100 Percent Profoundness Free
Over the weekend, we went to an AA gay men's retreat. We've gone to this retreat four times now. I always enjoy it. It's as much a social thing as it is work on a twelve step program. Indeed, the social parts of the retreat are the reasons for its existence. Many recovering addicts have burned their past relationships. The retreat was created as an opportunity to make new acquittances and catch up with old.
I'm always a little bit of an odd duck at this retreat in that I'm not an addict and not sober. None the less, there are a few regular attendees at the retreat that I would like to stay in touch with.
There is an author who moves around the country depending on the time. of year. He spends early summer in Alaska. He likes August in the Pacific North West.
There is another man, who only has one leg. In his past life, he lived around the world. I say "lived around the world" and not "traveled around the world" He lived in many countries in Asia and Central America until his travels came to an end when he lost his leg in Mexico. Now he lives full time in PV, though he spends a month a year in the PNW. He is one of the calmest and most approachable people I've met.
Hmmm. What does it say about me that I want a few friends who are nomads? Perhaps I am traveling by proxy.
The brother in law has psittacosis-- bird chlamydia. Google it. It's a real thing. Apparently, just before his big bender, a sick wild bird found its way into his apartment. He tried to care for it for a bit.
The psittacosis caused a very bad pneumonia in him while he was drinking.
He is home now-- on an oxygen machine and three antibiotics.
C6 is also on the mend. Eventually he went to the hospital and received the COVID antibiotic super-treatment.
The husband is loosing weight at a healthy pace.
Socially, all is good. Work is stressful. But home is good.
The brother-in-law is in and out of the hospital. They are not sure what he has. They have given him many tests.
C6 has COVID. He was vaccinated, but has a heart transplant and is on immunosuppressants. C6 and his husband, QJ, went down to Lazy Bear last week. Their room mates down their tested positive. Two days later C6 had it.
QJ says C6 is in pain. His oxygen is good. QJ is discussing with C6's medical people if C6 should go to the hospital.
Going to Lazy Bear when you are on immunosuppressants... It's easy for me to roll my eyes at that as I'm comfortable isolating. C6 has always been super social. COVID has been a major stress for him.
And me... I'm doing well. Sunday was Bate's official retirement party. Sunday evening Allen and Evan were over for dinner and games.
Tuesday was National Night out. It is a night where our community gets to meet each other and our local police. National Night out is probably our neighborhoods largest social event.
We take over a local park, setup many inflatable kids activities, have face painting, clowns, balloon art, side walk chalk drawings and free hotdogs, ice cream and samosas. The husband and I have volunteered for this for a few years. The husband cooks and serves hotdogs and samosas. I am the gopher. I empty the garbage, hand out water bottles, substitute for volunteers when they need it (I made and served popcorn for about an hour only burning two batches) and help on whatever crises crop op.
There were two crises this year.
The relish... Usually the someone from the committee buys a dozen bottles of squeezable relish for the event. This year he couldn't find squeezable relish in the store. He bought squeeze bottles and big bottles of relish at Costco. That relish was too chunky to squirt out of the squeeze bottles. So we cut the squeeze bottles to open up the hole. No luck. The relish was still to chunky. So we blended the relish and then put it in the squeeze bottles. Success.
Second crises... the samosas. Last year we served up about two hundred samosas. There are plenty of vegetarians in the neighborhood and the samosas offer them something instead of hot dogs.
Thirty minutes before the event started, I drove over to another volunteers house to pick up the samosas. They were still frozen. Last year we bought pre-cooked samosas from a local restaurant. This year the guy in charge of buying the food tried to save money by buying two hundred raw frozen samosas. We didn't know about this until the last minute.
"But the instructions say just put them in the oven at 350F for 15 minutes!"
Two hundreds raw frozen samosas don't fit into one or two ovens. We split them into ten trays. The volunteer baked six of the trays in her two ovens and on her BBQ. I baked the remaining in my oven and on my BBQ. I think about half of the samosas baked properly. The other half welded themselves to the tray, or baked into a large mass.
We showed up to the party thirty minutes late, but with enough samosas to satisfy a few families.
When we ran out we just said "The samosas were very popular. We'll get more this year."
The guy who bought the frozen samosas apologized. Next year we'll use the restaurant again.
Am now flying back to Seattle from Toronto.
Had a bit of excitement over my return COVID-test. When you return to the U.S. you need a covid test within 72 hours before departure. For the last two days of my trip, I was with my parents who live in the middle of no-where. The nearest test-site to my parents was a county run and not set up to process anyone who didn't have a Canadian health card, so...
Fortunately Toronto is well setup. I worked with a friend in Toronto who is a travel agent. We found a company near the airport that does rapid tests. I left my parents a little early on Sunday, made the five hour drive to Toronto and got my COVID test.
