanted to visit home, which for me is West Virginia -- where my friends and family are. But, over the years, times have changed -- my parents will be selling the West Virginia house, probably sooner rather than later, as they now live in North Carolina full-time. Most of my friends back home have moved on in their lives, started their own families -- some (read: a lot) have even left the state, died, or dropped off the face of the earth. As such, there's not a lot left for me there but memories and ghosts of memories. Sure, I have a good chunk of family there in the area and a handful of friends I would love to see again, but as time has passed (it's  now been 17 years since I moved out of West Virginia) my thoughts on it are that it feels less like home now and more like, simply, where I'm from. My home now is wherever Daisy is, where her parents are, where our cats are. My home has become, of all places, Omaha. My parents' home has now become North Carolina. To a certain extent I feel like a nomad, but to another extent I also wonder where my final home will be, because I can tell you now that it will not be Omaha. I do not want to live here forever, and really do not want to live here any longer than Daisy and I have to. 

Anyway, everything's booked and we'll be flying down to North Carolina in two months to spend a week with my parents at their beach house, on the coastline, a stone's throw from the Outer Banks and Myrtle Beach. My suitcase is already packed (as I mentioned) but it'll probably need some revisions in the intervening time, so to speak, and I'm looking forward to seeing my senior-citizen parents again -- if only for a few short days.

That may be the last big trip we have planned until next year, honestly. We're likely going to spend a weekend in Chicago this fall, and will likely spend a weekend in Denver before that as well, but as for big, expensive travel...we're done and I want to keep it that way. It is very expensive to book trips, and it's time-and-PTO consuming. I have not yet put in the PTO for the trip to see my parents, but I will be doing so soon enough. 

Speaking of PTO...

So, about a month ago -- right after we got back from Canada -- I was informed by my job that our parent company was finally closing down our last physical brick-and-mortar building here in Omaha. There are multiple "line groups" that work out of that building, most -- but not all -- of whom went work-from-home when Covid hit, and later returned to site. My line of business was one of the groups who never returned to site, as it was the largest line of business here in Omaha with about 300 employees. In the interim since we went work-from-home, the building that my team was in was closed down, torn down, and the property was sold to the nursing college next door to build a mental health facility -- something that all of us who worked in that building found extremely ironic and amusing. 

At the time, that building and the "home office" of sorts, where I did my training waaay back in 2014, were the only two buildings left in town that the company owned. Now, they're selling off that building and all employees in it are now permanently work-from-home, along with my team/my program. 

To recap a bit, my line of business has been work from home since Covid started; it was done as a temporary measure in the beginning (read: we all assumed we'd be returning to site once Covid was done), and then they sold the building we were in -- so at that point it was assumed that we were more or less permanently work-from-home, though nobody came out and flatly said it. 

Last summer, there was a security breach and the giant conglomerate telecom company that we actually work for decided that it would be a good time to bring everyone back to the office. The employees basically rioted -- of the 300ish employees we had at the time, only about 5% were willing to go back to the office to work. The rest said they would either quit on the spot or would put in their two weeks' notice on the day they were forced to return. Of my team at the time, only two were willing to go back to site to work -- both of them very begrudgingly, and one of them was in El Paso, not Omaha (about half our teams, roughly, operate out of El Paso). 

So, faced with the prospect of our entire program shutting down, that plan was quietly abandoned and new, stronger security measures were put in place for our teams. El Paso's physical location was quietly shut down a few months later, to the point where even if they'd tried to force hands and make our agents down there go back to work in an office, the El Paso agents couldn't physically do that anymore. It was at that point where I was able to relax a bit and realize that this job would really be permanently work-from-home. 

Now, with the closure of our last open office here in Omaha, that has been completely cemented. As long as we're under contract with our parent company, unless said company gives us the funds to buy another building and mandates we move into it, we are all absolutely work-from-home forever. 

There are other looming issues on the horizon, though -- we know that there are staffing cuts coming. Not everyone will be keeping their jobs, and not everyone will be doing what they are doing now after new changes roll through. Not everyone will be happy. It's coming and I've known it's been coming for quite some time. I feel relatively safe in my position and in where I am, what I do, etc -- because I have some inside knowledge on a lot of what's going to happen. However, there are likely a lot of others who also feel safe in their positions who absolutely shouldn't. And when the hammer falls, it is likely to become very ugly very fast. The timeline we've been given is about four months or so before all of this stuff starts going into effect -- so, right before the holidays. 

