Here, in Ottawa, at least one drug addict spent the night on our doorstep, last weekend. Her voice woke Chris up, but I, still half-asleep, assumed he was dreaming. He wasn't dreaming. She (they?) left a crumpled tarpaulin, two pairs of women's black underpants and a syringe wrapper outside our front door and strewn over our front garden; we found these things when we opened the door to go out in the morning. Police and neighbours have been told about it and our porch is now lit throughout the night. This was a disturbing incident in more senses than one, reminding me of the wild animals that take shelter round about our house. Only this time it was humans.
On Monday, still thinking about vulnerabilities, I went to a lecture about Long Term Care Homes and how they are going to be "transformed" into something less institutional than at present. Chris and I like the possibility that there might be more interactions between elderly residents and young people, in the care homes of the future. Meanwhile we have COVID-19 to contend with and all our local care homes are in lockdown again, due to the Second Wave. My friend Sue, for example, is once again forbidden to visit her 98 year old mother.
News from London this week; our daughter Emma thought it possible she was catching the virus again, came down with the symptoms of a cold brought home from school by one of our grandsons, but her COVID test result turned out negative. All four of her family have been stuck at home again.
Emma is preparing a talk about satellite metrology for me and my new CFUW-Ottawa Environment Action group. She'll give the talk later this month. I have been recruiting people for this group since July, as well as soliciting help from other guest speakers near and far, and now have over thirty people on my contact list and a 6-part speaker series ready for our Programme. I'm proud of the plans, but nervous of what might thwart them. I created a website for the group last weekend, as a substitute for sending constant messages that get lost, haven't had the Club's permission to make it public yet. Many emails back and forth about that, and about the fact that one of my group members wants to invite another thirty external people to attend these meetings.
The Environment is very much on people's minds these days, a political hot topic. Even Prince William, the Queen's grandson, is getting involved, so I read today. I don't think he'll attend my Environment Action meetings, though.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I attended an online public lecture Zoomed from McGill University about Facilitating the Transition to Sustainable Water Resources Management via Participatory Systems Modeling. The title seemed off-putting, but the content was so interesting that Chris stopped what he was doing to come and listen with me to the Prof's description of feedback loops in his models of water consumption in Cyprus, Guatemala, etc. and the co-option of different water management stakeholders.
I've also been concentrating on the November issue of the newsletter I edit, now that the October issue is out.
At the end of last week Chris drafted a formal "I am retiring" announcement and handed it in on September 24th. A colleague commented, did Chris actually mean he was retiring or was he resigning from his job? That was a thought-provoking question, as was the question he got from another department at work this Tuesday: did he really want to leave, or would he be interested in a change of scene? Even though the insurance benefits company had been notified of his date of departure, it wouldn't be too late to reverse the process. So after a flurry of communications, among which someone advised him to practise "mindfulness" for the sake of inner peace and equilibrium, Chris has now decided to stay with his company indefinitely, for the time being, instead of resigning / retiring. He will be 71 next month.
This morning my German conversation group talked about the German artist Gabriele Münter and her circle of fellow expressionist artists in Murnau, Bavaria. The other one we focused on was Marianne von Werefkin who grew up in Lithuania and died as a Swiss citizen in Ascona. I had seen paintings by both of these famous women and by the men they lived with (Kandinsky and Jawlenski) at the Lenbachhaus in Munich last January. Much to talk about, so we'll continue with that topic next week.
We are in the midst of "Fall" with coloured leaves falling everywhere, especially in the strong winds and showers of rain. Chris has been singing Der Stürmische Morgen from Schubert's Winterreise to my accompaniment (our online music teacher, Gavan, led us through a thorough practice of this one on Tuesday) and I have been scooping up the maple leaves in our garden into leaf bags. Our walks are lovely, at any time of day. We walked home from town under a limpid sky this evening (it had cleared up) after supper on the Khao Thai restaurant, I wrapped in a fleece supplied at the patio table.
No comments:
Post a Comment