The Call of the Isle'd: A Canada Story, Part III

 

At 7am Friday morning, the 19th, Dad arrived at the hotel where Daisy and I were staying. I kissed Daisy goodbye, threw my giant, tightly-packed suitcase into the trunk, and we were off down the road. 

I will mention here at the start of this story that I've never traveled alone with Dad before. We've traveled together with him lots of places over the years, but never just me and him -- the boys, so to speak. Dad and I are very similar people, and Daisy and her mother are very similar. I've often said (and I've likely written it here before) that Daisy married her father, and I married her mother. In most marriages this would cause problems -- but, I am very lucky in that I adore Mama. She is absolutely the best mother in law I could have asked for, and I feel the same way about Dad. 

That does not mean that traveling with Dad would be easy, however, and I knew that it likely wouldn't be. While we are very similar on many things, there are many other things that we are very different on. Dad is a Vietnam veteran -- he was a helicopter gunner. He is tall and lanky, eats like a bird, has a great distrust of authority figures, is very stubborn and set in his ways, and can be quite argumentative and combative (not physically, of course) when he wants to be. He also, at times, lacks tact and sympathy/empathy. I have always gotten along with Dad really well, probably much more so than Daisy's sisters' husbands.

But that doesn't mean I'd travel well, or travel badly with him. Truth be told I was operating on about four hours sleep per night, in a hard hotel bed that destroyed my back and didn't let me stretch out the way I needed to, and running on energy drinks that had a little more than half the caffeine I was used to. I was tired. I was frazzled. I was in control of practically nothing. When I get into that state, normal Brandon goes away and a completely different Brandon takes over. It's sort of like when I'm working versus when I'm not working.

The drive to the border was mostly uneventful. We drove through a little rain, and through a lot more traffic than Daisy and I had encountered while going up there, but got to the border around 1pm or so.

"Don't make any jokes and don't say anything stupid when they ask you if you have anything to declare," Dad said.

What, like in 2015 when Dad was asked that question and he said "yeah, we've got a ton of liquor and cigarettes in the back"?

"I'm not an idiot," I said, rolling my eyes. 

"Where are you coming from?" the border agent asked. Dad answered.

"And why were you there?"

"Funeral of my father-in-law," Dad said, or something to that effect.

Immediately -- just like when Daisy and I had come across the border a week prior, the entire personality and mannerisms of the border agent changed, and he became very apologetic. He also handed back our Covid vaccination cards as soon as we gave them to him with our passports, saying he didn't need them and that he wanted us to hold on to them (which I found interesting; he didn't even look at them). 

"Do you have anything in the car that you're bringing back from Canada?"

We shrugged. "Just clothing and some food," Dad said.

"No ashes or cremains of the deceased, I take it?"

"No, no no," Dad said. "Those were buried in Nova Scotia."

The absurdity of that question made me laugh internally, but I get it. Dude's gotta be cautious, has to do his job and due diligence, etc. 

"No alcohol, tobacco products, marijuana, etc?"

"No sir," Dad replied. Truthfully, too. We weren't bringing anything back from Canada we didn't take in with us, aside from a bit of souvenir clothing and some ketchup chips. I did have my Vuse pod vape in my pocket, and in some places that would likely be classified as a tobacco product because vaping laws are stupid, but it had maybe 2ml of juice left in the pod, and I'd already used up and tossed all of my other disposables before I'd left. 

"Again, sorry for your loss," the border agent said. "Welcome home."

And we were back in the states.

Well, sort of. 

The border crossing at Houlton/Woodstock is actually well inside Canada, by a few hundred yards, maybe a half mile or so, etc. Between the border crossing and the actual border is the duty-free shop. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's basically a store without taxes where travelers can purchase things for their journey. As it was on the Canadian side, everything was in Canadian dollars and tax-free, so stuff was far cheaper than it would be stateside. When I was there in 2015, I picked up cartons of cigarettes, multiple cartons, for like $20 each -- so so much more cheaply than in the states. 

This time around, I had a mission: procure the maple syrup candy.

In 2015 when Daisy and I were last there, we'd come across these hard candies -- like, individually wrapped, life-savers-style hard candies -- that were made with maple syrup. They were amazing, and we'd only gotten one bag of each flavor (regular and blueberry). I went in there this time and bought three bags of each flavor. If I'd had more room in my bags I would've cleared off the racks. It was something like $18 total. 

And then we were on the road and in Maine. 

For those of you who have never been there, Maine is a beautiful, forested state with mountains, winding highways, peaks and valleys, and giant lakes. There are seaside towns and seaside cities. There are moose, there are deer, there are bear, there are wolves, there are fishers, and (so I've been told) there are lighthouses. The road between the border and Bangor is not a long one, comparatively speaking -- it's about 100 miles, give or take, all highway until you get into Bangor proper. Bangor is in south-central Maine, about an hour's drive from the ocean on the eastern side of the state. The locals there call this "Downeast Maine":

I mean, I guess.

Anyway.

I'm not sure I'd feel such a connection to Maine had I not been there before and if Dad wasn't from there. Because Dad is from there, this was like a trip through his old stomping grounds. He knew exactly where to go and how to get to each place, and we were on two missions before we returned home:

1. get some food in a restaurant that Dad wanted to eat at, where he hadn't been for a long time (Governor's Restaurant and Bakery, in Bangor), and

2. find Coffee Brandy and bring it back home.

Again, for those of you not familiar with Maine -- Coffee Brandy is exactly what you think it is. 

It is literally coffee flavored brandy. And you can't get it anywhere outside of Maine, apparently. We've checked. The girls gave us the mission of getting as much of it as we could fit into our checked bags to fly home with. Whether they'll do the same when they return as well remains to be seen (I'll get to this later). 

We got into Bangor around 3:30pm. The real "driving" portion of our trip was all but done. Dad navigated us to The Governor™, where he purchased a double-meat lobster roll and I had a decent but hastily thrown-together caesar salad as my one true meal of the day.

"Just a caesar salad and water?" the waitress asked. "You don't want chicken in it or anything? Do you want a roll?"

"No," I said, "just the salad and water."

Truthfully I didn't even really want the salad, I just knew I would be ravenous if I didn't eat something and I didn't just want to sit there and stare at Dad while he ate his lobster roll, trying to hide my impatience and frazzled inner self. That would serve nobody. When the checks came (yes, plural, Dad wanted to pay for his lobster roll separately, I guess), I paid for my salad and went outside to vape and get some fresh air before we made the next leg(s) of our journey.

The next leg(s) of our journey were, of course, to find the Coffee Brandy. Our first stop was Walmart, where they didn't sell liquor, but they did have the underwear I like on clearance -- remember how I mentioned that I had run out of clean underwear in Canada? Yeah. So I bought a pack of those and grabbed a puffer vest that was on deep clearance as well, as I'd wanted one for some time. It fit like a glove and I'd really wished I'd had the time or foresight to get two of them....and then we were off once again.

Dad, knowing Bangor far better than I, knew of a small grocery chain up the street where yes, they would sell the Coffee Brandy. We entered and almost immediately got separated, and I became lost. You see, in Bangor, every adult elderly male is tall, thin, and white-haired, just like Dad. It's a sea of Dads. They all dressed like Dad, they all looked like Dad. They all sounded like Dad. I wandered that store for twenty minutes trying to pick out Dad in an ocean of older white men in vests who all sounded and looked like him, is what I'm saying.

We did get the Coffee Brandy. It added nine pounds to my luggage, but I was able to make it fit. I was also able to have the foresight of packing two Hefty Forceflex trash bags into my big canvas backpack just in the off-chance that we'd need them for something -- we did. We tied the bottles of liquor into them and made the bags airtight/liquid-tight in the event that the bottles would leak in flight.

I prepare for everything, apparently.

We returned to the Bangor Quality Inn and I checked us into our room. It was a simple room -- some of the most basic lodging possible: two double beds, a bathroom, a table, and a sink. Dad immediately showered and got into bed. I stayed up for a bit and walked around the parking lot to wind down. I tried to call Daisy, but she didn't answer. Then I showered and got into bed myself, and was out like a light within twenty minutes.

When I awoke, it was dark. Very dark. We'd set our alarms for 4am because the flight out was at 7 and we'd need to get through security and get something to eat. I checked my phone and it was barely 2, but I could not sleep anymore -- I'd slept almost 8 full hours and could not lay in that hotel bed anymore. On the other bed in the dark, Dad was out like a light still. I got up, dressed in the dark, and went out to -- yes, you guessed it -- wander the parking lot again to kill time and vape. When my Vuse ran out, I yanked the pod and tossed it, and debated flying back with the actual Vuse power base/battery, because it really was a neat little device, but I did eventually decide to just trash it as I wouldn't need it when I was at home -- and it wasn't worth trying to justify taking it through security when I had no further use for it.

