Just a thought… The most important things in life are the connections you make with others. [Tom Ford]

If you’d like to watch a video version of this journal on my Facebook page, click here. If you’re not on Facebook, click here to watch it on YouTube.

So, what’s new? Lots and nothing – the story of 2021, if you’re like me. But today, it’s all about that precious word connection.

I think we made a new friend in our neighbourhood: as I was walking Rosie yesterday, a woman out raking the lawn asked about my pup. We talked dogs, and I learned that her husband plays hockey with my Rob, that recreational hockey is most likely not going to return this spring (she’s in the health system) and that they’d like to get together with us when COVID is over. When I got home and told Rob, I felt as if I’d come home from a day at school and someone nice had asked me to have lunch at her table. That’s how good that felt.

Earlier yesterday, my three sisters and I (the birthday girl’s picture is below) got together for a 90-minute video chat to celebrate Cindy’s trip around the sun.

She has taken up playing the harp in the last few years, and even performed solos in the local orchestra in their pre-Christmas, safely-distanced concert last year. We’re all immensely proud of Cindy and her journey as she’s navigated a life with lupus and all of the inherent challenges. When she and her husband moved to a community of Canadians and Americans in Ajijic (pron: a-HEE-hick) Mexico, she learned Spanish. And she does a ton of puzzles. Like life, they’re often missing pieces, but still, she persists.

The video meet-up (or as I call it, to mangle a movie title, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Rants) was not without bumps: we tried the Airtime app, then Zoom and Google Hangouts. One of us would keep getting bumped out, so we’d message each other and try something else.

When all was said and done, we’d had a great visit. Lots of talk about Dad and keeping his spirits up; my sister Leslie is going to deliver him a take-out meal once weekly at his residence to break up the monotony of tough beef and some rather uninteresting dinners. Aside from that, Rob and I are promising him a road trip to his native Alberta this summer (God and COVID willing) and we hope that gives him something to which he can look forward.

He’s pining for his car, but what that really is (we believe) is just a wish to get out and do stuff. There’s a bus that takes them where they need to go, of course, but he’s still wishing he had his keys. We’re just grateful that he doesn’t, so he’s not inadvertently (or advertently – is that a thing?) breaking the rules. So far his residence has been COVID-free – at least to the best of his knowledge – and we want to keep it that way!

I wish we could video chat with Dad but he’s just not interested. He sees two of my sisters on a fairly regular basis as it is; we often tease him (as he has Les come to collect his dirty laundry) about the fact that he’s paying this rent but the washing machine and dryer seemingly just don’t work LOL. Cindy lives in another country while, of course, I’m on an island, so we have to make the most of the good ol’ fashioned phone chat. And we are grateful to have even that.

Speaking of grateful and technology, if you tried to get into the Zoom chat I had with author/singer/songwriter Sara Rose last Thursday and were unable, we have the next best thing: Sara has sent me a link to the evening. We talk about her book, So Now What: One Foot in Front of the Other, her influences, writing/musical process and her rocky journey through the mental health system in Ontario. She’s beautiful both inside and out and if you’d like to watch, the link is here.

Thanks for coming by and by the next time we meet here again, there will be a new president of the US. How good it feels to even write those words, and I’ll talk to you here Thursday.