It is now mid November and we are just getting our first real taste of winter. It is, most unfortunately, in the form of an Alberta Clipper.

We are currently experiencing light snow with plummeting temperatures, with the promise of about 15 cms of snow and a further drop in the mercury. I'm really not sure who decides how Winter should makes its entrance each year, but this really is a rather rude way of showing up.

The two provinces just to the west have been pummeled with wind and snow and cold, with accumulations of up to about 20 cms in places. This means heavy equipment on the streets to clean up the drifts so that actually using your car is again possible.


It is times like this that I am very glad I decided to buy a 4 wheel drive SUV. Even with that, though, it was still slippery driving home from work this evening (after a 12 hour shift) and I am so not looking forward to walking the dog!!!

And given that LHB is now enroute from BC (furthest province to the west) back to Winnipeg, on a journey that will take him to Florida by the 29th of the month, I am just a tad concerned about the road conditions he'll be traveling through. Having spoken with him this evening, and knowing that the pass through the Rockies is closed tonight because of the weather, I decided that he needed a Guardian Angel to watch over him on his travels. I'm sure he'll be quite happy with this one... ;-)

I'm not too keen on this happening along the way...

Because he is already on his way, and because his load doesn't need to be delivered to Florida until the 29th, he is fairly certain he will have a few days to spend here before having to hit the road once again.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't pleased with that possibility!!!

Live in the Now

This evening, my sister took me out on a date. To see Cesar Millan, the Dog Whisperer. We've both been big fans of his since discovering him on TV several years ago and were using some of his dog training techniques long before we knew about him. (Aren't we smart cookies!?!?)

The seminar was great and he's quite a funny guy to listen to. And to watch. He really gets the dog body language down pat when demonstrating how dogs do things. Especially wagging his tail!! ;-)

His Canadian tour didn't originally include Winnipeg but a local doggy day care set up a petition to get him here. It worked! He was truly impressed that we wanted to see him here that badly and got a little emotional at the end.

But one thing that he said during the seminar really made a lot of sense. Dogs live in the 'now'. Humans do not. Humans hang onto the past, fret about the future and try to analyze every second of time. And look where it's got us. In really bad trouble! Cesar wants to go all over the world and help people learn to help their dogs and themselves by experiencing life in the 'now'.

Look at how many wars were started years and years ago by something that someone did in the past. And humans are still fighting about those old things to this day. Look at how many people keep bringing up bad memories and fearing that all that stuff will keep happening. It will if you think it will!

So make like a dog, forget about all the crap that happened way back when and get out and enjoy life today. What's that old saying? Yesterday is the past, tomorrow is the future but today is a gift... because it's the present!!!

So much for a minor head cold.

It simmered for the better part of a week, just enough to be annoying but not enough to make me feel ill, really. A drippy nose. A bit of stuffyness. Not much more.

Until Monday, that is. Just in time for the arrival of LHB, my cold decided to flare up into mind blowing sneeziness and brain clogging snottiness.

Great. Isn't that just perfect timing.... NOT!

LHB had a load to deliver just north of the city Tuesday morning. Or so he thought. So he arrived in town Monday afternoon and we got to spend some time together. His boss said be there Tuesday morning at 8 a.m. And because it's about an hour's drive north of here, he'd have to head out early to get there.

So. He called the person he was delivering to, to confirm the arrangements because a crane was necessary to offload the load. Wed. morning, he's told. For sure? Yep. So Wed. morning it is.

Cool! We get an extra day! So he's here from Monday early afternoon to Wed. early morning. We were both very pleased with that! I think we both looked like the Cheshire cat when we heard that!!!

Time isn't really something that has been in great abundance yet in this relationship. Little snippets snagged here and there when possible. Phone calls when reception allows, although there are often dead spots where we play 'can you hear me now?' regularly. Email contact has been sporadic as well, with him dependent on wifi availability at truck stops.

We've tried to remedy at least that one issue by getting an mobile internet stick for his laptop. I've one and it works well in the city. The trick is how well it will work while he's on the road. But it works more like a cell phone so if he has cell coverage, he should have internet as well. At least enough to email. Surfing may be slower than molasses in January though.

So we figured he'd be off again once he offloaded that cargo. He called me in the afternoon on Wed. to say his next load was to be picked up very close to my house. And that he didn't have to head out until Thursday morning. And not at the crack of dawn either, because it was Remembrance Day, so leaving would be around 10 a.m.

Again, the Cheshire cats reappeared. Wow! This is unheard off! We got three days and nights in one place. It was wonderful. We actually got a chance to get to know each other in more 'real' situations than being out on a date. We went shopping, we hung around the house, we cooked dinner. Walked the dog. Normal stuff. Everyday stuff. The way you really get to know someone and get glimpses of who they are and to see if there stuff there that freaks you out.

Nope. Nothing. Just enough to know we both want to do this more often. With greater regularity. For longer spans of time.