I have said before that I do not like my job, but I do not overtly dislike it either. There's a lot of toxicity in the job I have, and I have to navigate around it and through it. There's also a lot of good as well. I wouldn't have stuck around so long if it weren't for the people I work with and who work for me. I wouldn't have stuck around if we were forced to go back to the office, either -- that is a hard no for me. I've gotten bonuses, I've gotten raises, and I've garnered a lot of respect and thanks from not only my own peers and leadership, but from C-level corporate leadership from time to time as well. I would love to believe that I am fully safe and that I am not going anywhere; I am likely near the top of the list of "safe" employees, and I know I'm at the top of the list for promotion to a program director or what-have-you -- but I can never fully validate that or not at least be a little wary. All I can do is do the best job I can when I'm there and on the clock. 

Finally, the last thing I wanted to talk about in this already-lengthy entry is that this past Saturday, I finally got a new tattoo. Behold:

It was $200, plus a $40 tip to the very sweet, kind and talented artist who took time out of her afternoon to sketch it up and put it on me. It took a little over two hours to do from start to finish, while we had some of the heaviest rain I've seen in many years pour down outside the entire time I was in the studio.

It is larger than it appears in the photo -- it takes up about 80% of my outer left forearm. It's larger than the roses I had done about two years ago (also at this same studio). I am very happy with it.

Yes, it hurt -- in some places, at some times. The actual line art didn't really hurt at all, but some of that coloring and shading was painful in many places. It wasn't unbearable and wasn't any worse than the roses on my other arm. For a good chunk of time I actually had to lay down on the table (it gave her a better angle to do the art) and I could have -- realistically -- slept through it if I'd wanted to. I did not.

In the five days since I got the tattoo, I have been meticulously taking care of it, and it's gone through the normal processes of healing as expected -- first, sensitivity and soreness, with lots of ink loss from the top layer of skin, then a few days of healing where that ache/sensitivity/soreness slowly fades away, and now we're at the stage where it has to be kept moisturized/lotioned heavily 24/7 because that top layer of skin is now drying out and will begin to scab and itch. Scabbing is bad, obviously, so keeping balm or lotion on it while that top layer of skin is coming off (think of how a sunburn peels) is crucial in the healing process. If you've never had a tattoo and get one, especially a larger one -- yes, after a few days it will start to dry out and itch. Do not scratch it. Get some good tattoo balm like Hustle Butter or the Viking Revolution stuff and slather it the fuck down multiple times a day until it's greasy. Rub it in multiple times over multiple hours until it absorbs fully into the skin, and you won't really scab up -- the skin will be so soft and moisturized that it'll basically just dissolve in the shower. Do that for a week or so and you'll basically be healed and can go about your life without needing to keep close tabs on your new body art.

"So what will your next one be?" Daisy asked me. 

"I think I'm done for a while," I said.

"Didn't you say you wanted to get a new tattoo every year on your birthday? What happened to that?"

Note: it is NOT my birthday -- but on my birthday last year the temperature was like -15, we'd gotten a snowstorm the night before, and the internet went out for like three days...so it wasn't exactly the best time.

"I know," I said. "But eh, I think I'm done for a while unless something else pops up that I know I want. The Blue Jay is the last thing I wanted for some time."

This is true. I had the roses on the right arm and wanted something on the left to complement them. Now that I have the Blue Jay, that should be enough for now. I don't really have a deep desire to get any more art on me anytime soon. For one, it's expensive, and for two, I feel like my needs for expression have basically been met at this point. 

So, that's about all that's been going on recently. There's some other little things happening, of course, but nothing major and as they say, "nothing to write home about." I return to work tonight after taking a few days off over the 4th of July, and I'll be back in the groove for the foreseeable future -- at least until our trip to North Carolina.

Onward!

Brandon and Daisy Return to Canada, Part V: The Pissing Bandit of Cape Jack

The parents gave us two things to do before leaving for home -- neither of them were requirements, mind you, but they were places to go and see that they thought would be fulfilling, fun little adventures for us. The first one was to go to the beach at Cape Jack -- a small, out of the way beach that was said to be beautiful, where nobody was ever around. It was far from a picturesque beach, like the one in Inverness, as it was supposedly a more rocky shore, but we were told it was gorgeous and usually nobody was there.

