In order to cross into Canada, there are several requirements right now. In addition to needing to be a Canadian citizen, you need a negative Covid test that was taken in the past 72 hours.

Well, I almost had that.  I got my test on Wednesday morning, 96 hours ago - 4 days instead of 3.

I got tested on Wednesday for two reasons.  First, I wanted to get tested before I got a vaccination shot, not after, and my vaccination was on Wednesday morning, too. (That’s a whole other story, but since anyone in Montana over age 16 is allowed to get a vaccination — and since I vote in Montana and pay taxes and have been down here taking care of my dad for a lot of this year — I figured that was legit enough.)

And second, the Walgreens said the test results would take 2-4 days and I didn’t want to plan to cross in 3 days and then not have the test results at all.

So I decided I wouldn’t drive into town Thursday, that I’d just do the test on Wednesday, and then I would try to cross the border with a negative PCR test result that was 96 hours old instead of 72 hours old, and I’d tell them my reasons and see if they would accept that.

Besides… I have already had Covid.  I had a positive test in Alberta last November, and went through quarantine then.  I had the sniffles and a sore throat, and other than that was perfectly fine, but I do think that should mean I’m not at risk of getting it again — though I have still been wearing masks and minimizing any activities in public places and all those sorts of protocols.

Plus.. I’m now partially vaccinated.  And finally, I have had basically no contact with any person other than my father for the past 5 days (other than at the vaccination clinic). So as far as risk goes — I’m far more likely to get exposed to Covid in Calgary, than I am to be bringing anything in with me.

But the guy with the badge at the border sent me to a border nurse, and the nurse interviewed me and then called her supervisor, and they decided that the law is the law — which, I agree with; it’s not unspirited to ask someone to follow the rules.

And they didn’t give me an exception: they gave me a choice.  1) Go into hotel quarantine. 2) Go back to Shelby, MT, and wait until tomorrow and get a new test and cross the border when those test results arrive.

I chose #1, so I could at least work tomorrow (Monday) and so they gave me a directive to drive directly from the Coutts crossing to the Calgary International airport and report the quarantine hotels they set up, and now I’m in quarantine. Do not pass Go. Do not get any visitors. Do not leave until you roll a negative.

Which is pretty surreal.

I’m supposed to get a NEW Covid-19 test here at the hotel, which they can’t administer until tomorrow, and then when that eventually comes back negative (as it will), then I can go home and finish my quarantine. Which was my original plan.

Weirdly, I don’t have to pay for the hotel or food or parking, and my car is the only one in the lot of this hotel — everyone else here is brought from the airport by black unmarked shuttle van (true story) and they aren’t disclosing what hotel it is, as they are “worried about protests.”

Weirdly, I do have to pay for the Covid test. I say weirdly because I wouldn’t have to pay for the additional Covid test if it was the one that approved travelers are required to take at the border itself. So if they HAD accepted me to enter, I’d have gotten a free test, but because they rejected my negative test, I have to pay to be retested? Even though it’s a test in Alberta, where I have health insurance? Anyway…

I am required to stay in my room (sealed windows) 24/7 until the federal quarantine officer gives the all-clear for me to leave.

The wifi is fine, and I don’t have any pressing business because I was assuming I’d be quarantining at home. And I’m glad the system works.

But I must tell you, I won’t be forgetting this experience for the rest of my life. It’s pretty weird to have someone outside your room at the end of the hallway, watching that you don’t leave.

And I’m also hoping like hell that the vaccination, now 4 days old, doesn’t give me symptoms or a positive test result. It seems to be still unclear as to whether a vaccination could ever produce a positive Covid test result.

Back then, a colorful plastic ring with a small white weight on one side was enough to keep me occupied and satisfied for hours.  I think they had up to five or six of the things—red, green, blue, magenta… just kidding. Magenta wasn’t even invented until the ‘90s.

I’d dive down to the bottom of the pool, opening my bloodshot and very sterile eyes to locate the closet ring, grabbing them from 9 or 12 feet down, perhaps challenging myself to recapture them in a certain order, or seeing how far underwater I could swim once I’d rounded them all up.

Often, I’d want to see how long I could stay underwater doing this solo-pick-up-rings game. Hanging on the pool’s tiled walls was a pace clock for the folks doing laps. It had four different second hands, red, green, blue and yellow, so I never had to wait long, I’d just pick the color closest to touching “60” and when it did, I’d dive in.