So the hunt continues for something for him to do here for work. We've bantered ideas back and forth. It's really tough when you've been a trucker for so many years. He's done other things too, but really, trucking is the main thing. So I am hunting online for local businesses that may be something he's interested in. I have the time, you see.... and the motivation!

Head Code

I haz one. Snotty nose, scratchy throat. That kind of stuff. It's not bad. Nothing like the one I had in September. That required medical intervention... antibiotics and steroids. And several days off work. Blech.

No, this time it is a minor annoyance. I suck on lozenges to ease the scratchiness and carry wads of Kleenex. I started taking Cold-FX right away. And stocked up on Dayquil and Nyquil. I've actually had two nights of 8 hour sleeps! Better living through chemistry, right?!?!

Unfortunately, it is courtesy of the LHB. I hate to tell him this. I haven't, yet. He'll feel quite awful, I know. He'll worry that I will get as sick as he did.

He's on the mend, by the way. The new drugs and a good modicum of sleep have done the trick! He was incommunicado for most of Thursday, which had me worried. Turns out when he slept, his phone was turned off (which was why it went straight to voice mail when I called in the afternoon) but then it died. While he was sleeping. So he had to charge it the next day. And then he was in a place where retrieving his voice mail just wasn't possible. He's had that issue in the past.

So he didn't get the subsequent messages I left him later on Thursday, voicing some concern for his health. Because he had sounded like death warmed over when I had last spoken to him. Seriously... and barely warmed at that!

I was worried. Did he succumb to his illness and now have a full blown pneumonia, complete with raging fever and delirium? Alone in his truck? Would I read the paper with a headline like "Body found in truck mired in phlegm"? Did he manage to get himself to a hospital and was he languishing in some ward, no one to visit him, unable to use his phone due to it's dead battery and hospital policy? Sometimes your mind detours quickly to the worst scenario, doesn't it?

But when I finally did speak to him, he was sounding chipper and happy and very much alive. Which was a huge relief to me, let me tell you! Because I want to see where this budding romance might lead. I'm being selfish in that, I know... but he has told me he feels the same, so there you go.

Excuse me while I dig out the neti pot and flush my sinuses... and smile frequently because he'll be back on Monday. :-)

I sit here, in front of my computer, munching on some deliciously sweet and tangy pineapple, careful not to drip that sticky juice into the keyboard. (Wouldn't that just gum things up completely, eh!?)

I've just had a very lovely light lunch consisting on a variety of whole grain crackers, hummus, creamy havarti cheese, ham sausage, grape tomatoes, sugar snap peas and am now completing my repast with a dessert that tingles my taste buds!

The pineapple is courtesy of the Long Haul Brit (herein to be known as LHB. What? It's easier to type...) on Sunday. Now how many of you women have received a plump juicy pineapple on a date??? Tell me... who? I don't see any hands there. Flowers are pretty, they smell nice and the cats love to eat them, but they are also kind of the 'norm' for a new beau to bring. So it was lovely to be handed a plastic grocery bag containing one whole pineapple, spiky fronds and all. Although as he passed it to me, it promptly fell through the bottom of the bag and plunked to the floor. No injuries were noted during this unfortunate accident. Except to the pineapple, which seemed to have sustained a split bottom, as I found it had piddled on the counter when I moved it later on.... Luckily, it was a minor injury and very little juice was lost.

It would appear that the willingness to proceed with 'exploration' between myself and the LHB is mutually desired. There has been great discussion about many things, included the likes of previous 'dates' and escapades in online dating. We both have a number of stories to tell, it would seem. The important thing to note here is, for me at least, there are no warning bells going off in my head. There are no red flags, flashing lights, screaming sirens.... No gut feelings telling me to turn and run for the hills. So I take this to be a good sign.

He's back on the road again, and this concerns me, as he's been battling a chest and sinus cold, complete with cough, for 5 weeks or so. He called me today, sounding very harsh and tired, saying he'd been to a walk-in clinic in the city where he dropped off his cargo, and has been given antibiotics and some kind of nasal spray. At the moment, he doesn't have direction from head office on where or when to pick up the next load, so at least he can spend some time resting.

If you can call bunking in a truck sleeper restful. I don't know. I've never seen the insides of one, so I have no idea how big or small it is. But at least he can sleep.

Needless to say, I am concerned. What he really needs is a week off, just to rest and sleep and heal. Of course, one would need a 'home' to do that in, as a hotel would get slightly pricey... and right now, his 'home' is that truck. I am hoping that head office will leave him sit idle for a couple more days, allowing him to take it easy and let the drugs do their thing. (It's just too bad he's about 1500 kms away while he sits idle...) It's a very stressful life, being constantly on the move, never really having any time off, not having a 'life', so to speak.

So I am doing my best to send healing vibes his way, to chase that nasty bug out of his respiratory tract, and to get him feeling more human and less like roadkill.