The other was to visit the monastery in the town of -- are you ready for this -- Monastery. Dad had told us that it was one of his favorite places on the planet, with a beautiful walking path that led up to a blessed holy spring that you could drink from (and were encouraged to), and there was a giant church there with an attached -- again -- monastery. Both were sort of out of the way places in the middle of nowhere, and while I wasn't necessarily enthused to visit a house of Jesus (given my staunch atheism), I had an open mind and I love going on adventures with Daisy. Adventures create memories. Adventures with Daisy make me happy. Life with her, in general, is an adventure. 

We decided to do these things on separate days -- Cape Jack on the night before we left, and Monastery on the morning that we would be driving back to Halifax. I think. This was a month ago now, and my memory is rather fuzzy of the way the events unfolded. Daisy will read these travel narratives I write here after every trip we take together, and she will tell me things like "you're not doing this chronologically; we did X event on X day and we did Y event on Y day, and X before Y, you're getting them messed up." It used to really bother me but honestly, it doesn't anymore. I tend to remember the important things and the minutiae of when is lost in the ether. Sometimes I'll swear my recollection of time is correct and will argue the point with her, and other times she's very clearly right and I just had things out of order. I really stopped caring about most of it a while ago and now just try to focus on the stories of the events themselves, because that's the overall point. 

As we were wrapping up the last day or two of our trip, we began hearing stories of wildfires outside of Halifax, and some were getting pretty close to the city and threatening homes around and just outside the city limits. Daisy's aunt and uncle, when they visited, mentioned the fires briefly and almost in passing, as if mostly unconcerned. There had been fires previously that had gotten close enough to where they lived (just outside Halifax, I guess) to where they'd been told to prepare to be evacuated, but the evacuations never came to pass.

By the time we were getting ready to leave, evacuations were already starting to be issued for the Halifax general area (though not, I don't think, for most of the city proper -- just the suburbs and surrounding areas) and it had become the top story on the national evening news in Canada. It had also become a leading story on the national news in the states. And we would be driving back into Halifax to get to the airport, hotel, drop off our rental car, and fly out. So, it was fairly concerning to us. 

There's not a lot of things I'm afraid of on this planet. There's not a single person I fear, I don't really fear death as much as I should (if I die, it means I don't have to worry about bills or paying student loans anymore, so there's that), but that doesn't mean that there aren't things that I don't want to "go through" or experience. I don't want to drown, I don't want to go to prison, I don't want to be hanged, I don't want to get seriously ill, and I don't want to die in a fire. 

Nova Scotia is much smaller than it appears to be on a map. I'm sure that you could drive one end of the province to the other in about 6-7 hours, from the tip of Cape Breton where Bay St. Lawrence is to Yarmouth on the far southwestern shore. So, when a large chunk of it is on fire, that tends to be a serious concern. 

In Mulgrave -- and even in the surrounding towns -- we saw nothing. We smelled no smoke, we saw no smoke, the sea air was crisp and clean just as much as it was any other time. If it had not been in the news, we would not have known anything was happening. I want to stress this as it feels like we were completely detached from the events just a few hours away, eventhough we really weren't.

Anyway. I'll come back to this later. Onward with the story.

Cape Jack is a beautiful, but not exactly hospitable, beach. To get there, you have to drive down some really winding, hilly back roads well off the main highway, following fairly vague signs, passing some nondescript houses with yard cars (some nice, some decrepit). It reminded me a lot of driving through the countryside of West Virginia, except on those drives you can't see the ocean in the distance through the treeline. 

The parents weren't kidding; Cape Jack is what I would refer to as an "abandoned beach." There are a few houses around it and leading up to it, but all of them are at least half a mile from the shoreline. The shoreline is not so much a sandy beach as it is covered in giant rocks and debris. 

But. It is beautiful. 

And, like the parents said, there was nobody there. 

Down the shore from where the actual "beach" is, there's a small farm with a farmhouse, a barn, and people living there who own big trucks -- I don't mean tractor trailers or farm-use trucks, but big F-250 bro-dozers with lift kits and mud tires. About a mile away from them on the opposite end of the shore, up on the cliffs/hills, there's a McMansion built into the hill that looked really expensive, but was very clearly built there for the seaside view. It was also about 3/4 of a mile from where we were. 

