Sunday ; Mostly cloudy, chilly, a few drops of rain.
This morning the lady from Prince George whose beach bag we found in Osoyoos yesterday arrived to reclaim her beach bag. She was grateful. It contained an expensive cell phone and expensive sunglasses.
I did some minor truck maintenance today. And I continued sorting / reviewing / storing our winter's purchases. I set up our Canadian cell phone online account and purchased some air time. I reviewed the package of information for the upcoming annual general meeting of Riverside RV Park Resort, and made my decisions on how to vote on each of the issues to be voted on at the meeting. We will not attend the meeting, but we can vote by ballot in advance, a welcome change from the past. Joanne did laundry. Yes, yes ... again. There was a lot of clothing and linens in Elsie the truck camper that required laundering.
In the evening I posted my weekly journal entry to my blog. I did some online travel planning and research on our planned summer trip to Haida Gwaii. We watched MasterChef Canada and I Am Cait on TV.
Monday ; Partially sunny, chilly, windy.
This morning we headed into town. We both had appointments at the South Similkameen Health Centre / Keremeos Clinic. Joanne went to the lab and had blood drawn. I went to the Public Health Nurse and had the first part of a TB skin test. From there we went to PharmaSave and I picked up some prescription refills, then over to a new pharmacy in town to ask some questions and get some information. While still in town ( where there is cell phone service ) I completed the reactivation of our Canadian cell phone. On the way out of town heading home we stopped at FasGas and I had our home propane tank refilled.
After lunch and a nap I did some maintenance work on our home composter. We took Bo to the dog park. I replenished toiletries and supplies in the truck camper. I went to see our friend / neighbour Jeanine to explain something about the pet medications we bought for her in Mexico.
After supper I worked on medication records keeping and accounting. More complicated than it sounds ... for us OCD types. HA HA HA !
Tuesday ; Partially sunny and mild.
Last August I submitted a renewal application for my aviation document booklet ( pilot's license ) which was due to expire on September 1, 2015. I was annoyed when it had not yet arrived in the mail by the time we departed on September 18. I was infuriated when we arrived back home on April 16 and it was not in the batch of mail that our neighbour had collected over the winter. I phoned Transport Canada and was told by recorded message that someone would return my call within two business days. Two business days later some low level bureaucrat left a message on my voicemail. I tried repeatedly for the next three days to contact him. He never answered his phone, and he never returned my calls. I left increasingly angrier messages frequently over the three days.
Finally, on the fourth day, I received an e-mail from some other low level bureaucrat advising me that the renewal application mailed last August had been processed ... wait for it ... yesterday ! ! ! The day before the e-mail was sent ! I was still livid, but at least my renewed pilot's license was on its way to me.
Today it arrived in the mail. AND ... < sputter > ... my IFR ( instrument flight rules ) rating, licensing me to fly in bad weather with no visual reference outside the aircraft, using only the dashboard instruments / avionics within the airplane ... "flying blind" ... which had expired on December 1, 1995, was now ... renewed and valid ! ! ! HA HA HA HA HA !
SO ... a "life or death" rating that requires an annual examination ... which I haven't had for 21 years ... is now back on my pilot's license !
Yes, yes ... our tax dollars at work. HA HA HA < SNORT > HA HA !
Joanne did some yard work today. I helped with taking yard waste to the park's burn pile area, and bringing back some leaves and grass cuttings for our composters and some wood chips for landscaping. I reviewed the park's annual general meeting documents, filled out the ballots to vote on all the issues to be voted on at the AGM, and submitted the voting package to the office. As always, we won't be attending the AGM. I did some accounting work, including reconciling this month's MasterCard statements. And I finished the planning and scheduling of this summer's trip to Haida Gwaii a.k.a. Queen Charlotte Islands off the northwest coast of British Columbia, in the "Inside Passage", south of the Alaskan islands.
I barbecued chicken thighs and "smashed potatoes" for supper. We ate supper watching an episode of Trailer Park Boys where Bubbles "rescues" a drug addicted mountain lion. HA HA HA HA HA !
Wednesday ; Mostly sunny, mild.
This morning I headed into Keremeos to have the Public Health Nurse at the South Similkameen Health Centre check the "TB skin test" on my forearm. WOO-HOO ...
I don't have tuberculosis ... < rolling my eyes >. HA HA HA ! Then she administered a series of vaccinations that are on the list of vaccinations required prior to commencing the use of the drug Humira. BUT ... not all the vaccinations. There is a question about the remaining two vaccinations. It's not clear whether my gastroenterologist wants me to have both ... or just one or the other. We are awaiting a return phone call from my gastroenterologist. While at the Keremeos Clinic I dropped off a ... < snicker > ... "sample" of Joanne's at the lab. And I made an appointment for a required chest x-ray.