Dad would eventually awaken, and we made our way to the airport -- checking out of the room on the way. 

I mentioned before that the Bangor airport is tiny, and it is. The rental car lot is relatively small and a two-minute walk from the entry doors. You walk in, drop the keys off in the slot, and then print your boarding passes at the little kiosk, where you also swipe your card to pay the $30 to check your bags. They give you a printout, attach the sticker to your bags, and away it goes -- and then you go through security. The entire process takes about five minutes total.

Going through security at the airport is fun. At least for me. For me the trip is always quick, because I empty my pockets and make sure I'm wearing flip-flops and no belt to keep it all fast. Dad, however, I'm not sure I've ever seen wear flip-flops or not wear a belt during the over ten years that I've known him, so it will always take him longer to get through. He was right in front of me, and not only did he get pulled aside for additional screening, he also got wanded and basically shoved off to reassemble himself.

Me, I was in and out, x-rayed and into the airport, where I put my wallet and keys back in my pocket and slipped my flip flops back on. Dad, however, lost his belt. 

Momentarily.

His belt got trapped beneath the rollers and the bins and took a few extra minutes to roll through. He was able to find it and get it back on, but the entire process left him looking like he'd been assaulted. I'm sure he was just as tired as I was and I'm sure he was frazzled.

Our flight to Charlotte didn't leave for another 90 minutes or so, and as we were at our gate within five minutes of going through security (again, small airport), Dad got a breakfast sandwich from one of the little kiosk deli places and tried to relax a bit. I, meanwhile, had to pee like four times (I'd drank an energy drink -- my last one -- and an entire one-liter bottle of seltzer when I'd gotten up that morning, in order to carry less and not have to check more liquids in my bag. 

I also stopped at the little gift shop next to our gate, and used basically the very last amount of space in my carry-on canvas backpack to purchase a purple t-shirt with MAINE on it in big letters, a pin for my military jacket, and a bar of handmade vegan soap that was apparently "mermaid kisses" scented (or something like that, I can't remember if that's accurate or not). 

I am a...sentimental person I guess; everywhere I go, I try to bring home some little trinket or mug or t-shirt that proves I was there, that I can point to later and be like "hey, I got item X at Y place when I was doing Z thing in year 20XX," etc. I have a lot of items like this. I know people who are like "oh, I'll just go order something online when I get home" and I think that mostly defeats the purpose. I did do that this time around for two things though, and I'll get to that. 

The plane to Charlotte was a large plane, an Airbus A320, and it was...relatively comfortable, I guess. we got on it on time, the flight lifted off normally and landed normally in Charlotte...which I found was a very large airport. I had thought it would be small, because I mean, Omaha has a small airport, and Omaha and Charlotte as cities are probably roughly the same size -- though I will admit that about all I know about Charlotte is that I always wanted to name a daughter Charlotte and that it's where Nascar holds the Coca-Cola 600 every year. 

Well, Charlotte's airport is huge, and it was shoulder-to-shoulder full of people. We scanned the board to see where our connecting flight to Omaha was, I went to pee, and Dad...disappeared.

I called him. "I'm making my way to our gate," he said.

"Okay. I'm right behind you, somewhere, I guess." 

In reality I had no idea where he was or how far ahead of me he had gotten. The airport was bright, it was loud, and it was full of people in my way, people that if I wanted to get where I was supposed to go, I almost had to drop my shoulder and charge through them like I was still playing high school football. 

I want all of you to know that I am not generally an aggressive person. In public situations such as this one, I try to be very polite and kind, because I would want that same sort of treatment myself. However, there are some situations that if you want to get through them, you have to be aggressive and not defensive. So I have to admit I took, ahem, some liberties with how deftly I moved through the crowds. I didn't, like, knock down any children or old ladies, but if someone was in my way, I made sure they weren't. I was not feeling well, I hate being surrounded by people, and I just wanted to be home -- where my cats and my vapes and my silence all were.

The gate was completely full. As in, there were no empty seats anywhere around, and there were probably close to 50 people -- all of them waiting for our flight -- just standing around at the gate. Dad had gotten there and was sitting on one of the outside aisle seats (and it was probably the last one available when he'd gotten there). I stood on my feet with my heavy-ass canvas backpack on for close to an hour before they started boarding. When I did get to board, I was in boarding group 8. Eight. I don't even know how there is a group 8 on a small puddlejumper plane like we were on (yet another Embraer ERJ).

I guess I shouldn't call them "puddlejumper" planes since they can fly really long distances pretty quickly, but for a fat guy like myself they're tiny and cramped and leave a lot to be desired versus the larger, more comfortable planes like the A320.

And finally, after waiting there an hour and after strapping into this cramped little plane for another half hour, we were in the air towards Omaha. 

Throughout my flight I dozed off several times; I was in the middle seat on every flight we flew on with the exception of the last flight down into Bangor on the way there, so it's not like I could really relax or look out the window or do anything actually interesting other than just doze off. Dad was two rows behind me on the aisle seat. I was very grateful that I'd purchased a travel neck pillow after the very first flight on the way in. 

The plane landed in Omaha, on time and without incident, where the local time was around 12:30 PM and the temperature was about 85 degrees. We had but two things left to do:

1. hope that our checked suitcases arrived without incident, and

2. secure an Uber ride home for each of us.

Now, mind you, Daisy's best friend (the one who'd been watching over the houses/cats) was originally going to pick us up and take us home from the airport, but she'd had a slight medical emergency the day before we'd left, and let us know the only time she could get into the doctor was right when the plane was landing in Omaha, so she had to bail on us. I didn't mind it -- your health is far more important than picking up people at an airport, of course -- but that also meant that Dad and I would both have to spend money separately on Ubers to get from the airport back home.

"See if you can split it," Daisy told me. 

I had to explain to her that it really doesn't work that way, because it's paid for by the trip, not by the passenger -- meaning yes, I could have told them to take me home and then take Dad home too, on my reservation, but it would've charged me for both trips, and we were going in opposite directions, and then there's all sorts of different variables like surge pricing and time/distance and the like and yeah it doesn't really work like that. 

I had some passing experience with Uber and Daisy and I had used one to get to the airport the week prior (yes, our car was still safely locked in the garage at home the entire time) and knew how the app operated. Dad, however, barely knew what Uber was, and had never had the app on his phone and had never needed to use it. I told him it was basically an independent-driver taxi service (because, well, it is) and that they always have drivers waiting and ready at the airport -- or very close to it, so it shouldn't take too long to actually get in a car and get home. He got the app on his phone, put in his card info, and made sure it was ready to roll prior to leaving Bangor. 

Once we were off the plane and safely on the ground in Omaha, we made our way through the not-crowded-at-all airport to the baggage claim. My giant, seafoam-green hardshell suitcase with the neon-green luggage tag was one of the first suitcases to hit the belt, and I grabbed it. It was not leaking fluids, so this told me that the coffee brandy had survived the trip. 

And we waited. And waited. And waited for Dad's suitcase to show up. Everyone else had their bags and took them away, and it was me, Dad, and about two or three other people standing at the moving belt hoping and praying that their baggage was not lost. I could sense the anxiety and dread of the few other people standing around us. 

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Dad's bag got shoved through the rubber door and was on the belt. We were done. We had our things. We could go the fuck home again.

By this time, Dad had figured out the Uber app and had placed an order for pickup. I did as well, and we both made our way across the street over to the attached parking garage -- the bottom of which was the Uber pick-up area. Our pickup cars were there within 2 minutes (no, really) and we made our way to each one. I watched Dad get into his car and the driver head off in the opposite direction at the same time I was in mine and on my way out of the airport, and....our traveling together was over. 

Twenty minutes and $30 later, I was standing in my living room with two very happy-to-see-me cats and a third howling upstairs from Daisy's office, where she'd been held captive for the past nine days. It was the afternoon of Saturday, August 20, and I was finally, finally home. 

What has happened in the interim? Well, that's a story for our final post in this series. 

The Call of the Isle'd: A Canada Story, Part II

 

Port Hood, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia 

Thursday, August 18 2022

So, let's continue.

The funeral was set for Wednesday the 17th. We'd arrived on Saturday, the 13th, so we had a few days to do Canada things and spend some time with the family. 

