International Women's Day

To All My Women Friends: Happy International Women's Day!



This was the slogan of the 1919 Lawrence, Mass. Textile Workers Strike.

The short story is in 1919 the State of Massachusetts reduced the work week from 56 hours to 54 hours. The textile mill responded to this action by reducing the (mostly Women) workers pay by the two hours. They were only paid 16 cents an hour to begin with so this put a great strain on their ability to help feed their families. They were fed up and did what workers all over the world do. They went on strike.

Click this link to hear Utah Plillips' great rendition of James Oppenheim's song that became the anthem of the Lawrence Textile Strike.

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Taxes Done!

It was a little trying but I got it done yesterday. The medical expenses were a pain to sort and organize but they do give me a sizable deduction. Norma's estate owes nothing as she only had income for three months in 2019. I was unable to take advantage of income splitting so had to take on the whole bite of my taxes by myself. I have to pay $2,100 over and above what has already been deducted. Still, all in all, better than last year.

However, it does not have to be paid until the end of April so I will sit on it until then. I am forced to take a sizable Registered Retirement Income Fund (RRIF) payment in mid April so my Income tax and property tax payments will come out of this. My pre-planning is paying off.

Life Is Good!

Still Kicking!

I have had a couple of my old readers express some concern about me and the fact I have not posted in a while. Well, everything is OK.

I have backed off the Blog for a couple of reasons. One, I am not doing much worth reporting lately and two, ... well, maybe there is no two. We have had a cold, wet winter up here in Campbell River and I have just been vegetating. I have been spending some time with my son in Shawnigan Lake and with my friend Penny in Victoria (who has just become a brand new grandmother!) She was up here for New Years Eve and we managed a couple of visits with friends.

Right now I have been gathering data for my Income Taxes as well as for Norma's Final Taxes. This seemingly simple task has had an unpleasant effect on me and has brought back memories that I thought might be getting tucked away. Not a bad thing really. I could have had both our taxes professionally done this year but TurboTax is evidently set up to handle Final Taxes and she only had three months income to be dealt with so it should be fairly simple. As always, I will have to pay as neither of us had taxes deducted from our government pensions, only from our Union pensions. My "Rainy Day Fund" will cover it no problem.

The combination of the weather, the memories and the never-ending construction on the highway in front of my house has me down a little but nothing for anyone to be concerned about. I am fine!

We are making plans for a motorhome trip this summer. I asked Penny where she wanted to go and she indicated she really loved the Okanagan with it's lakes and wine country so that is probably where we will go again. It is easy to make quick day trips down to the USA for sightseeing and shopping so we are looking forward to that.

I will be back on line when I have something more exciting to report.

Papa Noel Getting Ready!

This is a repeat of the post I did when we spent Christmas in New Orleans.

While Santa is up in the North Pole readying his sleigh which is pulled by reindeer, way down south in Louisiana, his alter ego, Papa Noel is preparing his Pirogue (pea-row) to be pulled through the swamps by his eight pet alligators, Gaston, Tiboy, Pierre, Alcee, Ninette, Suzette, Celeste and Renee and, if it is misty, Nicollette, lighting the way with her glowing green eyes.

In the tiny villages and communities along the Louisiana Bayous, residents gather to light community bonfires to show Papa Noel where there are children waiting for his visit.

It will be a busy night for both Santa and Papa Noel!

Papa Noel!

New Bed

I am treating myself to another early Christmas gift, a new bed! The old one was my parents bed and I got it in 1994 when my mom died. So it has twenty some years on it (it was not new when I got it) and was beginning to show some sag.

I looked around town for something and eventually settled on a BeautyRest Queen size from SleepCountry in Courtenay. With a set of new Egyptian Cotton sheets and a mattress pad it came to just over $1,400 with free delivery and disposal of the old bed. Bed salesmen are a lot like car salesmen. They advertise the bed for $900 but by the time you get out of the store you have spent $1,400.

The new mattress is 14" high, 5" higher than my old one so I might have to keep a step ladder standing by. It also has a "Gel Pad" on the top surface which makes it non flippable but they say to swap it end for end every time I change the bedding.

I have been waking up at five or so every day so it will be interesting to see if the new bed gives me a better sleep.

Early Christmas Gift For Myself

Several years ago (decades actually) Brooks bought us a 42" Plasma TV, state of the art for it's time, As I recall it was around $1,000. It served me well and had the added feature of being able to heat the bottom room as that thing put out a LOT of heat!

But over time it started to seem a little fuzzy and I became envious of the larger size screens available so I have been watching. I finally found one at Canadian Tire's Black Friday Sale, a 58" "Smart" 4K Chinese brand for $365. too good a deal to pass up. I did a quick search for reviews on line and determined it was worth buying. If I didn't like it I could always return it.

Well, I like it. If it was set up beside one of the better known ($$$) brands it might be a little inferior but for my 74 year old eyes it is just fine and it is 1/3 the price of the better known brands. I am happy!