I was a sinker. I didn’t have to struggle to stay below the water. And I knew, the more I swam around, the less time I’d be able to stay. I liked it underwater. It was warmer than the air—no goosebumps when submerged. It was quiet. Everything shut off in an instant, no yelling, no echoes, no whistles.

I could still hear the splooshes and whomps of other people jumping into the water, but it was distant and didn’t concern me, like the shelling of a far-away village. And I was safe, not just below the surface, but resting at the bottom of the pool. I’d sit cross-legged, sculling slowly with my hands to maintain a neutral yaw, pitch and roll.

Light was fascinating at the bottom of the pool. It was distorted by the waves on the surface, constantly dancing and dodging like a photonic butterfly. It was further blurred by my own eyeballs, screaming at me to for god’s sake close my eyelids! And the pool’s lighting shone into the water and reflected off the pool tiles in a luminous blue that was only slightly eaten up by the water itself, so there was this odd sensation of being in a container, which, I suppose, was indeed where I was.

Sometimes I’d get so calm down there that I’d forget I was holding my breath and I’d come into a state of just, not breathing, which was a fantastic feeling. It was like being freed from a responsibility I didn’t even know was weighing on me. All that time I spent co-ordinating the whole breathing process was no longer necessary. I had broken the shackles of the breathing-industrial complex, and could now dedicate that time and energy to pondering the feeling of the tiles on the sides of my feet.

Eventually, though, my nose would rebel. It was always my nose. It would develop this odd sensation, like a reverse sneeze, and I’d have this urge to sniff, or blow or… what’s the word? Inhale, that was the word. My nose would want me to inhale, and it would convince my lungs that this would feel great, and no matter how hard I tried to stay at the bottom of the pool, I’d jump up and start the ascent to the surface.

It always seemed so far away… had I waited too long? Was this going to be the day that I failed to make it back up into the humid, chlorinated air that I now so wholeheartedly wanted, needed, craved? Spoiler: It was never that day.

But not every Return to Aerobia was a last-second dash. In many cases, I stayed at the bottom of the pool for as long as I could want, and then slowly ascended like an angel granted wings, cresting gently through the chop in a quiet return to oxygen and normal noises.

Today, and this month, feels a little like that feeling. Like I’m resurfacing after a long time at the bottom of a pool, chasing rings in the quiet and forgetting I need to breathe.

Still, the context and full passage of this quote is worth considering. It’s from It’s from the 1963 collection “Strength to Love,” which included a sermon titled “Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.”

It goes:

“In a sense every day is judgment day, and we, through our deeds and words, our silence and speech, are constantly writing in the Book of Life. Light has come into the world, and every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, “What are you doing for others?”

“The light of creative altruism”

or

“the darkness of destructive selfishness”

I love that. When you know the whole quote, the question almost stops being a debatable one, doesn’t it?

I mean, how could someone justify choosing “destructive selfishness” over “creative altruism”?

But of course at times we all do this. We indulge. We backslide. We vacillate. We excuse. We forget. We get busy.

And we do these things for natural reasons, because we are human, because we are frail, because we are unwise, because we are influenced.

And so King’s question remains relevant, and always will.

Persistently: “What are you doing for others?”

Because of our frailty, because of our distractibility; that’s why the question must be asked not just once, but persistently.

Urgently: “What are you doing for others?”

As our technology and our connectivity and our control over the world grows, we do not have the luxury of waiting a thousand years to answer it. Indeed, we may not have the luxury of waiting a decade to answer it. That’s why the question must be asked urgently.

It must be asked of ourselves. It must be asked of each other. It must be asked of our children, of our elders, of our leaders.

It is the burning question of today.

“Every day is judgment day.”

We cannot escape the consequences of our actions, of our words, of our silence.

What are you doing for others?

What am I doing for others?

What are we doing for others?



What have you done?

What will you do?

What needs doing?

What needs to end?

“Light has come into the world”—knowledge, equality, justice, compassion, love—and it exists, it persists, because of all of humanity’s collaborative efforts.

How are you (we) fueling the light of creative altruism?

How are we (you) facing down destructive selfishness?