When an entire family is in mourning and prepping for the funeral of the family's patriarch, in most cases there would be a heavy blanket of somberness over everything you do and everything you experience while gathered together. There's a lot of family business that needed to be taken care of, and a lot of it was little things you wouldn't think about -- who handles the funeral expenses, what accounts need to be changed or canceled -- the actual all-business side of things that generally gets pushed to the background or never mentioned in movies or TV when someone dies. There was a pall of sadness over a lot of things, yes, but as a plus the family knew this was coming for some time, and preparations had already been made for a lot of it -- those plans just went into action once the man actually passed. A lot of things I witnessed in the background between Mama and the uncles (his children) was very matter-of-fact, very removed from emotion; i.e. X person is doing X tasks, Y person is doing Y tasks, the body must be cremated by Z time and delivered to Z location, etc. Everyone had a set job to do and everything was moving about as smoothly as could be expected or possible. I offered numerous times to help where I could, but was told that things were already being taken care of, though the family appreciated my offers.

I am very lucky I married into Daisy's family, something that I've mentioned numerous times before. I was immediately accepted into the fold and was welcomed with open arms by all of the family members in Nova Scotia the last time we visited in 2015. Nothing has really, physically changed since then, aside from knowledge -- at that point they were all strangers to me. Now that they've seen my Facebook posts for the past seven years and receive all of the Christmas cards we send every year, it's as if I've always been one of them -- they got to know me in person first, as awkward and American as I was at the time, and then got to know the real me in the years since. Daisy's aunt got up, crossed the room, and hugged me tightly when we arrived, and whispered "welcome home" in my ear. I could have cried. That's how the family is. At this point, they know me. I am one of them. I may as well have been born there.

To an extent, Nova Scotia has always felt like a sort of home to me. I am never stressed when I'm there, and despite only having been there once before, seven years ago, I remembered my way around the area. I remembered landmarks. I remembered directions, geography, and how to get from point A to B like it was hardwired into me -- directions that even Daisy didn't remember, despite having been there many, many times since she was a child. The geography of the area is basically West Virginia but instead of there being Trump supporters in every direction, there's an ocean, a coastline, and beaches at the end of the driveway. 

I think, though, what I like most about the area is that nothing ever really changes and everyone is down to earth, knows each other (or knows people in the family) and that life is much, much slower there. This is a family that sits together around the house or the back porch for hours on end every night when we're all gathered, just talking and spending time together. This family doesn't gather around a television or bury their faces in screens (there is a time and a place for that, but not when we're all together). 

Even with the death of the family patriarch, this...well, this didn't really change for this visit. It was the elephant in the room nobody really talked about unless necessary, but it wasn't something that was a taboo topic. Grandpa came up in many discussions over the trip, and it was always as if he were just in the next room over, not deceased. Our purpose there, in those family gatherings that sometimes went into the overnight hours, was not to grieve but to enjoy all of us there in one place, one room, on one porch. Even Daisy's grandmother was pretty normal; as she looked around the room at all of us gathered there together, you could see the look of contentment in her face that we were all there sharing the space and rejoined as a family unit -- it did not matter, in those moments, what brought us there -- just that we were there. 

That's what I got from it, anyway. Daisy later told me that she also noticed the sad and distant moments, moments where her grandmother was likely thinking how much her husband would have loved having us all there too.

Again, they all knew it was coming. They'd all prepared and steeled themselves for it.

Over the course of the following few days, more of the family began filtering in and arriving from out of town -- not all of them live close by, of course. In fact, most of them do not. Aside from Mama, who is the oldest child (and lives the farthest away; in fact, we're the only family I can think of who currently live in the states) and her uncle who lives next door, the rest of the family is scattered across Canada. One of Daisy's cousins and his kids live in Alberta, another aunt and uncle live in Ontario, and most of the others live in and around Halifax -- three or so hours away, give or take. That also doesn't take into account those who weren't coming in for the funeral or who couldn't make it on short notice (or had already planned to be in town for the wedding gathering, and couldn't change their travel accommodations). When we arrived, it was just us, the parents, two uncles and an aunt, and one cousin (the daughter of the uncle who lived next door, who was not in town at the time) with her husband and kids. By Monday and Tuesday, this collection of people had nearly tripled in size as the remaining family trickled in. 

Mind you, most of these people filtering in, I'd never met before. Multiple cousins and their spouses and/or children simply weren't there when I was last in Canada. Many of them Daisy hadn't seen since they were tiny children, or had never met in person at all. Some of them she hadn't seen for many years in person.

I integrate well with the family. As much as I am one of them, however, it is at times very apparent how much I am not one of them -- how much I am the sore thumb American sticking out, out of place. And, as much of a Canadaphile as I am (and, oh boy, am I), there's a lot of little customs, references, and especially commercial product names/product lines/foodstuffs that I've never seen before and have no knowledge of.

For example: Nanaimo Bars. 

Canada has the snack and foods market on lockdown. I wrote about this years ago, but the food -- and the selection and variety of it -- is one thing that Canada definitely outdoes the states on. There are exceptions and drawbacks, of course, but the pluses far outweigh the minuses. Canada also has some items that haven't been available in the states for many years, such as...

Yeah.

I don't think Fruitopia has been available in the US since I was in high school, maybe early college. 

[EDIT: Wikipedia says it was discontinued in the US in most forms by 2003, but is still made/available in many other countries around the world.] 

The change is immediate as soon as you cross the border -- every store in the land stocks ketchup chips, all-dressed chips, and Canada exclusive candy bars like Coffee Crisp and Big Turk. Poutines are widely available. Donairs are plentiful, as are variations on them.

There are differences, though. For example, Diet Mountain Dew does not exist in Canada. When I asked my uncle about that, his response was "huh, that's a thing in the states?"

Caffeine, in anything, is limited to 180mg regardless of the size of the product. An energy drink in the US that has anywhere between 200-300mg of caffeine per can is locked at 180 or lower in Canada. This means that the Monsters and Reigns I bought there, while tasty, did not have the same kick and felt like they were watered down versions of their American counterparts.

Diet Coke in Canada tastes completely different. It's still recognizable as Diet Coke, but it is decidedly off what Diet Coke in the states tastes like.

Diet Pepsi, however, uses the old formula from the states that made it the best diet soda ever (before they changed/tweaked the formula in the states and made it almost undrinkable). Daisy and I consumed multiple Diet Pepsis while I was there, each time being amazed by how much better it tasted than here at home. 

Most other foodstuffs taste...cleaner? I guess that's the best way to describe it. They taste more natural, without any chemicals, preservatives, or additives that we're used to down here. Bread and cheese taste better, fresher, less sweet. Snacks like Wheat Thins, for example, aren't baked as hard or as salty as their American counterparts are. Bottled water tastes clean and crisp, not like plastic bottles. Energy bars and/or NutriGrain-style bars actually taste like their ingredients, not sugar. It's an altogether unique experience not knowing whether you'll get the product your US palate is used to or a completely different one with the same name.

Price differences on items, however, can vary wildly from item to item or even from store to store, and there seems to be no real rhyme or reason to the big price swings. Some things are relatively the same -- most foodstuffs we got were fairly comparably priced to what you'd see stateside -- however, things that are harder to get in Canada vs. the states you will, of course, see a significant price increase on. A lot of fresh produce either isn't available up there, for example, or if it is, it's astronomically priced. Cuties -- the little seedless oranges that are about $3-4 a bag here in Nebraska are double (or even close to triple) the price in Canada. Iceberg and romaine lettuce are almost or completely nonexistent this time of the year in Canada. Baby spinach and greens are double the price they are in the states. I'd be curious to know what meat prices are too, even though I don't eat it -- we saw but one field of cows while I was up there across two entire provinces of wilderness and farmland, and it's the maritimes, so people eat seafood, not red meat, for most of their meals. 

It's not just the foods, though. Paper plates that are $3 in the US are $9 in Canada, but paper towels that would be $4 in the US are $2 there. One single six-pack of Corona beer, in the state-run liquor stores, is $20. Twenty dollars for a six-pack of bottles! Yet a large coffee at Tim Hortons is still $2 or maybe a little more. Cigarettes may be $15 a pack, but I got a Vuse pod device and two pods in a gas station for $26, so there's no real rhyme or reason to a lot of it.

But weed is legal there, like...everywhere, so there's that.

Anyway. Back to the family stuff.