As you can see, the beach is rocky. This is typical of a lot of the Nova Scotia shoreline -- I haven't seen a lot of beaches up there -- and by "beach" I mean "where the ocean meets solid ground" that isn't rocky. There are the sandy beaches here and there, yes, but the above photo is more of what you'll see.

We got there in early evening, when it was still very bright and sunny outside. I very easily navigated a path through the larger rocks to get down to the smaller ones, while Daisy had more trouble (even though she went ahead of me). She was maybe 200, 300 yards further down the beach than I was when I realized something was amiss.

I had to pee.

This is a wide open beach in the middle of nowhere at the end of a long, winding road through wilderness, and I had an entire large Tim Hortons double-double in me from the drive. 

I had to pee.

There were no bathrooms, there were no signs, there were no people around and no houses close enough to offer facilities in my time of need.

I looked down the shore. Daisy was down there walking along the rocks, far away from me.

I looked behind me; the house with the farm was at least half a mile from where I stood. There were no people outside or milling around.

I looked beyond Daisy, up on the hill to the McMansion, which was clearly much farther away than the farmhouse behind me.

I shrugged (I don't know if physically, but definitely mentally), undid my shorts, and peed right there on the rocky beach. 

It took 30 seconds at most. I put everything away and redid my pants and re-joined Daisy further down the beach as if nothing had happened. 

Getting off the beach was a problem for Daisy -- the bigger rocks, like the ones you had to step on and over to get down to the actual shoreline -- were filled with bees. Yellowjackets, specifically. Daisy is deathly allergic to bees. She said she saw them everywhere, that they were flying down into the rocks because, I guess, they made their nests in them/under them. 

I didn't see a single one. Anywhere. I looked. I was very vigilant. I saw no living creature of any kind, flying or non-flying, bee or non-bee. Nothing. I tried to help her through the rocks, telling her to step where I stepped, but she was having supreme difficulty doing it. When she finally got out of the rocks and back onto the grass/gravel beyond them, where we'd parked the car in the cul-de-sac, she was very angry with me that I'd chosen the "most difficult" path/way to get out of the rocks and had made her go that way too.

Uh. I don't do hard things; I take the most direct route that is the easiest path forward. This is basically one of my tenets of life, not just in beach-crawling. Getting on/over/off the rocks sucks, it hurts your feet, and it's uncomfortable. I don't know what way she took to get over them the first time, but apparently wherever she went was filled with bees, where my way back over them was faster, closer to the car, and bee-free.

Once we were back in the car, I told her that I'd peed on the beach.

"Where?" She asked. "Are you kidding me? There are people around!"

"Just there in the rocks," I said. "What people? We're the only ones here. The houses are at least half a mile away and nobody is around. Do you think that people are watching us out their windows with binoculars?"

I would like to pause here for a moment so you can consider that mental image of the residents of those houses looking out their windows, binoculars pressed against their window panes, being like "Do you see that? He's pissing! He's pissing right there on the beach! Get their license plate, I'm calling the mounties on them!"

"And," I added, "so what if someone did see me? It's a beach -- the urine will flow into the rocks, into the sea, and be reunited with the earth. It's not like if anyone saw me they'd be able to tell what I was doing or identify me from half a mile away. I'm not from here and they'll never see me again. The worst thing that would happen is that stories would be told about the pissing bandit of Cape Jack, who let loose his pee and soiled the shores of this beloved province, etc."

I'm sure "and I bet he was American, too" would be added to said stories.

We took some pictures on the beach, and as we were leaving, a truck with several teenagers in it -- high school or early college-aged I'm guessing, arrived for some beach-walking. They looked at us as if we were aliens, or invaders/intruders on a private beach that they personally owned -- just looks of disgust that we were there soaking up the scenery too. 

Watch out down there, I fired a gallon of hot, fresh piss into the rocks is what I wanted to yell to them as they gave us their condescending looks, but I did not. 

Anyway.

The trip to Monastery was slightly more eventful and deeply unsettling to me.