There will never be another King; that’s not how this works.

But we can study him and we can all try to be just a little more like him.

We can all do a little more for others.

We can all fuel a little bit more light, and face down a little selfishness.

MLK Jr. Day is our annual opportunity to remember and learn more about this man and the values he lived and preached.

Today and tomorrow and every day, it behooves us to ask ourself the question he posed:

“What are you doing for others?”

In order to process it you have to feel each grain of it. You can avoid it but you can’t hurry it and you can’t be done with it until you have done each bit of it.

I’m at my moms house right now. I am getting ready to take a trip down to Montana, and I’m grabbing a few things from the house to take with me. I’m sad and it’s quiet except for the furnace and the sound of cars passing on wet streets.

There’s a thunderstorm outside. The weather has been so wet this summer. Good news for the garden.

Waffles
Bacon
True crime shows
Writing Late at Night
My sisters
Lawyers
Covid
Libraries
Newspaper clippings
Dementia
Rice Krispees
Stinky cheeses

The Hobbit
The Lake
Holidays
People Offering Condolences
Coffee
Cigarettes
Inefficiency
Detective novels
Angora sweaters
Roasting hot dogs
Sleeping with the TV on
Quilts

My neighborhood
Tri-colored gold
Rural Alberta
Dictionaries
Thesauruses
Reference Books
Chinese
Scrabble
Going through customs
Voicemail
Thrift stores
Antique stores
Wine glasses

Purses
Cats
Changing lightbulbs
Candlesticks
Tapping to pay
Sunday dinner
Furnace filters
A glass of wine with dinner
Office supplies
Being a host

Bravery
Intelligence
Kindness
Curiousity
Accuracy
Attentiveness
Cooperation
Carefulness
Unflappability
Wit
Love

Given a lot of time at home not going out and catching Covid-19, and a new home office desk setup, I’ve taken the time to upgrade my blog to the latest version of EE, remove a ton of cruft, and get things all organized in here under the hood.

It feels fresh and clean and I may even come back for more than just big updates.

ps I miss you all!

Hi friends.

by Travis Smith, Pat’s son

I am sorry to be sharing this sad news. This is one of the last posts you’ll see on my mom’s account on Facebook.

My mother is suffering from a progressive and incurable disease. She’s moved into an assisted living home. She is currently in the later stages of Alzheimers, as she (and we) have been dealing with its progression for several years now.

While her memory is, shall we say, crap… she’s still the positive, wonderful person she’s always been, and she’s always happy to hear from old friends, students, parents, colleagues, family and more, even if she needs some help in receiving the updates and remembering who you are.

She doesn’t use computers these days, but we will pass along any messages and photos you want to share. (See below…)

=-=-=

Recently, and why I’m posting here, is because she made the big decision to apply for the Medical Assistance in Dying program—that’s the law in Canada permitting physician-assisted suicide that was just passed in 2016.

After a lengthy and trailblazing process, she has become only the 2nd person in Alberta with a diagnosis of Alzheimers who has been granted approval for MAID.

While we (her four children) are of course sad and reluctant to say goodbye, Virginia S, Nicole Smith, Stacia Smith and I all support her in her wishes.

Speaking personally, I’m so proud of her, now more than ever. As always, she continues to be to me the model of an independent woman, a true trailblazer throughout her entire life. She’s someone who set an example of wisdom, grace, and caring. That’s part of what makes this affliction so, so cruel.

Pat has no specific date chosen yet, but we are currently expecting that she will choose her passing to be sometime this summer, unless her condition worsens unexpectedly. (A consequence of the current (hopefully changing) MAID laws is that you cannot wait too long because mental acuity is a requirement.)

This is new to me on many levels ... the whole concept of MAID, as I was saying to a friend, is both familiar and foreign at the same time and there aren’t a lot of examples to go by, so please forgive me if anything I write lands a little oddly… we’re trying the best we can.

So that’s the “Facebook update” and if we haven’t contacted you directly, I hope it’s okay that you’re learning about it this way.

=-=-=

Pat has a fairly calm and predictable routine now, and smaller world overall, and I know that one thing she would appreciate more than anything: messages, photos and cards.

I know that my mother has taught so many students in her long career…

I know that she has taught English skills to hundreds of immigrants….