We had two cars -- the parents had a rental car (also a brand new Malibu, though in a different color) and we had our own rental. This meant we were free to move about. Daisy's sister (the Denver one) was flying in on Monday night and would be staying with us in our hotel room -- she was coming alone for the funeral, and leaving her husband and four boys at home. We drove to the Halifax airport to pick her up in the night, a long drive there and back, but a drive that also allows me to say I've been in the Halifax airport (though not Halifax proper, since the airport is about 20km away from the actual city). She stayed with us in the room for one night before she requested we just bring her stuff up to the family house, where she stayed for the rest of her trip. Daisy's other sister, in Alberta, did not make it in -- she'd gotten very sick with a stomach flu right as they were leaving and getting ready to fly out, and remained home.

By Tuesday afternoon there were approximately thirty or so people around the family home and next door/in campers in yards. This included all of grandpa's surviving children (Daisy's aunt had died in 2010 from cancer, so it was the remaining four) and most of their spouses/significant others, plus multiple children from those families and their own spouses/significant others and children, two cats, and a dog. All of them gathered around and within the two houses next door to one another to eat, sleep, and socialize.The mood was...happy. I was continually impressed how well the family was able to compartmentalize the loss of their patriarch and focus on the gathering and everyone there together, some of whom hadn't seen each other for quite some time.

Wednesday was the funeral and burial.

Now, mind you, I hadn't been to a funeral in over twenty years. I'm not a funeral guy. I don't need to "see the body" when someone dies, or anything like that, get all dressed in black and be solemn, etc. I'm perfectly happy to just go to a memorial service afterwards. I'd also learned earlier in the week that Daisy's grandfather was being cremated, so the "service" was going to be little more than family and a few family friends. 

Boy, were we all wrong.

The funeral service was a Catholic mass, held in the very church where Daisy's parents got married (and where her grandparents got married as well, though it was a different church then as that one burned down later). Because it was a funeral, and we were in Atlantic Canada, of course it was cold and pouring rain.

The church is about a mile from the family home, and the cemetery was about a mile from there. When we pulled up to the church, we found that the parking lot was full and that there was a line of traffic going up to it -- had to be fifty or more cars. There was also a hearse out front -- a gorgeous new Mercedes-Benz hearse. I wondered if that was just for show, because...I mean, he'd been cremated. Much smaller box than normal, etc. 

What we thought was going to be a very small gathering of just us and some close family friends to see him off (so to speak) ended up being most of the town. Because, of course it would be -- the community is small. Everyone knows the family, and even those who didn't know grandpa personally knew of him, or knew one or more of his kids, or worked with him or one of his kids. In a town that small, where Daisy and I have been approached in public and I've been looked at and unrecognized, but they'll look over Daisy's facial structure and shape and be like "you're [Mama's] daughter, aren't you?" or "you're a [surname], aren't you?" That is how close-knit this community is -- it's the kind of town where the residents can recognize entire family lines just by looking at one person they've never met in their life.

I've never been to a Catholic mass funeral. I've been to a Catholic wedding, which felt like it was six hours long and one of the most mind-numbingly boring things I've ever been forced to endure, but I didn't know what to expect from this funeral.

What it entailed was some music, some readings from the bible, a communion (no wine, just the wafers -- I did not partake, of course), a few prayers, and a brief biography from the priest (deacon? bishop? cardinal? I don't know, I'm an atheist) before they were like "burial will follow in the cemetery. bye, y'all." 

Burial?

As for grandpa himself, at the beginning of the ceremony he'd been carried in, in a very small wooden box about the size of a tissue box, and he sat on a table in the aisle just in front of the many rows of pews. His box (I don't know that I'd call it an "urn") had a stylized picture of an acoustic guitar on it -- grandpa made hundreds of guitars throughout his life. At the end of the ceremony, the box was carried back out, and all of us in the family pews followed one by one, pew by pew -- before we were followed by the rest of the town back out of the church and into the rain.

I was in one of the back family pews, so my turn to go was following everyone else in the family outside. By the time I got outside, they'd placed the wooden box inside the back of the hearse and had strapped it in, and were closing the door. 

Y'all gotta be kidding me, I thought. They're going to take this wooden box of ashes up to the cemetery and bury it?

That's exactly what they did.

In the rain and the mud of the cemetery, they lowered the box down into the grave unceremoniously (well, there may have been some words spoken, but I didn't hear them as it was raining and they were already lowering the box by the time we got up to the grave, which was on top of a hill). Grandpa's ashes were laid to rest in what appears to be a family-style plot, next to his daughter who had died of cancer in 2010. They're together again 12 years later, I guess. 

I didn't get a good look at much else. The family, for the first time I'd seen since my arrival, was pretty distraught. The grandchildren were crying, as was Mama. I tried to keep my head down and not look on most of them in such a vulnerable state. I helped Daisy take care of Mama, who can't get around that well anymore, and just focused on the group instead of the individuals. I wanted to take a picture of the grave, but Daisy said not to. 

Then we silently got back into the car and returned to the family home. 

Grandma did not come to the memorial service or to the cemetery -- she stayed at home alone. Word is that she'd told her husband when he was alive that she wouldn't be going, which to a certain extent I found extremely amusing and to a much larger extent I found incredibly sad. 

Still, I can't imagine what Daisy's reaction would be were I to tell her "yeah, when you die, I'm not coming to your funeral." Probably a divorce. 

Anyway.

Daisy and the parents would leave shortly thereafter for a lunch and sit-down with some old family friends in their house near the cove. That left at and inside the actual family home nobody but me and grandma for some time. Once she saw we'd all returned safely, she went to go lay down and nap for a while, and said I could do the same if I were tired. 

I was sitting on the sun porch, in a very comfortable chair. I was indeed tired -- it felt like I'd been running since I got on the very first plane in Omaha five days before. I tried to play a game on my phone and couldn't do it long before I conked out.

Daisy's uncle came in a few minutes later and I had a brief conversation with him before he did the same thing in the chair next to me. I was told later that the fiance of one of Daisy's cousins came up to the porch to hang out, saw both of us passed out asleep in the chairs there with nobody else around, and then quickly turned around and headed back from whence he came.

In the early evening hours, it was decided so that everyone could eat something a little different, both pizza and takeout Chinese would be procured. Of course, Daisy and the parents were still out visiting friends, so I ate this food, being careful to remain vegetarian in my diet (which was not hard, given what they all ordered). It was a rather subdued, quiet evening that was spent with the family, and I think everyone was emotion'd out from the funeral earlier in the day.

Meanwhile, while all of this was going on, we had to begin plotting our trip back home. And by "we," I mean, well, me and Dad. Mama stated that she wanted to remain there as long as she could, at least through the wedding celebration that we would've originally visited for, and to help take care of her mother once everyone went back home from the funeral as well as that. Daisy, on the other hand, had enough PTO at work (because she so rarely ever takes any real time off) to stretch out her trip through the end of the month and fly back on the original return date.

That left me and Dad.

I am a homebody, yes. But if there's anyone who's more of a homebody than me, it's Daisy's father. He does not like to be away from his house, his cats, or his garden. As a retired man in his 70s, that's where he's comfortable and where he wants to be, and I don't blame him. I, on the other hand, could never extend my time off that long, and in fact was not entirely sure at that juncture where my actual time off ended, and I also wanted to get home to my cats (who had not been without one or both of us around for more than a few hours in over a year). Also, the hotel bed was killing my back and making it seize up every once in a while when I would try to get out of it, sending rockets of pain through my body so hard that I think a few times I actually blacked out for a split second. I wanted to be home as well, if only because -- as much as I love all of the family and walking on the beach every morning -- I was traveled out and spent. I wanted food that wasn't convenience food, I wanted to sleep in my own bed with the cats. I wanted to use my normal vapes again, since I was down to my last disposable (the Vuse thing I mentioned above), and -- to top everything else off -- I was out of clean clothing, having worn my last pair of clean underwear the day after the funeral.

[EDIT: I was given the opportunity to do laundry at the family home, but the dryer was broken and it would have to dry on the line. That makes clothing stiff and rough and uncomfortable, and without my detergent and fabric softener there I didn't know if I'd like or be allergic to the stuff in Canada, so I declined.]

Dad expressed a desire to drive back to Bangor in his rental car on Friday (reminder, Daisy had ours, so it's not like she and Mom would be stranded there) and then fly out Saturday morning. I agreed with him. Even if I hadn't, I didn't have much choice -- we had to return together or I would be stuck there until Mama and Daisy decided to return -- it's not like I could be like "yeah, I'll stick around a few extra days," no -- it was one or the other.