There is a giant....convent? nunnery? I don't know exactly what to call it aside from -- well, a monastery -- there, also back off the main roads and through barely-two-lane gravel roads up in the woods. If the monastery itself is your destination, you absolutely cannot miss it, because it's winding road, winding road, small bridge over a creek, woods, woods, more woods, some wetlands, woods, more winding road, and then BAM a giant monastery complex in the middle of nowhere. 

We pulled into the circular drive of the monastery and noticed several things immediately --

1. there is a giant church next to the actual monastery complex/building

2. there was one car -- a bigger, older 90s-model Lincoln Town Car -- parked between the two buildings (with Pennsylvania plates -- in Nova Scotia, so figure that one out, because we couldn't)

3. even through it was a bright, sunny day, there were no sounds anywhere but the wind

4. there were no other people or even a hint of other life around the entire area, anywhere.

I immediately felt a sense of unease -- strong unease. Something didn't feel right. It felt like we were being watched, or like we were being followed or tracked by a predatory animal. Daisy did not feel this feeling while we were there.

As I mentioned above, I'm really not afraid of anything. I've lived in at least two different haunted houses (including this one -- I'm sure I'll tell some of those stories here eventually) and I remain unfazed by a lot of the supernatural. But I could not shake the feeling that there was something watching me, something wrong with this place.

"Let's go see the church," Daisy said.

"We really don't have to," I replied. 

But it was no use. Two minutes later, we were inside this very large, very quiet, and very empty Catholic church.

The church was very old, all wooden construction, but clearly from the 1800s or early 1900s. Yet, it seemed like no time had passed inside. It was very well-kept, very clean, and the stained glass windows looked like they'd been installed yesterday instead of many years before.

The church was quite possibly the quietest place I've been in my life. It was unnervingly quiet. So quiet I could hear my heartbeat, so quiet that I could hear Daisy breathing when she was twenty feet away from me. 

Lining the...I guess, altar area? (I don't know church terminology) and all along the right side of the church -- where there were separate pews/bench seating, I guess where the church choir likely would sit -- were prayer candles. There were two boxes -- one for donations and one where you could write your prayer on a slip of paper, place it inside, and then light a candle for it afterwards. 

Almost all of the candles were lit and burning. Unattended, in an old, old Catholic church, in the middle of the day with nobody around. Many of these candles were new -- they'd been lit very recently, as in...that day. Some of their wicks were barely blackened by the flame, as if they'd been lit by some unforeseen entity just before we'd entered the church.

Everything was silent but the wind howling outside around the building. The old wooden church would occasionally creak a bit against the wind.

Someone had to light those candles. Someone had to do it very recently. Someone who might be silently watching us from the shadows even now, when we thought nobody was around.

I suddenly realized that the uneasiness I felt was dread. A deep-seated dread, a dread that told me I did not belong here, that I needed to leave, that I was not welcome.

"I have to get out of here," I told Daisy. "This is intensely creepy and I need to go back outside."

"Okay baby," she said, with a sort of amusement. "I'll be outside in a minute."

It felt as if the eyes of a thousand ghosts were upon my back and following me as I exited the church and the door closed behind me. 

Once I was outside, the bright sun and the breeze brought me back to reality. Everything felt normal again, aside from the fact that there was still no one around anywhere, and everything was still quiet. I no longer felt the dread or uneasiness I'd felt inside the church. 

I waited for what seemed an eternity for Daisy to exit the church. For a few fleeting moments before she did, I wondered if whatever was inside had gotten her, possessed her in some fashion. You have to come back in, Brandon. We have your wife. She likes it here. This is your new home now and you'll never have to leave it again. 

Finally, she came outside, normal as ever. I told her about the dread I'd experienced. She said she felt nothing but relaxation and peace.

Those of you who are religious are probably reading this like well, you felt dread and like you didn't belong because the lord knows you are a heathen, an atheist who dances with the devil, an anti-religion lost soul who has rejected Jesus -- and let me tell you that you're still wrong, and I'll prove that to you here in a bit.

Well, okay, you're right about the atheist, anti-religion thing.

Anyway.

Beyond the monastery and further up the...I guess, mountain? into the woods, there is a holy shrine and holy blessed spring. 

Holy blessed spring, Batman!