After finishing at the clinic I went to the new pharmacy in town to drop off some new prescriptions to be filled, and to get some information. On the way home I refilled with diesel in town. I don't like buying diesel in Keremeos because it is so much more expensive than in Penticton. But I needed to refill before tomorrow's big trailer towing job. AND ... while I went inside to pay the $50 worth of diesel I requested, the pump attendant wandered away and began chatting with another customer. SO ... < fume > ... when I returned to my truck after paying the $50, the pump attendant was not there, and the pump was rolling through $58 ! ! ! I didn't mind the error / inattention of the young pump attendant so much as I disliked the smug smirk I got from the cash register attendant inside ( the elderly owners' a*****e of a son ) when I went back in to pay the additional $8 and change. "Smug Smirk" seems to be his permanent persona !
Back at home I had a late lunch and a brief nap. Then I phoned BC PharmaCare to find out why I had to pay the full amount of my prescription refills on Monday. The full amount exceeded my annual deductible by almost $200. I sat on hold for twenty-three ****ing minutes before I got an agent who took all of about thirty seconds to find the problem. PharmaSave in Keremeos had made a coding error. That pissed me off ! Because when I paid the bill at PharmaSave on Monday I asked the ( new ) owner why PharmaCare had not kicked in at what I believed was my deductible level. His answer was that I must be mistaken about what my deductible level is.
SO ... I was doubly pissed off when I phoned him today ... after having twenty-three minutes of my life wasted ... and pointed out his error that cost me close to $200, and his response was ... < sputter > ... no sort of apology at all, but a passing of the blame down to one of his pharmacy technicians. Well ... good thing I had already decided to give the new pharmacy in town a try, because ... goodbye, PharmaSave. I will have to return there to have them completely retract the previous prescription records with the coding errors, and have them create new prescription records to enter into the PharmaCare database, and then get a refund for the almost $200 overpayment.
As I was taking Bo to the dog park, my next door neighbour stopped me to give me his very bad news. He has just been diagnosed with lung cancer. < sigh > That's not good ! After I finished with Bo at the dog park he and his wife came over and sat with Joanne and me at our picnic table. He and I each had a strong glass of whiskey, and the four of us discussed his dilemma. Joanne and I tried to mostly listen. Joanne has good people skills and is very supportive of friends in their time of need. We will both try to be supportive friends during his ordeal.
Joanne cleaned inside the truck camper and I prepared for tomorrow's big trailer towing job. I polished shoes. We had supper and watched Survivor.
Thursday ; home to Osoyoos to Juniper Beach Provincial Park to home
Partially cloudy, mostly chilly, although fairly warm at Juniper Beach, intermittent light rain.
WHEW ! Now that was a long, tough day ! ! ! We left home at 8:30 AM. We arrived back home at 11 PM. We drove 778 km. / 486 miles. AND ... did a lot of very hard work in addition to driving !
We left home at 8:30 AM and headed east on Hwy. 3 to Osoyoos. At 9:30 AM we were picking up the 6' X 10' utility trailer I had rented. We arrived at the client's house at 10 AM. The client was a man about our age in fairly poor health. He has had a stroke and has physical disabilities. He lives with his adult son who has intellectual challenges, but is very high functioning, optimistic, and eager. Our job was to move them, their large travel trailer, and way too much other stuff from Osoyoos to Juniper Beach Provincial Park. The son will be working as a maintenance assistant for five months in a provincial park campground, And then ... < sigh > ... they need to be brought back to Osoyoos.
We unhitched the rental utility trailer from our truck and began to load it with the client's stuff, including a deck and step assembly that weighed about four hundred pounds ! After loading the deck and step assembly there wasn't much room in the utility trailer for much else. We loaded as much as we could into the utility trailer then began loading the rest into the back of our truck. We filled up our truck with a couple of propane tanks, a bicycle, a small chest freezer, and a large generator. I strapped down everything in our truck then strapped down everything in the utility trailer. I hitched the utility trailer to the client's small pickup truck, then hitched up our truck to the client's large travel trailer. We pulled out of their RV park in Osoyoos about 11 AM, with me already feeling dehydrated and tired, drenched in sweat.
I led, the client followed. We headed north on Hwy. 97 through Oliver, Okanagan Falls, Penticton, Summerland, and Peachland. Between Peachland and West Kelowna / Westbank we turned west on Hwy 97C a.k.a. The Collector. We stopped to rest for a few minutes every hour. The client was anxious and frazzled. His old, small pickup truck struggled mightily to get up all the hills towing that utility trailer loaded with about five hundred pounds or so of stuff. The transmission was actually smoking ! When we reached Hwy. 5 a.k.a The Coquihalla a.k.a "The Highway Through Hell" ( on a TV reality show, I can't remember the network, maybe TLC ) we turned north towards Kamloops and then stopped in Merritt at 2 PM to refill with fuel and have a very late lunch.
The client was suffering physical discomfort from driving, and a lot of anxiety over his truck's struggles and ... everything else ! While Joanne and I ate our picnic lunch in our truck they had lunch inside their trailer. We refilled the trucks with fuel and ... back onto Hwy. 5 heading north at about 2:30 PM. About an hour later we reached Kamloops then turned west on Trans-Canada Hwy. 1. About an hour after that we arrived at Juniper Beach Provincial Park. The first words out of the client's mouth as he stepped out of his truck at Juniper Beach was ... "that was the worst day of my life !" HA HA HA !