I know that she has helped thousands of Kumon parents help their kids to succeed…

I know she was the first job of so many young, talented youth….

so… Please share this widely!

*****

I would love if even a small fraction of those people she touched would send her something. And I know not all of those people are connected with her on Facebook, so pass this along.

*****

Therefore, if you are someone that my mom has made an impact on in her long life… I would ask this one last simple favor:

Could you please send a message and share a photo of yourself for her to appreciate?

Her email is:

patsmith@hopstudios.com

If you are particularly energetic, she would absolutely love if you sent her something in the mail.  Her mailing address is:

48 Moreuil Court SW
Calgary, Alberta
Canada   T2T 6A9

I know it’s hard to know what to write on a card….. A simple “Greetings from X” would be lovely. Anything more would be a blessing.

If you tag someone in the comments that knows Pat, or forward this to them by email, I would re-thank you a dozen times.

=-=-=

If you want to reach out to my mom directly, I’d be happy to help put you in touch. I’m at 604-408-5722 or nep@hopstudios.com.

And if you’d like to be informed of the details of any service, wake, etc. that we organize, please let me know and I’ll let you know what transpires…

Again… thank you for your understanding and support and messages.

XOXO

Love, Travis

https://www.usaultimate.org/news/2020-2021-official-rules-of-ultimate-released/

It’s well worth reading. There’s lots of new stuff in there, especially about Spirit of the Game:
* a new Spirit of the Game definition and a greatly expanded description of SOTG
* Spirit Captains are a thing
* Spirit timeouts are a thing
* Spirit circles are in there too
* there’s Spirit examples, lots of them

It’s not an exaggeration to say that this is the biggest development in SOTG since it was added to the rules in the 7th edition, and I’m thrilled about it.

I’m not directly involved in the USA rules or SOTG efforts, but I will tell you that I spent a huge amount of time gathering feedback from global Spirit folks, and then working with USAU to help get the Spirit of the Game section into the shape it’s in (and also being so impressed by the work that they’re doing).

Today feels pretty good.

Driving to the airport in rush hour not to catch a flight is a surreal experience that leaves you questioning everything.  Should you be frustrated? Should you be worried that you’re running late or happy that it doesn’t matter?

I’m currently trying to decide how to seem when I get to the counter… should I feign ignorance? Radiate with righteous anger? Stand with calm detachment? Plead for charity?

In truth, I’m very frustrated, but not with the flight being cancelled — that’s a whole pile of irritation — but what really is bothering me is my own response to the situation.

Another me, from another time, would have been thrilled at the chance to spend an extra day in SFO.  Another me would have found a way to double down on adventure square, to spend an bonus evening schmoozing and trifling and then spend an extra day exploring.

But instead, I let inertia carry me anyway all the way to the airport and my imagination confine itself to hoping for a comped overnight hotel stay and a business center desk so that I could plow through some emails. That’s not *me*. So who is it?

Part of this is because I wasn’t sure the flight was cancelled until just now. The situatiuon was a slow-dawning realization, not a clear bolt-from-heaven message. My first inkling was that the Air Canada app wouldn’t let me check in when it should have, but that’s not unique. And I had received an email that said I *could* check in… so shrug, and besides, when my flight was cancelled on the way here I got a text, and I never got a text this time, and I don’t *really* want to have it be canceled, so why not carry on, my wayward self?

So, without certainty, I called the Lyft, and only then, once I was in traffic and doing the Google, did the full facts of the situation emerge. And yet… I could turn the Lyft around, and I do not. I let inaction become decision become reality.

And I hate how this seems to describe not just me now but *me*, NOW; my current life situation writ large.

There are things in my life that have been cancelled, or may be cancelled, or are half cancelled, and yet I’m still heading towards some metaphorical airport, following some sorts of routine, perhaps hoping to talk to the manager when I get there, instead of treating the situation as a chance to stop, re-aim and fire myself.

Like what, you ask? (We don’t talk as much these days, so you’re understandably curious.)

Oh, you know.

My mom has Alzheimer’s.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that here before.

It’s an awful thing.

It takes away little pieces of a person — your abilities, your relationships, your history, your energy, your abilities — like a puzzle slowly pried apart, disassembled, and the pieces dropped one-by-one off the table to be lost in the shag carpet.

