Pat's grandson has had blackouts and headaches, saw a pediatrician, neurologist and recently a cardiologist, with negative results. It may be migraines, but he will still be seeing another specialist. While Pat thinks it’s going slowly, perhaps this gives more time for data gathering. He will be playing AAA hockey this year.
John is in the Okanagan until Monday, enjoying the weather and lack of smoke. His 5-year-old grandson needed help putting on life jacket before going in the water and had to instruct John with “No Paw, there’s still the under the balls strap”, so John did that one up, too.
Chris M. had birthday wishes from so many people, including Max, who is doing well, started school already and is getting back to golf. Her kids gave her a new 5 iron and a lesson from Jennifer – have they seen her golf lately? They had a wonderful family dinner last night, with too much food.
Mary Lou is done with her Australian relatives’ 3000 km trip around the province and is going back to work for a rest. They had to pivot away from Jasper, went to the Kootenays, to Lake Louise, Sicamous, Kamloops and the cabin. The weather has been perfect except for yesterday and she would earn 5 stars on Trip Advisor. Her house is getting painted, but they had a family BBQ before the painting started - good thing as now they can’t use the backyard. They are leaving next Wednesday, and she is starting to count the sleeps. She won’t be a travel agent in her next life.
Garth is drafting factums for the Court of Appeal, and was wildly successful on the trial last year, but faces 1000s of pages of documents to go through and can only do about 6 hours before he goes cross-eyed – but he must do it the way the court wants!
(can anyone one else smell billable hours?)
Gordon thinks Garth would be qualified to do Mr. Trump’s trials. Gordon emptied his brain last week so doesn’t have to say anything other than that the fields looked lovely with the mist this morning. He got blood results, thinks a negative result is bad, and isn’t sure if he is dead or alive, but alive so far. (and we are all glad and better for it.)
Debbie T. is gearing up for ride next weekend but feels she hasn’t been out enough on the bike, did 61 km. last weekend, but her riding partner, Garry, fell and has a swollen ankle. She’s not as trained as usual, so fingers crossed. She’s never had to take the assisted ride up the hill before. She’ll resend the email for us to make donations. Linda McPhail will be one of her ribbons which include people who have passed or been diagnosed.
Marg had a great week in California, as Ben’s friend Gabby planned the itinerary, including John Legend, great restaurants, the Getty Museum of architecture, beach day with or without bikes, a Dodgers vs Phillies baseball game, Disneyland, Autopia where Marg’s car got overheated and died. Marg reconnected with the first person she met in Canada where they bonded as cat lovers, had dinners every night, and always exchanged cards, with no email or phone number it was lucky she re-found her after 50 years and spent the afternoon catching up. She organized a Gilmore staff reunion, a gathering of the old timers and 24 of them came on Saturday night for the BBQ at Marg’s. Next Saturday there is a memorial in Esquimalt, for a friend diagnosed with cancer who has raised over a quarter million dollars through events.
Kal was at the Sandman Hotel on Saturday night, for 90th 80th and 75th birthdays for 3 siblings who still live on their own(representing 245 years), so Kal thinks he has another 25 years left.
Chris B. is back, after forever, as she was working, then in California, then Europe, where it was 43º in Florence, so they were celebrating the 36º with a little breeze. In Barcelona, they arrived 6 days early for the cruise, but no luggage arrived with them, then was going to arrive ‘tomorrow’, and 9 days later they were on the cruise and luggage arrived but went to where they would be the next day so it had to be flown back. The luggage had 5 tags on it and had a trip of its own. At the hotel she found dresses for 14 euros, so she bought 4 with different designs - and learned you can survive on that. Malcolm had the air tags, but they were in a hurry, so he didn’t put them on (as were in Calgary just before for Stephanie’s race). She remembers the Autopia cars, as when she was a kid she worked at Disneyland, and they couldn’t wear makeup, and little kids would run cars over their feet. Her 13-year-old grandson is # 1 in something in swimming, and the 12-year-old brother behind him had an even better time. He grew from 5 ft 7 to 6 ft last year, and didn’t know what an advantage it is to have long arms. With the hail hitting WestJet, they were late leaving from Calgary. But they had a great time.
Sam is tall but admits his Olympic days are behind him. This week he’s in a better mood as the dishwasher leak is resolved, the sink is back on and they are no longer washing as if in a frat house. Next week he will be doing his last course in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.
Jeannette went with Susan to Tim Horton’s and spent more than two hours talking about rotary, as Susan is her mentor. Last Saturday she went on a picnic with Elena, with lots of food. She is busy doing an invitation letter for her brother to visit, and needs it notarized, which costs $50, so she wonders if there is someone here who could do it for pancakes and coffee?
Elena says the lesson from Chris’ trip, is to put everything in your carry-on. It was a good picnic with Jeannette and other friends at a park in Burnaby with the dogs. This is the 14th-year anniversary since her breast cancer operation. This was also when she first organized the dental mission, and she went just one week after her operation. She enjoyed cooking pancakes this morning.
Peachy thanks Kal for helping to build her business as she relies on word of mouth. Her car is in body shop for ICBC for a week and she is enjoying driving a BMW.