So, Daisy updated my ticket to fly out Saturday and got a ticket for Dad on the same flights, which I believe she put on my card. She also booked us a room in the Bangor Quality Inn, again, also on my card, so that we would have somewhere to sleep on Friday night before dropping off the rental at the airport as we hopped the flight on Saturday morning. Dad noted that he'd square up with me for that once the girls were back home, but honestly, if he doesn't, I don't really care. The parents have done so much for us over the years and are on a fixed income, while I am not. 

Once that was settled, it was also settled that Mama and Daisy would remain there until the 30th before making the same trip back that Dad and I would make, with them arriving home on the 1st. Roughly. I didn't know the exact details at the time. 

Thursday the 18th was our last day all together in Nova Scotia, and all of the family knew it would be. Just as they all filtered in during the earlier part of the week for the funeral, all of them were beginning to filter back out and return to their respective homes and jobs. The first were a few of the cousins, one of whom took Daisy's sister back to the Halifax airport on her way so she could return home to the family. Other cousins and family followed, slowly, until the core family around the houses were about fifteen people total -- with four of them being us and the parents. 

With grandpa in the ground (well, I mean, figuratively), Daisy wanted to show me some sights of the area we hadn't gotten to see in 2015. Thursday would be the last day we'd be able to do that before Dad and I went back to Omaha, so she asked me if there was anything I really wanted to do or see.

"A lighthouse," I told her. "I want to see a lighthouse. Like an actual lighthouse."

As much as you see lighthouses in artsy photos on calendars or on merchandise promoting maritime areas, there...aren't really any around their part of Nova Scotia (or anywhere I traveled in Maine on this trip either, for the record). And to be fair, the notion of a lighthouse is pretty outdated in the 21st century. Sure, they do see use in a lot of areas, and I'm sure on the side of the maritimes facing the wide open ocean all the way to Europe and Africa, there are a good number of them. But on the inland side of Nova Scotia? Yeeeeeeeah, no. 

Daisy said that she wanted me to be able to touch the ocean while I was there, not just look at it as I walked around the cove every morning when I woke up. I agreed to this and was happy to do so, but the thing about Nova Scotia is that a lot of the beaches are beaches in the widest scope of the word only -- they're not so much sand as they are rocky shorelines:

And, while they are beautiful, it's not like you can go out on them and enjoy the water without breaking a leg or foot (or worse) when -- not if, but when -- you slip and fall. 

That being said, there are a few beach areas with sun and sand, you just have to know where they are and how to get to them. When we were there in 2015, we went up to Mabou Harbor, which had a gorgeous little beach. This time around we went to Port Hood (seen in the photo on the top of this post) which has a very similar, longer beach. We went with the parents and Daisy's cousin (who is roughly my age) along with his two daughters who are in their early 20s. And yes, I did get to put my feet in the sand and into the ocean. 

The next morning, Dad and I would leave on the road for Bangor again. How did that trip go, and how did I eventually get home? That's a story for Part III.

The Call of the Isle'd: A Canada Story, Part I

 Hello all.

I have gone to, and returned safely from, Canada. Nova Scotia, to be precise, where I spent eight days. 

I wanted to get that out of the way now so that people reading this could settle a bit. 

As I've mentioned here numerous times over the past year or two, Daisy's cousin is getting married (at this juncture it's already happened twice, with two different ceremonies and a third, celebratory gathering coming up this weekend). Daisy and I had long planned to attend the third celebratory gathering, and had booked our travel times for August 21 through 31, returning home just in time for Labor Day weekend -- which would have given us several days of recuperation time and some breathing space before we had to return to our respective jobs business-as-usual the following week.

I want to stress this -- the trip was already fully booked and paid for -- hotels covered, rental car covered, flights covered. It had been planned out. I'd gotten a new suitcase and carry-on backpack. I had ordered multiple disposable vapes for the trip because I couldn't take my real ones on the plane(s). I had an entire Canada-centric wardrobe, including colder-weather clothing and extra everything, planned out and mostly packed. I was excited to go on this adventure, which would have been me, Daisy, and Mama -- Dad was staying at home to take care of the houses and cats, and also because they'd just gone to and from Nova Scotia earlier in the summer. I put in the PTO at work, set calendar invites to my team, and made sure all were aware this trip was coming up weeks in advance.

On August 10, Daisy's grandfather died, losing his battle with cancer eleven days before we would have left for our trip to see him and the rest of the family for the wedding celebration.

The parents -- both of them -- flew out the next day. 

Daisy and I, after an incredible amount of finagling and rescheduling/rebooking flights and rooms, and replotting the trip, flew out the day after.

This is the story of that trip, of a vacation turned into a trip of necessity, and our (as well as the rest of the family's) attempts to put the "fun" back in "funeral."

***

We knew Daisy's grandfather was bad off. Daisy had booked changeable tickets for our vacation (at some extra cost) to be able to swap flights at a moment's notice. When he first started going in and out of hospital, I let my leadership at work know "hey, this is gonna happen and it's gonna happen probably sooner rather than later, so when it does, I won't be able to give y'all much notice before I'm on the plane." They understood. It also helped that I had the PTO time to cover it all.

I called my boss the night it happened, told him that I'd likely be leaving ASAP and that I'd edit the time off and take care of everything I could before leaving. 

It was always understood between me and Daisy, as well as with my workplace, that if he died before our trip, I could make one trip or the other -- I couldn't go for the funeral, come back, and go back for our planned vacation for the family wedding stuff a second time. My (limited) PTO and money was enough for only one shot here. When he left this mortal coil, it was go time. 

Within 24 hours of his passing, our bags were packed, the house was prepped for the cats (Daisy's best friend would be stopping by both houses, ours as well as the parents', to take care of the animals and keep an eye on things a few times while we were gone), and we were on our way to Canada by approximately 36 hours afterwards, give or take. 

Well, sort of.

Because we had to change the flights, our options had changed for a lot of things, including lodgings and the rental car. It also meant that we were flying from Omaha to Atlanta, Atlanta to LaGuardia (NYC), and LaGuardia to Bangor, Maine -- with some layover time at each of the middle stops. It was a 12+ hour trip of nonstop travel, and that was before we'd even cross the border to make the long drive up to the little town Daisy's mother's family is from. 

The flights were fine. Daisy and I were both tired, stressed, and sort of grumpy, but none of the flights were delayed or canceled, and weather was wonderful when we flew out the morning of August 12, after taking an Uber to the airport. 

Everywhere we were flying I'd never been to before. I'd never been to Atlanta, and had never traveled to or through Georgia before. Same goes for New York, and New York City in particular. The approach to LaGuardia was breathtaking, as we flew right by the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, and the new World Trade Center. Even on the plane, the city was enormous and awe-inspiring. 

The same goes for Bangor, as well. Yes, I've been to Maine twice before, and have been through a large chunk of the beautiful state. But, I'd never been to Bangor and had never flown into Bangor before. The last time we flew in and out of Maine, it was through Portland. 

Bangor was...an experience. It was even more of an experience on the way back, but I'll get to that.

For those of you who don't travel often, and who haven't traveled to or from Bangor, Maine in particular, I recommend it. In fact, I highly recommend the travel plans we took if you ever need to go to the maritime provinces of Canada. Find some way to fly into Bangor and book a room there at the airport Quality Inn for the night to get some rest before beginning your journey. You're an hour or so from the border at Woodstock/Houlton, Bangor is a neat little city, and Bangor International Airport (I still chuckle a bit at calling it that) is tiny and the easiest airport ever to get in and out of. No joke, you can be off your plane, at the baggage claim, and out the door in less than ten minutes. It was a mindblowingly easy experience. 

We landed in Bangor around 11pm Friday the 12th, got our giant suitcases from the carousel, and went to pick up our full-size rental car at the Enterprise counter.

They...did not have a full-size car for us. Despite the fact that we reserved one in advance. We needed something with four doors and (ideally) a trunk. SUVs cannot be rented and driven across the border into Canada anymore per their regulations (apparently they're hardcore theft/chop-shop targets), and while I would've loved to have been able to rent one of the numerous Challengers or the odd Camaro I saw sitting around the rental lot, it would not have been exactly practical.

What they had for us was an "upgrade" to a brand new 2022 Nissan Titan V8 monster truck. 

It had four doors, yes, and it was indeed permitted to cross the border, so...that's what we were given.

Daisy was not happy. The Titan would cost us double the amount of gas money to take to Canada and back.

"If it's what they have, it's what they have," I told Daisy. "It's not ideal, but I don't necessarily really mind paying the extra gas money if we have to."

We did have the money. It wasn't something I wanted to spend it on, as gas in Canada is sold by the liter (metric system, remember?), but it was what it was.

