Posted on March 12, 2020 under Thursday Tidbits with one comment

A sight for sore throats

 

I have a man cold.

Let that settle in for a few minutes.

I was planning to leave the rest of this piece blank and let mothers, wives, and, women from all walks of life have their way with me but that’s like lobbing a baseball to Babe Ruth. I can already see you rolling your eyes.

I’m pretty sure it’s not Covid-19. No self- respecting virus could survive in -53 temperatures.

Women who have witnessed a man cold can attest that it’s serious stuff. Some have compared the agony of watching a man in the throes of an illness to that of childbirth or passing a kidney stone. At least children grow up and a kidney stone will eventually pass but a man cold can linger for days or even weeks.

And when, you ask, did the dreaded malady first manifest itself? In a cruel twist of irony, it befell me on International Women’s Day. While I was trumpeting all the wonderful women in my life that day, I was lying on the couch, suffering…alone… in silence.

Which begs the question. If a man has a man cold and no woman is around to watch it, does it really qualify as a man cold? Man cold is a spectator sport. If no one is around to hear you whining, hacking, and sneezing, then no pity can be showered on you. The only thing worse than being pitied is not being pitied. Pitiful.

I know some of you won’t believe a word of this, but men actually do suffer more than women when a cold strikes. There is scientific proof. Women’s immune systems are superior than men ( No surprise there) and they are not as easily affected by viruses as men.

So, this woman goes to the pharmacy to get some medicine for her beloved. “My husband has a cold. Do you have those euthanasia pills?” Pharmacist. “I think you mean echincea pills.” Woman. “No.”

Overheard one day at Sobey’s – “When my husband is sick, I feel so bad for me.”

I’m not one to take a man cold lying down although I have slept more than usual. Of course, that could also be chalked up to getting older, another irreversible disease. Yes. I drank lots of water and orange juice. I binged watched “Suits” and read a few chapters of an 1100 biography on the life of Winston Churchill (single spaced and the tiniest font I have ever seen.) Now, on top of a man cold, I am going blind.

When the going gets tough, the tough get baking. To ward off evil spirits I made three different types of cookies over the past few days – 8 dozen in total. I know that eating warm cookies washed down with cold milk will cure just about anything that ails you.

Just when my man cold had reached its zenith a few days ago, the Public Health Officer of Canada threw cold water on my planned Caribbean cruise at Spring Break. Can you imagine a massive cruise ship with thousands of men suffering from a real illness?

My son is working on one of those cruise ships. He opined as many other have that the only real danger posed by Covid-19 are those with severely compromised health or old people. Being 68 with a man cold sounds like a fit the profile perfectly.

I just might end up staying in the north and going ice fishing.

I must be careful though. If I don’t catch any arctic char but catch a cold, that will spell trouble. Two man colds in succession might just spell the end.

Have a great weekend.

Posted on March 9, 2020 under Monday Morning Musings with one comment

This polar bear left quite an impression

 

“When is the ideal age to retire?”

Never, according to a neuroscientist.

Last week I received an article from one of my sisters about retirement and good health. The author suggests that one of the keys to living a long satisfying life is to stay busy. This can hardly be construed as groundbreaking news. Many of us in the third period of our lives are busier and more engaged than ever. He suggests that keeping busy with just activity is not enough. “Too much time spent with no purpose is associated with unhappiness. Stay busy but not with busy work or trivial pursuits, but with meaningful activities. Another key component is social engagement.”

Not all my readers are old fogies and retired. Many of you are still very much in the trenches working and raising families. I can hear you saying that you have bigger fish to fry than worrying about how to spend your retirement years.

As a matter of fact, another relative was recently laid off from work which poses an entirely different set of challenges. She shared an interesting article entitled “5 Lessons I’ve Learned From Being Laid Off.” I have been one of the lucky ones to have been born during the baby boom. There never seemed to be a lack of jobs. I started work in my early teens and here I am on the cusp of 70 still gainfully employed. In the aforementioned article, I was particularly interested in lesson #5: Keep Your Sense of Humour”. The author suggested that if she didn’t keep laughing, she’d soon be crying.

I admit that finding contentment is an elusive target. We seem to be perpetually trying to find balance in our lives. I know a handful of people who seem to have their shit together, but I suspect if you dug into their lives a bit, scratching just below the surface, you would find that no one is completely happy.

I think the key is to keep striving for happiness. Having purpose in one’s life might just be the key. Ultreia.