Micheal loved the breakfast. He has been busy at the banquet hall for ten days straight with parties, but it’s good for business. He is frustrated with BC Hydro, building his new home and they are finished up to 95% in every trade, but still have no power and are working with the temporary pole. They applied in November last year and no one looked at the file until May this year, then last week Micheal finally got a nice guy from BC Hydro who explained that they are lacking staff in this field, so hopefully they will get power and be able to finish the house and move in in two weeks. Last week Elon musk said he’s building robots to fix the Teslas. What will the future be like?
Danny was awake at 2 a.m. to prepare to take his friend to the airport, and was driving fast, thinking the flight was early, and arrived at 3:45 but found out the flight was at 7 a.m.! They went inside to do check-in, then he went to Tim Horton’s parking lot to wait for the Rotary meeting. He has an app with a divine healing frequency, so was able to sleep in the car, until the alarm went off at 6:30 and he drove fast and arrived at rotary on time. Danny knows about acupuncture pressure points for headaches, and Pat attests that it works for migraines.
Susan is on holidays, a staycation, and had a great time with Jeannette at Tim Horton’s, and was sorry to have missed Gordon’s event last Thursday, but it was the only day she had to work at 7 a.m. Her mom is doing well, with only minor issues. She and her brother went to Parksville on Aug. 4 for her stepmom’s birthday, as she has been sick this year, especially when they saw her in April with Glen and Ryan, but she is happy that she is much stronger now.
Amanda gave us a fuzzy-guy update, (not Graham), as last week there was panic that something was wrong with him. He was doing weird things liking rubbing his butt on the floor, was agitated and not normal, a more intense crazy. Graham brought him to the vet and was so upset waiting for him as the cat was howling and Graham was worried. But it turns out he is 100% healthy and is just a bit of a jerk who likes to pretend something is wrong. Amanda had a good time at the Whiskey Smoke event last week at Hastings Racetrack, where she assumed she could bet on races by going to the wicket like in the movies, but it was all on computers so she didn’t bet. But she got to taste lots of whiskeys, thought she’d stop at 6, but they were pouring ¼ oz pours so it was challenging.
Sandra had a lesson on losing bags, as, if charges are put on your Visa card, you get $1000 for incidentals. So, when she lost bags in Las Vegas, they went shopping. She was in Sechelt for a wedding this weekend, the babysitter, staying up on a hill with a spectacular view. She took Miller for a walk, down with stroller and had to go back up. The next morning, she had to take him again for a down up walk and now her hips are sore! The traffic getting off the ferry was terrible, merging with people coming back from Whistler, and it never let up. It took four hours to get home. Yesterday they had a 7-year-old, was hungry but wasn’t going to like the mahi mahi fish, so Sandra made chicken fish, and was told it was good. They didn’t like the green beans either, and Sandra remembers her mom used to tell her to eat the beans as if they were cigarettes, so she tried that, and they liked it. Lesson - lie to your kids to get them to eat.
Melinda says it was good to go to say goodbye to Tom who was on life support, but now he is doing well and off life support! Amazing! His wife was in a house for families with people on life support, and while there, experienced storms, heard pounding, with glass all over the bed, and it wasn’t the storm, but someone who had broken in through the window. She called 911 and the guy had a knife, which was all very emotional and although she is traumatized. Tom is ok. John’s eye problems are an auto immune issue and not cancer, so he is improving. They had the grand girls at Centennial Beach yesterday and Melinda is exhausted, but admits it was fun.
Debbie S. is reminded of the time with her sister on Vancouver Island when they were running downhill with strollers, and her sister’s baby rolled out of stroller as strap wasn’t done up tight enough – her sister was freaking out, but baby Catherine was totally fine. She shared a Kidsplay story about using their app to make a donation, getting an email with invoice, then a tax receipt, then another tax receipt. She was not paying attention, until after a few months, she must have gotten onto a monthly recurring donation! $800 later she realized the error, but couldn’t go on the website to correct it and called them and emailed them, asking to be removed from the recurring system. They offered her a refund, but she only took half of it back. Very exciting -. her second crop of radishes is up!
Bobby did a bike ride with the kids in downtown Vancouver, has ramped up his running and is close to 7 km, thanks to pointers from Debbie S. During the next 6 weeks he hopes to get to 21 km, and his daughter, who is also following Debbie’s program is at 14 km. He was watching YouTube on how to make smash burgers and got 10/10 on his burgers. He is happy we are able to bring our questions to the experts in our club. They are not as busy at the hall as Micheal lets on, as they are more overseers rather than hands on.
Peter says that 12 years ago he was playing golf at Beach Grove and couldn’t walk the course anymore wondering what was going on. The doctor sent him for a stress test at Richmond General, where he showed symptoms of a heart attack without the attack, and it turned out to be a virus in the heart. They did a CT scan and happened to notice a little grey area on the kidney, which was cancer, found by accident, after which he was quickly scheduled for surgery and operated, then they found he had an aneurism on the spleen, also noticed by accident. It was all sorted out. He has had challenges over the years, even after the virus was gone, so he got a pacemaker on Tuesday and has the rhythm he didn’t have before. But he can’t carry a cell phone and has a card for the scanner at the airport and they can’t x-ray him. He doesn’t even realize the pacemaker is there, but it must be doing its thing. VGH is phenomenal, the health care system from June to August showed him how our medical system is seamless. He is looking forward to the DG coming on the 29th and tasting wine on the 4th which is a good kickoff to the year, then he goes finishing near Salmon Arm for his last trip this year.
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