It starts small, with simple tiny things, someone’s kid’s name, uncertainty about how to navigate a distant area of town, and it grows bigger and bigger until you don’t recall what sushi is.  That’s where we’re at now.

Well, forgetting sushi and also she’s recently moved into an assisted living home. Aka seniors’ housing, a retirement complex, an old folks home, a memory care facility. So many names, each a little different, all meaning one thing:

Her life has been cancelled.

And with this Alzheimer’s, just like with this flight, there was not a clear, early message about what was to come — just some hints and signs that we didn’t really want to believe, until finally we eliminated the alternatives and a doctor uttered that magic phrase: “get your affairs in order.”

Yeah. I was in the doctor’s office with my mom and my sister when the neurologist really did use that phrase. It’s as close to an incantation as I’ve ever heard, the “Avada Kedavra” of the medical profession. I thought it was a trope, a “What about my one phone call…” or “Follow that cab!” sort of thing, but no, that was real life, both a diagnosis and a prescription, collapsed into one clear (death) sentence like a neutron (death) star.

We stumbled out of there in a daze and I don’t know that it’s ever fully cleared.

That was more than a year ago. Or was it? Time flies, marches, ripens, escapes, when it becomes quantified ... not that you can quantify much about this disease.

What causes it? Dunno. What slows it? Debateable. How does it progress? Depends. Alzheimer’s is as predictable as a good novel — I can tell you with certainty that it always has a beginning, middle and an end, and that you can’t put it down.

Mom still reads a lot. Not this blog, unless I bring it to her. She’s not so good with the computer these days. But she’s still great at reading. She always has been.

She’s good with advice, she’s good with being supportive. She’s strong and kind and curious about the world and my life and where on the planet I am on any given day. She’s as good at spotting stupid inefficiencies as she ever was .. better, in some ways.

What she’s not so good at is details, remembering them or figuring them out. She’s bad at remembering her past, whether it’s 5 minutes or 50 years. She’s bad at.. sorry, I have to stop and take a breath here. ... ... ...

I’m back. It’s hard, you know, so hard, even to make myself think about her disease and what she’s lost and what she has still to lose. It’s too painful for anything more than a quick glance — like looking into a eclipse, but in photo-negative colors, where the darkness at the center of your vision freezes your brain and leaves you with holes in sight when you look away so that you can’t see where you’re going or what’s coming at you next.

It’s better to look at it indirectly, or through protective goggles, the darker the better; I recommend a merlot.

The day-to-day, though, that’s not painful. Having lunch, meeting up with her. A phone call, an outing. Sharing a laugh with Virginia or Emily about the latest ridiculousness or funny turn of phrase. We’ve talked of writing a book: “Adults with Dementia Say the Darndest Things!”

You solve the problems of daily life, you share errands and meals, you sort and tidy. You commiserate. That’s easy. That’s just heading to the airport, and there’s no rush, no reason to hurry.

There’s no plane there anyway.

1) I’m blogging more.  If nothing else, that feels fantastic.

2) Some apps require you to have a Facebook account to sign up and use them—some dating apps specifically. So, no Facebook account: no dating app account.

3) It was way, way harder to actually hit the delete button than i thought it would be.  It was almost akin to bungie jumping.  Not that I’ve done that.  But it felt like I imagine bungie jumping would feel like.  And it is a decade of my efforts, gone from public / semi-private / private display. Hard to walk away from that.

4) If you think quitting Facebook is hard—I mean the process itself, not the overall decision—you should try Instagram.  No, seriously, try it.  Try right now to figure out how to disable or delete your Instagram account without Googling it or using Instagram’s help documentation. I will give $20 to the first person who can figure it out on their own.

5) Wait, I have to remember birthdays again?

p.s. In the days since I made my decision? Millions of Facebook Records Were Found on Amazon Cloud Servers, WhatsApp founder again tells people to delete Facebook (his ex-employer), Facebook is asking some new users to give them the password to their email account (!),...

...Facebook ads costing £1m that purport to be from various grassroots pro-Brexit movements were discovered to be administered by employees of Sir Lynton Crosby’s lobbying company and a former adviser to Boris Johnson, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development sued Facebook for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act, and Zuckerberg himself was found to have had years of his old posts deleted. So yeah, not sorry I walked away from that hot mess.