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Patterns.
Every year we go south. One year we go right after Canadian Thanksgiving (same date as Columbus Day in the States). The next year we stay until Christmas with the family and then we go south, to Nicaragua. This is the grease up the wheel bearings on the fifth wheel and head to Texas year. Well, no. Covid you know. Or maybe: “Covid!” “You!” “No!”
Thanksgiving happens. The Edmonton clan arrives and we walk our paths. And mostly maintain a safe distance. Grandmas hafta hug, don’t they? Grandpas not so much. Why would you hug a petri dish? Grandpa accepts his secondhand risk with minimal grumbling. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
We celebrate Odelia’s first birthday on the porch. Partly.
Annual flu shots happen.
The process has changed.
Last year we just showed up and sat in line and visited with people we hadn’t seen for a while, waited for the shot and waited to be sure there were no immediate side effects. This year would normally be our year to get shots in the States but we’re here.
So we book an appointment for our flu shots. No more just showing up without an appointment. So we book and arrive at the location (different public building than previous years) at the appointed time. The door is locked. There is a sign to phone a number. I do. We stand in the bitter north wind of October (the leaves are almost all gone. Snow often happens here in September and always in October) and answer an extended questionnaire. Somebody unlocks the door and retreats. We enter the entry way. We are instructed by a masked, gloved, coveralled person standing inside the inner sanctum to take off our masks and don the surgical masks they have laid out on the table. Our temperatures are gunned and we are instructed to follow the taped walkway to our cell. We enter. A safely garbed nurse enters, gives us our shots and leaves saying to wait fifteen minutes for any reaction. Her shape and actions reminded me of the grammar book Eats, Shoots and Leaves USA Link . She returns in ten and kicks us out. We follow that taped path to an exit door, leave the building and walk around the building to our car.
We vote.
Last year we voted in the Canadian Federal election in October. I also worked on a campaign and worked on the GOTV (Get out the vote) process for the candidate I supported. Every hour I was given a list of people who had voted at that polling station and I entered it into an app on my smart phone. That enabled the campaign headquarters for the riding to monitor which supporters needed to be called to be encouraged to vote and be offered a ride, etc. The polling station was split up into smaller entities. When a voter entered the hall they would be directed to a specific table with a ballot box and two paid poll workers. They would present their voter registration card, be handed a ballot, go mark it, return to the table and watch the ballot be placed in the ballot box. Also at each table were scrutineers, unpaid volunteers from the political parties with a candidate in the election. Usually just two or three scrutineers per table even though there might be five or more parties with candidates running. Some parties do not have enough members to come up with enough volunteers to do that.
At the end of the day when the polls close the scrutineers and I stay and watch the votes be counted. Scrutineers get to check the ballot box is empty before voting begins. They also watch the ballot box being opened. They can look at every ballot to verify the vote being counted. They are not allowed to touch the ballot but they can ask to see it better. It’s a small town. We all know general party preferences of many of the paid poll workers and the party preferences of the scrutineers is obvious but generally there is only occasional slight friction when a paid poll worker counting the ballots doesn’t particularly like the voting trend. There is never a suggestion or even the possibility of hanky-panky in this process. Open and transparent.
When the results are in I take them to the campaign headquarters as do others from polling stations in the area. This federal riding is the size of France so others are phoning in their results to the people huddled over laptops compiling results. Our candidate wins. I don’t stay around for the party. It’s time to go home. It’s almost ten o’clock and a riding the size of France has its results. How civilized. A simple system. Simple works. One professor during my MBA program said the best baggage handling system in the world was Air Canada’s in London, England. It was designed using Post-It Notes on a whiteboard.
A civilized, transparent, non-corruptible election process that produces a head of government who is a moron supported by less than 40 percent of the people who voted. Can’t have everything, I guess. Still, we vote. I floss, too. There are studies that show flossing doesn’t do any good. Still. I floss. Two or three times a day. Habits.
This year Juanita voted in the presidential election in the States as did one of our daughters.
We both voted in the provincial election this year. In the same building as last year’s flu shots. A very Covid process with Plexiglas barriers and single use pencils and being exited from the opposite of the building from the entrance and our car.
The leaves are almost all gone. It snowed. I shovelled. Juanita said, “I know what I want for Christmas.” “What?” “A snow blower.” She didn’t really, but she didn’t want to demonstrate that she doesn’t know CPR as I lay comatose with a snow shovel in my hands. That’s all the excuse I needed. It didn’t change my gift buying plans for her, but I started on the process of buying a snow blower. When the one I wanted came on sale in Lloydminster I drove the ten miles to town to the local Co-op. I showed the person who could decide, the ad from Lloydminster (2-1/2-hour drive) and said, “I like this price in Lloydminster, but I’d like to shop locally. This floor model which you’ve had since last year is a three-stage, but I only need the two-stage that’s on sale. What can you do?”
She matched the price of the on-sale two-stage. I paid. They loaded. I drove the ten miles home.
Halloween happened. In over thirty years here we have had treat or treaters once. This year was normal. No trick or treaters.
I bought bulbs for spring flowers. I bought them a bit late. The dirt has frozen and has to be chiselled to plant them. Better planting planning is needed next year.
The mower control cables I ordered in August arrived. The one i built using The Rotary Universal Cable Ends (Canada) (USA) is still working fine so these cables will become spares when mowing season returns in the spring.
I read many books but only took a picture of one cover this month, The Brenner Assignment, the fascinating true story about a secret mission in the mountains of Northern Italy.
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