This was something else Daisy's parents had mentioned that we couldn't miss, a beautiful peaceful place in the woods that we needed to see and experience. Dad had mentioned to us on the phone that he had drank water from the spring many times, that it was encouraged, and that so far it had never hurt him (which was less than convincing to me, a man of science who doesn't generally scoop untreated groundwater out of a spring in the wilderness to drink it). 

The shrine, and spring, were up a winding path with archway structures and statues/plaques of varying sorts build and/or embedded into the earth. Wooden signs, aged from many years of Nova Scotia weather, pointed you in various directions -- shrine, spring, the anti-abortion monument (because oh yes, there was one of those), etc. There was not another soul there, except for maybe the holy ghost of Jesus, if you believe in that sort of thing. 

Once we got up the path far enough, it took a sharp left -- and, directly in front of us, was the "holy blessed spring" -- a little trickle of a creek that came down off the mountain and out of a pipe. I believe a footbridge went across it at the bottom as well. Hanging from hooks embedded in the rock were two tin cups. Camping cups, beneath a tiny sign that proclaimed that this, yes, this was the spring.

I walked up to the cups, rinsed the dust out of one of them in the pool of the spring, and got a cupful of the fresh water right out of the running spring. I drank it, questioning everything I'd ever been told or learned from my boy scout or scientist days. It was clean. Refreshing. Free of impurities. Honestly, it tasted like well water. Just water right out of the ground, no mineral or chemical taste.

So, and here's where my heathenism comes in -- I'm either not so vile as to where water from a holy blessed spring would hurt me (because, essentially, it was holy water), orrrrrr the entire religion thing is absolute and total bullshit and I was literally just drinking water out of a creek.

Daisy watched this entire chain of events unfold, amusedly, and had filmed me drinking the spring water on her phone. I wanted to ask her if, when she watched it, the camera caught the demons leaving my body, but I chose not to. She drank from the other cup (I think) shortly thereafter, and it was around that point where she pointed out that this was supposed to absolve us of our sins.

"Like, all of them?" I asked. "I am pure and can enter the kingdom of heaven after this point?"

I had to really try not to laugh. Daisy is not a religious person, but she is a spiritual one and says she believes there is some truth in all religions. I think, conversely, that there is very little truth in any of them, but I don't openly criticize. Believe what you want. I have the freedom and the sense of logic to understand what's bullshit and what's not, and I'll never criticize someone for having faith -- sometimes that's all someone has to keep them going, and all of us have to find peace on this planet in one way or another. I don't have to agree in order to empathize.

"When I was washing and drinking from the cup," Daisy said, "all I could think about was covid and how many people with covid drank from the cup in the past three years." 

I shrugged. "Doesn't matter," I said. "It's a Jesus cup. I'm sure it's been cleansed of disease by the holy spirit."

We then looked around the site for a bit before getting back into the car and leaving Monastery -- both the physical monastery as well as the town -- to head back to civilization.

Our last bit of time in the Mulgrave area was mostly uneventful. We packed our stuff, carefully and precisely, so that we wouldn't be overweight when it came to checking our bags. This was made more difficult by the fact that Grams had given Daisy a set of very nice, expensive china to take home. Daisy had to wrap it in clothing and meticulously pack every single piece to make sure it wouldn't get cracked, chipped, or broken in transit from Nova Scotia back to Omaha. Between that, all of the new clothing and souvenirs we purchased, as well as the food we were bringing back (mostly ketchup chips, some candy bars, and some K-cups), packing everything so that it would not only fit but wouldn't be overweight or damaged was almost like event planning. Daisy had brought a backpack in her luggage that would fit the china, and with careful planning and some luck she was able to get everything to fit.

Me? I just stuffed everything I could into my suitcase and my own canvas backpack and zipped it closed, hoping the zipper wouldn't burst on the suitcase in the plane's cargo hold(s). The backpack would stay with me, but the suitcase would need to be checked when we got on our plane in Halifax. This packing I'd done would become even more difficult when we stopped at a Giant Tiger in New Glasgow on the way back to Halifax and purchased even more things.

I should backtrack a bit to explain some of the travel plans.