Daisy, frustrated, got the rental company to give us a $300 credit to accept the truck, which would cover most of, if not all of, the gas for the trip. They also agreed to let her call in the morning before we began our drive to see if any cars -- like the one we had booked -- were available. 

I found the entire situation a bit amusing instead of frustrating. This irritated Daisy, who remarked that I get all stressed out and flip out over the small things, but the big things like this I was go-with-the-flow on. 

She's right, of course.

Still, it didn't really matter much to me. A truck is simply a vehicle. I owned a truck once, for a few years, as you may recall. It's fine. I don't stress about things I can't change, and especially not things which would only minimally impact our trip. So, we got in, fired it up, and drove it to the hotel.

It wouldn't turn off.

Let me rephrase. The truck's engine and lights would turn off just fine, but the interior dash/speedometer/tachometer lights and infotainment center dash display would not. It kept displaying "no key detected" on the screens and even after locking it and walking away for 10-15 minutes, we could come back (without the keys, mind you) and still find those internal lights on. 

At this point it was after midnight, Daisy is frazzled and in tears, and all three of us -- me, Daisy, and the sweet lady running the front desk at the Bangor Quality Inn -- were googling how to fix this on our phones. Apparently, it's a common problem and a known issue. Daisy called the rental company, who told her yes, come back in in the morning, swap it out for safety's sake, and we'd still have the credit -- etc. No harm, no foul.

Without, say, the headlights/taillights on and continually drawing power, the battery wouldn't likely drain enough in the six or so hours we'd be sleeping. I also mentioned to Daisy that there was probably a setting on that we weren't aware of that would keep those systems on longer than usual, and they'd probably turn off on their own in the night once the truck put itself into sleep mode or whatever, after not detecting the key in the nearby vicinity for a while. Giving up, we went inside and checked into our room for a quick night's sleep. 

When I woke up in the morning and went out to vape (disposably, of course) and then get some breakfast at the continental breakfast bar, the lights in the truck were all off. When we checked out of the hotel and tested the truck, turning it on and off a few times, everything turned on and off normally. 

We still took it back to the rental kiosk, parked it in the lot, and exchanged it for a beautiful, brand new silver 2022 Chevrolet Malibu with less than 2000 miles on the odometer, and we were on our way.

The Malibu was an entirely different driving experience. The car was immaculate and comfortable, smelled like the showroom, got an average of 37 miles per gallon, and had a wonderful heating/cooling system. Daisy and I liked it so much that within two or three hours of driving it we had already begun contemplating an eventual purchase of one to replace Daisy's aging Hyundai -- which, compared to the Malibu, was a dinosaur. 

When you travel to Canada these days, you have to plot the trip in advance with a phone app called ArriveCAN. It basically does everything they'd do at the border crossing for you -- you scan your passport with it, you pick the day you're entering the country, at what crossing, and for what reason, scan your vaccination card, and tell them where you're staying while you're there (my guess is so that they can track you and check up on you if there's any suspicious activity happening there), and give an approximate return date. It gives you a QR code via the app and via email for the border officers to scan and verify everything.

The ArriveCAN app must elude some travelers, however, as we waited in line for probably half an hour at the border crossing. Some cars and an entire fleet of motorcycles were through the crossing in about 30 seconds each, while others took five minutes or more. 

When we got to the gate, they asked us the standard questions and (I assume) checked the answers to our data via the app database.

"Where are you coming from?" the lady asked us.

"Nebraska."

She looked at us funny, then looked at the car. "Please take off your glasses so I can see your faces. This is a rental car?"

The car had Maine plates. No lady, we stole the car. There's ten kilos of coke in the back and a small Mexican child hidden in the trunk.

"Yes."

"Where are you going?"

Daisy told the lady, who obviously knew maritime geography by the perplexed look on her face, and knew it was something like a ten-hour drive.

"...why?" the border agent asked.

"My grandfather died two days ago," Daisy said, her voice cracking a little.

Her look changed immediately. "Oh, I'm so sorry. Here's your passports. Looks like your ArriveCAN stuff is all good. Welcome to Canada."

And with that, the gate raised and we were across the border into the Great White North.

As an aside, though it's not like she has the documentation (or the passport to prove it on the fly), Daisy is a Canadian citizen. She has dual citizenship, along with her sisters and her sisters' oldest children, who were born before the rules changed and were grandfathered in -- no, ahem, pun intended of course.

***

The drive from the border to the little town where the family is takes about seven hours or so, give or take, not counting stops to pee and refuel at gas stations where this sign is posted on every pump:

I wish I were making that up, as it's possibly the most Canadian thing I've ever seen.

During this drive, I learned a few things:

1. My Discover card -- the card with my highest limit that was freshly paid off a week before the trip down to a zero balance -- is not accepted in most of Atlantic Canada. Gas stations do not take it. Restaurants do not take it. Most retail establishments do not take it and have no idea what it is. Discover does not have a true presence in Canada, despite my personal Discover card having the picture of the Canadian flag on it. 

2. You will almost never see a Starbucks in Canada, and if you do it's a one-off location, a novelty of sorts. Almost as soon as you cross the border it's nothing but Tim Hortons as far as the eye can see; every single Petro-Canada gas station has one attached to it.

3. Unlike the states, where options are plenty, in Atlantic Canada there are only two gas station chains -- either Irving or Petro-Canada. Smaller locations are just gas stations, while larger ones from both chains incorporate truckstop facilities or include multiple small restaurant storefronts on the inside. 

4. Canadians like pineapple and fresh mushrooms on their gas station baked footlong veggie subs.

We crossed into Nova Scotia from New Brunswick in the late afternoon/early evening hours, and finally arrived at our destination around 10pm Saturday the 13th. We checked into our motel -- which was on the ocean in a little area called Havre Boucher.  The family home was about a ten-minute drive away, so we went up to say hi to everyone gathered there -- which included the parents, some of the extended family (uncles, aunts, and cousins) before going back to the motel and passing out.

There's a lot I'm glossing over here, of course, for brevity's sake -- I could write a series of ten or more posts about this trip if I wanted to, but I'm going to try to keep it to three or four at the most. I did want to mention, however, that I did finally see a moose in the wild -- it was on the side of the road in a wetland marsh area while driving through New Brunswick. So, I guess I can mark that off the list of things I needed to do in life. 

It's Really a Lot, Part III

 So, picking up from where we left off...

I did not want to waste the Covid tests. We had a finite number of them and only had one order left of the free ones from the government that I could request. Ordering the exact same tests (and I mean the exact same tests) from Amazon is close to $50. No, seriously. I checked. 

So because of that, I wasn't about to waste tests when Daisy was testing negative and when I was feeling fine. On Sunday, because I was awake and had some energy, and because it wasn't 100 degrees, I went out and mowed both the front and back yards. Daisy's mother, in the interim, had called in a prescription for Paxlovid, which Daisy masked up and went to pick up for her, leaving it at the house for them while I did the mowing. 

It would be the last time Daisy left the house for the entire week.

Well, most of the week.

By the time Sunday night rolled around, I was beginning to feel achy and really tired, and had a bit of chest congestion that was actually noticeable. I did not feel sick, though. I figured that my lack of quality sleep plus the yard work and allergies from being outdoors was the likely culprit. By the time I got off work on Monday morning, I was really exhausted and was feeling a bit out of it, and I felt like I had a mild chest rattle. Again, possibly/probably allergy related, I didn't think much of it.

Daisy, however, felt like hell. She'd gotten a sore throat (which was the primary symptom her mother had) and a slight fever, both of which were not good signs. She tried to shy away from much physical contact with me when she could.

"[Daisy]," I said, "we're in the same house, the same enclosed spaces. We're breathing the same air, sleeping in the same bed. If you have it, I will have it. There's no need to be all separate or standoffish. I don't care at this point, I've been as exposed as you have. If it happens, it happens."

Some may see that as a sort of defeatist viewpoint but at that point we didn't really have any other options -- if I was going to get it there was no way out of it after the exposure I'd already had. Might as well just hunker down and deal with it.

I probably felt the worst on Monday; just tired and achy, and sort of foggy. Meanwhile, Daisy had acquired a low grade fever that was sticking around. Generally, her temperature runs a degree or two lower than the regular 98.6 -- she tends to be in the high 96s or low 97s. I actually do too, for the most part. This in itself is weird. But, y'know, whatever -- I don't think everyone has the baseline 98.6 widely looked on as the standard. Anyway, Daisy's temperature began hovering around 99.7, 99.8 almost every time she took it. I never bothered to take mine. I wasn't exactly sick, just felt a little off. 