Norma Honoured!

Norma was honored today with a (posthumous) Honorary Lifetime Membership in the New Democratic Party of British Columbia! I was very pleased to accept the award on her behalf from our friend Premier John Horgan on the stage of the Victoria Conference Centre at the 2019 BCNDP Convention.

In Victoria

I came down to Victoria a couple of days early to get my bearings and to pick up some clothes to wear on Saturday to Norma's presentation of her Honorary Life Membership (posthumous) in the New Democratic Party of British Columbia. This is in recognition of her decades of dedicated work with the Party.

My friend Penny, who lives in Victoria, offered to help me choose some clothes and I was surprised to find that I had dropped yet another size of pants. A few years ago I was size 42, then 40, then 38 and now I am 36! Mark's had a buy one, get one for half price sale on so we chose two spiffy shirts and two pair of chino pants. I am going to look pretty sharp at the ceremony but will have to work to keep my weight stable. I do not want to lose any more and nor do I want to gain any back! I will try to find someone to take my photo at the Convention.

I passed the clothes over the change room wall for Penny to hold while I got dressed and when I got out I found she had already paid for everything! An early Christmas gift she had been secretly planing since she heard about the award ceremony for Norma during our trip to the Okanagan and Alberta when I would not let her pay for anything. It was too much although very much appreciated. I will have to work on a Christmas gift for her. I have a couple of ideas.

Hopefully the work on the house repairs will be completed by the time I get back on Tuesday. The concrete guy has promised to have the sidewalk done by Friday. The plumber's bill turned out higher than the estimate because of the difficulty burying the water line down the driveway. They could not use the backhoe very much because of the proximity of the gas line, sewer, bank drainage pipe and the old water line in the tiny strip of land they had to work in. A lot of digging had to be done by hand and this was very time consuming. I hope the insurance company is understanding. Right from the start they told me they has a limit of $10,000 for this job and the total will be just under $6,000. Fingers crossed as the original estimate was for just over $4,000.

The weather has been "OK" for mid November with days around 10 C and nights around 2 C (35 F - 50 F). there has been no rain in Victoria but Campbell River has had some rain.

I am sitting in the Victoria Cancer Centre's visitor's lounge waiting for Penny to complete her once a week volunteer shift, something she enjoys doing after being a patient here herself seven years ago. They have excellent WIFI here. We will be going back to her place for a dinner of Wild Sockeye Salmon over pasta! Portion size designed to keep my waist at 36"!

Project End In Sight

The water line is in, buried and cleaned up. Next spring I will sprinkle some grass seed over the filled in trench and I will soon be back to mowing it.

The concrete work still has to be done but I was referred to a good concrete guy who specializes in small jobs. He has already torn up the remains of the old sidewalk and will be pouring the new one in a day or two, depending on weather. He will also repair a small section of the retaining wall beside the driveway that got damaged by the backhoe. The original plan was to just patch the sidewalk but he informed me that his minimum charge would replace the whole thing. Nice. The retaining wall repair will be billed directly to the plumbing company because it was their fault. the result of having to dig in a very confined area.

This is all covered by insurance, less my $1,000 deductible.

Slow Days

I have not been posting because not much is happening. We got back from our Okanagan / Alberta adventure and I dropped Penny off in Victoria and I returned to Campbell River to deal with the broken water line. In the meantime I developed the first bad cold I have had in years and then successfully passed it on to Penny during a short visit back to Victoria. This was not good because she has been told by her doctors to avoid colds because of her compromised immune system. We are both fine now but have avoided each other for a while to prevent the cycle of passing it back and forth.

The plumbing company started digging the trench for the new water line on Thursday and have at least one more day to go this week. The house is about 200 feet away from the water connection at the street and the new line must be dug into a very narrow strip of grass between a retaining wall and the driveway. This tiny space already contains the old water line, the natural gas line, the sewer and the pipe carrying the bank runoff water and therefore requires very slow, careful digging. What could have been a fairly simple job is turning into a major project. When the plumbers are done I will have to deal with getting someone in to lay a new sidewalk to replace the one they had to jackhammer out to expose the water line.

So all in all the last month has passed quite quickly. I have been making sure to get as much sleep as possible, stay warm and to eat well. The eating part does not come easily for me. It was easier when there were two of us but now I usually just look for something quick to satisfy my hunger and this is not always the healthiest choice. My weight loss has tapered off and is now (just now) 223 pounds. Down a lot from my maximum of around 260 and my more recent (5 - 10 yeas) "normal" of 240. I am happy with 223 as long as it does not drop too much further.

There was a deer in the yard earlier this weekend and when I investigated I found a section of fence about 20 feet long flattened with three steel posts bent right over at a 90 degree angle! A deer could not do this, this is the work of a bear! I will have to find some more posts, drive them in and re-hang the wire fence. Oh yes, the same bear got into my garbage can and spread the contents across the yard. This is getting old very fast!