Originally, our last full day in Nova Scotia, we were planning to arrive in Halifax early and tour the city, see the touristy areas and the harbor, get some beautiful pictures, eat at one or more vegan restaurants, etc. However, as mentioned above, the wildfires right outside the city were growing. By the time we left Mulgrave to head towards Halifax, they'd become catastrophic in many places and CBC radio was doing full-on, no-commercials live news coverage for our entire drive towards Halifax.

These are the alerts that came across our phones while we were traveling towards the blazes. 

So, because of the evacuations and possible dangers in wandering about a city that was a hair's width away from going up in smoke, we opted to forego the touristy stuff and get back to the airport, check in for our flights as early as possible the night before, and hope that the flights did not get canceled due to smoke or encroaching fires. 

Despite all of this, we saw no smoke in the air, from any direction, for as far as we could see. We smelled nothing, we saw no orange glows, nothing. Now, the airport is a bit outside of the city of Halifax proper, but it should have been close enough for us to see or smell something. Apparently it was not. Just like in Mulgrave, if the stories of the fires hadn't been all over the news an sending us alerts on our phones, we would have had no idea whatsoever that they were happening.

We arrived at the airport hotel without incident, dropped off the rental car, got our room key, and finally we were safely in Halifax and ready to fly out early in the morning. We repacked our stuff again in the hotel room (to account for/accommodate all the stuff we'd just gotten at Giant Tiger in New Glasgow) and had a very filling dinner once more at the pizza place in the hotel lobby.

In the morning, we got up and left the room, checked out, and made our way to the airport gates. After lots of walking and originally going to the wrong terminal, we found the right one and checked our suitcases -- mine was 48.5 pounds, and Daisy's was 49.0 (the maximum is 50). And went through security. This was where we got our last Tim Hortons of the trip, sadly -- and I had my last real Canadian double-double. We sat at our gate for what felt like an eternity before we finally got on our plane and lifted off the ground in Nova Scotia for the last time.

Oh, how I wish that were the end of the story.

Our flights home took us from Halifax to Montreal, from Montreal to Chicago, and from Chicago back to Omaha. 

I don't know how many of you fly through a lot of airports in any given year, but if you ever have the chance to avoid flying through Montreal, avoid it. Montreal is an old, antequated airport that looks and feels run down. It feels claustrophobic, worn out, and somewhat dingy. Customs in Montreal is a nightmare, and I briefly lost my wallet and phone when they didn't come through the machine correctly. Once I got them I was basically booted to the side for additional screening, as the half a pizza and my vapes in my backpack were enough to trigger security to take a second look. Once I was deemed okay, I was almost thrown to the side to make way for a neverending flow of more international travelers, feeling like I'd been somewhat violated. It was far from the pleasant experience we'd had in Toronto. Between that, the neverending lines of people, the noise, and the general stress of it all, I was very happy once the plane lifted off Canadian soil and set its nose and engines pointed toward the states once more.

Chicago O'Hare was fine. 

I almost want to leave it at that, but I think it bears some explanation because I've railed against O'Hare airport here in the past -- railed about how much I hated it, how I thought it was the dirtiest, ugliest airport I'd ever flown through and how I would actively avoid flying through it if I could -- but I must admit that until last month, I hadn't flown through O'Hare in over a decade. In that time, they've done a fair number of renovations and had performed a good bit of upkeep, and the place ended up looking, and feeling, far nicer than it ever had before on past visits. I'm not sure if it was a major overhaul or my stress and lack of sleep that made me notice more or less -- or the fact that I was back on my home soil of the United States -- but O'Hare didn't bother me this time around. We easily got to our gate and chilled out for a bit, and once we were able to get on the plane we did. 

Two hours later, in the middle of the afternoon on May 30, we touched down in Omaha. The parents picked us up and brought us back home to our kitties who sorely missed us. It took about six hours for Sadie to come out of hiding, but once she did, I scooped her up and held her like a baby, loving on her as much as I possibly could, telling her everything was okay and that she was safe and we were finally home...and after that she loosened up and she was fine again.

And so ends the story of our trip to Canada. The cats were fine, our house was fine, and I stayed up for many hours afterwards doing all of our laundry. Daisy and I would both return to work the next day (which was, coincidentally, our wedding anniversary) and life returned much to normal -- as much as it ever was, anyway.

In the aftermath of the trip, both of us have been pretty busy. I'll cover that in subsequent updates here. But there you have it, yet another tale of international travel from yours truly.