On Tuesday morning before bed, I received a text message from the eye doctor's office -- my re-lensed glasses had arrived and were available for pickup. Well, I thought, that's nice, but we ain't gonna be able to pick them up for a while. This troubled me on some level because my prescription changed by a bit and I wanted to make sure it was going to be, well, correct and comfortable before I took the time, and money, to order a few spare pairs from the websites I normally get my glasses from. After all, it takes a few weeks to get those glasses in the mail, and the last thing I wanted was to not know how the prescription would be, order a bunch of spares anyway, and then find out when i got my new ones that oh, the prescription was way off and/or would need to be redone -- leaving me with multiple new pairs of glasses that were useless.

In the afternoon, I was awakened by banging and yelling. 

Now, it's not uncommon for me to be awakened, at least a few times and always lightly at worst, by Daisy cooking something, shutting a door, using the bathroom or talking on a work call while she's working from home. Most of the time my brain shuts it out and I either mostly sleep through it or fall asleep again quickly thereafter. However, there are times when I'm awakened and cannot get back to sleep, at all, no matter how I try. 

Well, Tuesday, with the banging and yelling, was one of those days.

Apparently, while I'd been sleeping, the refrigerator repairman had come (since that was happening whether Daisy had Covid or not) and he was having a hell of a time with our fridge. Daisy had masked up and taken her laptop downstairs to continue her work as well as supervise while he worked on our fridge, but he had been taking forever to get it fixed and in the interim, Daisy desperately needed to take her machine back upstairs to use both of her giant monitors and actually do the work she needed to get done -- she couldn't just sit downstairs on her laptop all day; it was like working with one arm tied behind your back. She asked me if I'd go downstairs to replace her on watch. 

I'd like to step back for a minute to note that no matter who is working in our home or on what -- and we've had a large number of repairmen here for everything from the washing machine (three times) to the oven, garbage disposal, plumbing/toilets (also three times, probably more), overhead microwave, wiring/electrical (at least four times) -- etc. Every time we're always there, in the room, monitoring the situation. It's not that I don't trust these people inside our home, it's that if they fuck something up, you bet your ass they're going to own that fuck-up and make it right, because I'm going to be there to witness it. 

Anyway, Daisy said he'd been down there for at least an hour, as had she, and in that time the electrician who fixed our wiring over the weekend had come back, opened the door and just walked into our home without calling or knocking first (while the other repairman was there in the kitchen, so the front door was already open) and put the cover on the wall over the new box/hole he'd cut to rewire the line, then thanked her and left. When Daisy told me that I was stunned; she said she'd just been sitting on the couch working on her laptop when the dude just walked into the room. Like, holy shit. That bothers me on multiple levels. I can't imagine what that dude was thinking. 

So, I went downstairs to replace Daisy, and took my phone with me. The refrigerator repairman had to be in his late forties, was tall and lanky, and swore like a trooper at our fridge. He apparently hates our model of fridge, hates working on that run/model line of them, does not understand how they have to be so difficult to repair, and generally was yelling at the refrigerator the entire time he was there -- except for when he fielded a personal cell phone call from one of his buddies and they had a full fifteen-minute-long conversation about elk hunting in Nebraska and how the restrictions are too tight because "the animals belong to all of us" and how the landowners of hunting areas shouldn't charge so much money to access them...

I wish I were making that up. It took all of my self-control not to tell him that the animals don't belong to him, the human population of Nebraska, or to anyone/anything else -- they are free and wild and have lives and families, and don't deserve to be shot by meat-eating barbarians like him and his friends just because humans think they taste good.

I didn't, though. I showed some class. I do have some class when it's called for. But man, was it difficult.

Anyway.

The fridge got fixed. That was the last thing on the list of pending repairs for the house. It needed a new ice-maker motor and door flapper assembly. It works fine now. Well, fine for a twenty-plus-year-old refrigerator, anyway. It does the job.

I returned upstairs after the repairman left to find that, finally, our lab results from our physicals had been uploaded online so that we could see them.

I have...experienced zero changes to my A1C. It remains steady at 6.7. In the past year it has remained at about the same and hasn't really changed. In July 2021 it was 6.8. In January 2022 it was 6.7. In June 2022 it was 6.7. So, the diabetes is being controlled, and it's not getting worse...but I am not yet making leaps and bounds of improvements either. so it is what it is, I guess.

My other test results and labs are normal. They're slowly seeing my cholesterol rise, and when they called to discuss my test results with me, they recommended that I start on Lipitor. I told them to go ahead and call it in, sure -- I may or may not use it. I may not even pick it up from the pharmacy.

Daisy found this to be ridiculous. "I could see them wanting to put you on Lipitor if you had like, 800 cholesterol or something like that," she said. "But not for your numbers, not at all, not yet. it may be an eventuality at some point, but not yet."

She's right. My bad cholesterol is simply a little higher than they'd like to see. It's not high and it's nowhere near off the charts. It's like 20 points higher than the "standard range." 

What's worse, two of the main side effects of Lipitor are raising your blood sugar and making you gain weight, which...again, I thought those two things were goals we were actively working against doing? 

So I dunno. I had the pharmacy fill it, but I don't know if we'll actually pick it up. The doctors want me to come in for another fasting blood draw in six weeks to check the cholesterol levels again, and at that juncture we'll see where I am and if it's changed. In the interim I'm going to be more active and take high levels of inositol every day, which helps to lower cholesterol. If they tell me that there's no way out of it and I need to start the Lipitor at that point...okay, fine, I guess. I'd really rather not do it but if it keeps me alive and healthier than I am now, then I'd probably be stupid not to take my doctor's advice. I don't know yet. I do not want to be on any more medications than absolutely necessary. My overall goal is to get healthy enough to get off the ones I'm currently on, and that's going to be the focus of my next doctor's visit -- what do I have to do to my body to get off the allopurinol and the metformin? Because I am really sick of taking pills every day. I want a pill-free existence. 

Meanwhile, Daisy was getting more sick -- or at least feeling more "off" as the week went on. For me, I felt normal. Daisy took a test every other day or so, always coming up negative. 

On Wednesday at work, I made sure to gather all the data necessary for who would be working the July 4th holiday weekend. I had volunteered for it many months ago, as...well, they needed someone who could actually be reliable to be management on shift for it. I plotted my days carefully long ago -- as I usually work New Year's Day, and did this year, July 4th was another day I could pick and say look, I not only worked one holiday this year, but two and start getting off the pattern of working on New Year's Day. New Year's Day 2023 is a Sunday, a night I'd normally work. My goal is to be able to (hopefully) leave work on the morning of December 23rd and be off until January 2, and only need to use 32 hours of time for it (four eight-hour shifts). I don't know if this will be possible given the trip this summer and any time I use around Thanksgiving, but I'm readying for it as much as I can now. 

So, whether I'm in the office or not, as I have the bulk of the overnight team reporting to me, the duties fall mostly on me to make sure that holidays, especially holiday weekends, are well-staffed. I put a call out for volunteers at least a month out, and generally get at least five or six volunteers to work on the holiday. Because most holidays are dead in my job (except for Christmas 2020, when a bomber took out most of Tennessee and some surrounding states on Christmas morning -- thanks, dick), the workloads are usually very light, the help is plentiful, and it's a night there I can just supervise in the foreground and read the news or play a phone game in the background. But, because I was working the holiday this year, I would get a "comp day" for it -- meaning, an extra day off for volunteering for the coverage. 

I was planning to take that day on the 7th, but our director is OOO next week, and will need the rest of us in management to be ever-vigilant for escalations and/or other issues. So I gave the team a choice -- I could either take it on the 7th and maybe have the team be a bit short on coverage, or I could take it June 30, the Thursday prior, and work straight through next week on normal shifts. I eventually decided, after discussion with the team, that I'd just do it on June 30. However, this wasn't decided until the very late overnight hours of June 29, when Daisy was already in bed.

The next morning, when she awoke and began her work day, I asked her if there was anything off the top of her head that I could do to immediately make her happy and put her in a good mood. When she couldn't think of anything, I asked her if me having the night off would be something along those lines, and she agreed. It was very cute.

Daisy was still running a slight fever and was feeling very out of it. Meanwhile, her mother (who had taken the Paxlovid) was much improved. Dad had gone to the doctor to get an official test for him, and he also tested negative. Both parents are fully vaccinated and fully boosted, and were in good spirits (well, good spirits for them, anyway). Daisy, however, was getting worse.