Sorry ! I shouldn't laugh. He was really unhappy and in a lot of physical discomfort. While his son went looking his "bosses", the client wanted to talk about the return trip in October. He had already decided that this adventure was going to be a mistake. We tried to encourage him. It was obvious that his son did not share his pessimism.
We got their travel trailer situated and set up in their assigned campsite. It was gorgeous ! A waterfront site right on the lovely Thompson River with a million dollar view ! We unhitched our truck from the travel trailer, then unloaded the back of our truck, then unloaded the utility trailer. I removed the utility trailer from his truck and hitched it to my truck. WHEW ! We left Juniper Beach Provincial Park about 5:30 PM to begin the long drive home.
We followed the same route in reverse. When The Connector reached Hwy 97 between Westbank and Peachland we turned north / the wrong way to go into Westbank / West Kelowna to have a late supper and refill with diesel again. We arrived in Westbank at 8 PM and had supper at Swiss Chalet, then refilled with diesel at Superstore Fuel Bar. Joanne wanted to take advantage of being at Superstore, and go in to buy some groceries. We did that, but it just added to my already considerable fatigue.
We finished grocery shopping and left Westbank at 9:30 PM. heading south on Hwy. 97. I drove hard and fast ... in the dark ... in the rain ... towing the small utility trailer that I couldn't even see behind me ... to get home as soon as possible. Through Peachland, Summerland, Penticton. At Kaleden we turned southwest on Hwy. 3A towards Keremeos. Onto Hwy. 3 westbound at Keremeos, and we were back home at Riverside RV Park Resort a few minutes after 11 PM.
Friday ; home to Osoyoos and return
Mostly cloudy, chilly, light rain in the early evening.
We were up early again this morning and on the road at 8:30 AM again. We drove back to Osoyoos and dropped off the rental trailer at 9:30 AM. We stopped at the Bank of Montreal in Osoyoos and I used the ATM, then we headed back to Keremeos, arriving in town about 10 AM. I went to PharmaSave and rectified their screw up of a few days ago. Their attitude was ... lacking in accountability ... from my perspective, and I let them know it. Next stop was the new pharmacy in town, to pick up some new prescriptions there.
That's when I discovered my credit card was missing from my wallet. The last time I had seen it was when I was giving it to PharmaSave so that they could process a refund of almost $200 to correct their error. AND ... < sputter > ... I had to coach them through how to do a refund on their credit card terminal ! Similkameen Pharmacy ( the new pharmacy ) phoned PharmaSave to ask if they had my credit card. "No" they said ... they were certain they had seen me put it in my "purse" ( fanny pack ). I stomped out of Similkameen Pharmacy, drove over to PharmaSave and ... miracle of miracles ... as
I stomped into PharmaSave, they "found" my credit card. How ****ing convenient ! Goodbye ... for the last time ! ! !
I returned to Similkameen Pharmacy, picked up my new prescriptions, then went to South Similkameen Health Centre / Keremeos Clinic to have a chest x-ray. We refilled our five gallon water jug in town, and bought produce at Sanderson Farms before returning home. At home we had lunch, then I went to read and nap briefly. Joanne lay down on the bed to do some crosswords while I read, then while I napped ... she fell asleep ! She does not do "afternoon nap" very well at all. I nap most days, and wake up in thirty to sixty minutes, refreshed and ready to go. Not Joanne ! She "napped" from about 1:30 PM until after 7 PM, then woke up very groggy and very crabby. < rolling eyes >
In the evening I worked on accounting ; trailer delivery job accounting, credit card accounting, medication expense accounting, etc. We watched Amazing Race. My enthusiasm for Amazing Race is dwindling as this series progresses. I can't really get interested in these Internet / YouTube "star" contestants. They're too much "on", always "mugging" for the cameras.
It's now 12:20 AM ... and I'm falling asleep. Joanne and Bo have already gone to bed. Time to take Bo for a walk ... and go to sleep !
Saturday ; Sunny and warm. Used the ( northern ) Sun Oven for the first time this summer season. Joanne cooked rice pudding in the Sun Oven.
I slept late this morning. The last few early mornings tired me out. I phoned my ( new ) pharmacist this morning and we had another discussion about Humira, the immunosuppressant medication that my gastroenterologist suggests I try. The more
I research it, the more I lean towards ... “no”.
This afternoon I did some minor truck maintenance. I took some books back to the library in the clubhouse. I mowed the lawn inside the fenced dog park ... < fume > ... because apparently our paid maintenance people don’t feel it is necessary to do so !
I replenished medications inside the truck camper. I reviewed and replenished clothing inside the truck camper. Joanne did laundry.
I retrieved month end bank statements and investment updates. I did some online gift shopping. Got caught ! Joanne came back from doing laundry and walked in as I was on the phone. Hope she didn’t hear too much ! Had to interrupt my phone conversation and ask Joanne to go into the bedroom and close the door. < raising eyes to ceiling > It’s SOOOOO hard to buy “surprises”, n’est-ce pas ?
DSK
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