I still haven’t found my walking mojo. I do a 40-minute walk before school each day and put in thousands of steps running up and down hallways, but that doesn’t really count. I so want to go on long walks on the weekend, but this just isn’t possible. One of the teachers told me about an 8 km route which goes out past the giant inukshuk to the town dump and circles around by the airport. The route is very hilly which suits me just fine. After walking North Mountain on the Cabot Trail, anything would seem easy.

The problem is that polar bears like to scavenge in the dump, and some have been seen in the area recently. My colleague suggested that it might not be safe to walk alone unless I was carrying a gun. Well, I don’t have a rifle and to get one, I would have to take a course. Last weekend, several of our students went on a weekend outing. They were accompanied by professional guides. When they returned, they posted several pictures including the one at the top of the page. After seeing this enormous polar bear footprint, I will curb my enthusiasm to go on a solitary walk past the dump. Becoming the entrée for a polar bear holds little appeal.

Like everyone else, I am watching the corona virus situation closely. I’m not terribly concerned that it will find its way up to the Arctic but it’s hard not to be engaged in what’s going on around the world. I remember back in 2003, I was a chaperone on a high school band trip to Toronto during the apex of the SARS crisis. The organizing committee, parents, students, and school officials agonized over what to do. We eventually decided to go, and it was a wonderful trip.

My own travel plans for the Spring break could very well be impacted depending on how things unfold. With the deluge of information coming out, it’s hard to know whether the science behind this disease warrants the panic including the mad dash to Costco for impending Armageddon. There are tens of thousands of people dying every day around the world from a host of diseases. I’m not minimizing the apparent risks and dangers of a possible pandemic, but it seems the media are feasting on this outbreak, whipping people into a frenzy.

“Life is a highway, I will ride it all night long.”

Have a great week.

Posted on March 5, 2020 under Thursday Tidbits with no comments yet

It’s a working man I am.

 

“Tiptoe through the window,
By the window, that is where I’ll be,
Come tiptoe through the tulips with me.”
Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Tiny Tim

When was the last time you had a good look at your toes and toenails? My eating habits up north have been less than desirable so the question should be how many of us can even see our feet?

I know what you’re thinking. The isolation has finally gotten to poor Len and he is grasping at straws for something to write. In case you’re wondering, there are no shops in Kangiqsujuaq for manicures and pedicures. I did get a first-class haircut from our art teacher a few weeks ago which included a neck massage and a shot of Cuban rum… neat.

As seniors become less mobile, good foot care is essential. If I keep teaching, I’ll need counselling long before I’ll require foot care.

So why this toe fetish you might ask?

Long distance runners and long distance walkers know that one of the casualties of excessive abuse to the feet is toenail damage. I remember back in 2012 when I ran the Boston Marathon, I went to the Expo the day before the race. Runners could pick up all kinds of Marathon paraphernalia. There was one booth selling fridge magnets specifically targeted for the running crowd. Two caught my eye and I think they were the only two items I bought. One read “26.2 Miles. What could possibly go wrong?” The other said “Toenails are for sissies.” Up until that time, I had never had a serious issue with blackened toenails but when Charlene dragged my sorry ass across the finish line, I discovered that 9 of my toenails were jet black. Why the running gods spared the tenth remains a great mystery.

Last spring and summer I reckon I walked about 1500 kilometers. The two big walks were the Camino in Spain and my solo journey around the Cabot Trail to raise money for my good friend, Simone. I didn’t pay much attention at the time but two of my toenails suffered some fairly serious damage, so much so that neither has fully healed. I didn’t realize that toenails were such delicate objects.

Maybe I’ll treat myself to a pedicure when I get home. I know real men don’t eat quiche, but do they get pedicures?

The picture at the top of the page has zero relevance to my feet. I had a choice between a picture of one of the hundreds of roaming dogs in the village or a picture of me in my union t-shirt. Because I had a picture of a puppy the other day, I thought I would go with the “man in black” photo.

I started my serious work career in a teacher’s union in Alberta. I don’t consider mowing graves or pumping gas for $1.00 an hour as a teenager serious work. When I left the teaching fraternity, I ended up in positions of management and eventually owned my own business. And now, in the third period of my life (I’m praying for a double overtime!), I’m back in a teacher’s union once more. My union has begun negotiations with the provincial government on a new contract.

I’m fortunate to have been able to see both sides of labor and management.

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Have a great weekend.