When I finally woke up in the afternoon and evening hours, Daisy asked me if I'd be willing to run into the local urgent care with her to get an actual, bona-fide Covid lab test, as she was hot and dizzy and seemed as if she was fading fast, and her fever really wasn't subsiding -- it was either remaining steady in the high 99 range or would fluctuate by a tenth of a degree. I didn't really want to go, but she needed me there -- and while I was there, I also wanted to see if I could get a test done just to rule everything out. After all, I could have it too, and could just be mostly (or completely) asymptomatic. 

Our two urgent care visits cost us $70 total to get looked at quickly and a test for each of us. It was a really painless procedure and relatively fast, too -- we were in and out in about half an hour. The new, more accurate tests don't require you to stick the swab all the way in anymore to tickle your brain -- instead, the doctor (nurses in this case) just swabs the tip and insides of the nostrils, and doesn't even go in that deeply. I've done more vigorous cleaning of my nose with a tissue than with the test. We were told the results would take 24 hours or so, but to check online (in the system where we get all of our other test results) in the morning or early afternoon. 

I'd taken the night off for my comp day; it didn't matter to me how long it took to get the results -- I had the entire weekend ahead of me for doing whatever needed to be done, and Friday for me was payday. I was perfectly fine sitting around at home and getting some true decompression time -- time with which I could finally get a little breathing space and not have to go anywhere or be obligated to do anything. Daisy, who wouldn't be going anywhere or doing anything outside the house for any reason until she got the doctor's test results confirmed, was working from home on Friday as well. So, I got some decent sleep, decent rest, and devoted all of Friday to laundry and light chores. I washed load after load of towels, bed sheets and blankets, stripped the bathroom of its mats and shower curtains and washed them, washed my own laundry, paid a bill or two, balanced the bank account and placed an Amazon order for household items, and (at Daisy's insistence) did some light exercise. Meanwhile, Daisy worked as per the usual on Friday, from her office across the hall from my own.

By the early afternoon hours, we both got emails that our Covid results were in. We both checked, and thankfully, both of us were negative. 

So, whatever was making Daisy feel ill, or making her run a slight fever for several days on end...well, per the doctors, and per our home tests, was not Covid-19.

"I still think I had it earlier in the week," Daisy said.

She'd talked to her parents during the day -- her mother was feeling better but was still not 100%. Mama said we could come over to hang out and eat foods with them. As much as we love the parents, that was a hard no from both me and Daisy until the Covid is completely out of that house. I went online to the USPS website and ordered the very last set of free tests that were available to send to our household. They'll arrive sometime within the next week. Better to have them and not use them than need them and not have them.

That evening, after she got off work, Daisy said that she thought our upstairs bathroom was disgusting and couldn't stand it any more, and wanted to clean it before I put the newly-washed shower curtains, towels, and mats back in there. I told her to go for it, if she felt like it; it was up to her how and when she wanted to do that. So, she did -- after she got a little decompression time, she went to work on the bathroom, bleaching it down, scrubbing the tub, scrubbing the sink, etc.

Some of you may be asking why I let her do this when she'd been sick and/or why I didn't do it myself if it was bothering her so much...and that would show me how little you know about our relationship. First of all, I don't "let" Daisy do anything -- she doesn't need permission from me for general life tasks and let me tell you, try telling that woman what to do or what not to do and you'll get a rude awakening really quickly. Secondly, when Daisy says she's going to do something, she will do it -- but she will do it her way to her standards. I don't have any say in how it gets done. If I were to go in there and clean the bathroom my way after she said she was going to do it, she would likely have been furious with me and I would not have done it the way she wanted it to be done, or in the same timeframe.

Also, I'd been awake since 6am, had done a ton of other things around the house, and I was tired; the last thing I wanted to do was clean a bathroom at 9pm -- I wanted to eat something and watch Stranger Things, which had premiered that day. My day was winding down and I wanted it to be over. 

So, Daisy cleaned the bathroom, we ate, and we watched Stranger Things. The first of the two finale episodes, at least.

As we wound down for the night, Daisy said that if she was feeling good enough and everything else was okay, we could go pick up my glasses from the optometrist on Saturday. She said this was fine because she wouldn't have to interact with anyone (even if she still felt sick) and that she knew I would want them to check my prescription/make sure it was correct for the July 4th sales on the glasses websites we use (Payne Glasses and Zenni Optical) to get some new pairs. 

My prescription apparently gets updated a little here and there every time I get my eyes checked. The eye doctors say this is normal. I mentioned this before. My major concern was that the prescription would be accurate in the new lenses I paid a lot of money to have inserted into my older frames. Mind you, I could've gotten at least one brand new pair, if not two brand new pairs, of glasses directly from the optometrist for the amount of money I paid to re-lens the old ones. But I really, really liked and missed my old glasses and I absolutely wanted to give them at least another year of life, if not more. 

In the afternoon hours on Saturday -- after it had rained violently out of nowhere for a good hour in the morning, we went to pick them up. Daisy dropped me at the door and grabbed a parking spot, and I'd gotten there in the last hour they were open for the day, meaning I was the only person there other than the nice lady who was working there who I'd originally handed off the glasses to in the first place. She presented me with my new old frames, which had been immaculately cleaned and had the new lenses installed into them, and I very apprehensively put them on.

Hoo boy, HD vision, gooooooo.

The prescription was, fortunately, perfect. I could see everything very clearly and crisply again. It was a noticeable difference, but not too noticeable -- meaning, the prescription I'd just gotten was very good, but the older one I'd had for over a year was also just fine too and still is.

I debated on getting any new glasses at all from the websites I order them from; after all, I have the two new sets of lenses now, and my older prescription is still fine...but I did want to see in HD vision all the time; my vision is so important to me. I decided that I would relent and get a few pairs of new ones, and that they'd be generally higher-quality pairs than the simple plastic square frames I wore a lot -- I'd get a few different styles, and wouldn't let overall price be a deciding factor. Having worn glasses for a large chunk of my life now, I know what styles I like versus the ones I really don't. I know which ones will irritate my nose or temples and which ones don't, and began planning accordingly.

Because of Payne Glasses' 4th of July sale, I was able to get eight pairs of new glasses for about $125, and with shipping, it came to $140 or so. I also found that both Walmart and Goodwill take glasses donations of older, outdated pairs, and I already have a giant Goodwill donation bag in my closet. So I'll swap out most of the pairs that I've acquired this past year (the ones that aren't absolute favorites, anyway) and will replace them with the new ones -- donating the lesser-favored old ones.

The new ones are in a variety of styles. I got a few square, plastic frames like I generally favor for everyday use, but I also got a different pair of aviators, some lower-rimless squared browlines, a round browline, and a few other stylistic odds-and-ends that I may or may not end up liking but was worth the few bucks just to try out. Half of the frames I've loved over the years have been discontinued by one manufacturer or another, and it's not worth spending $100 or more to put new lenses in a $15 frame. Those, sadly, are the ones that get donated and eventually replaced with something different. 

So, no pun intended, we shall see.

Daisy has not yet ordered new glasses in her new prescription; it may be a bit before she does. She is far more particular about colors and styles than I am -- I am old school and don't deviate much from my own likes and patterns. She is avant-garde and tends to gravitate more towards odd shapes and colors, with the drawback of that being she may not end up liking the fit or quality of them once they arrive in the mail. I've only been disappointed by the fit and/or quality of glasses I've ordered over the years about two or three times, total, and that's generally just been because of the style or fit isn't what I thought it would be, or it hurts my nose/temples to wear them because the size ended up being smaller than expected. Etc. It is what it is, I guess. I've learned the sizes that I need now and have adjusted my likes and dislikes accordingly to match, and haven't had an issue in years.

Anyway.

As soon as I got home I swapped out my frames for the new lenses in the oldest frames I have -- my $400 Chesterfield pure titanium frames from 2015, and have been wearing them ever since. There's  just something about a simple, elegant pair of wire-rim glasses that feels so spartan, so utilitarian. I also barely feel them when I wear them because they're so light. I made the right choice in getting new lenses in them. 

And, really, so ended our week. We finished Stranger Things, work seems to be dead (at least by looking at my email, anyway) and Daisy is off until Tuesday -- she will finally return to the office on Wednesday. I return to work tonight to work a normal, full week. But it's been a very long, very stressful and hectic last ten days or so, and as we enter the high days of summer I really hope that everything remains quiet and even keel. There are a lot of things coming up over the later summer and fall, but for the moment, I want -- and need -- the peace to continue.