https://travelblog.expedia.ca/14-romantic-places-canada/
I think that is wonderful, and true, but maybe NOT SO TRUE in the depths of winter. What would be TRUER? COLD, COLDER, COLDEST! We have been smacked with so many minus thirty Celsius mornings, I have lost count. Days on end, at school, the kids can't go out for recess. We know schools are a cesspool of germs, so of course, everyone is sick with .... COLDS.
I should have known that teaching in four different schools, in four days, in double sized classes of Kindergarten (37), Grade 2 (36), Grade 3 classes with 26 students in each, was going to quadruple my exposure to that infamous L-I-N-E we teachers all know - THE MUCOUS LINE! My hands were right there all the time. It doesn't matter how many times you wash those hands, they are in contact with those little heads! So of course,... I came down with a really bad cold, that has morphed into a major sinus infection.
It has been two weeks, and I am totally miserable, cranky, tired, fed-up, écoeurée au bout! Sorry about the franglais. I don't know how people with chronic illnesses face each day. I R-E-A-L-L-Y don't. There are days I just want the earth to open and swallow me up, or swallow everyone else up, because I have no patience for anyone or anything.
Do things quiet down when you are sick? Not...a.....chance! Your Camino walking partner, who is staying with you for six days, while visiting her mother, disappears one day. She doesn't come home that night, and she doesn't call. I start to worry around 9:00 pm. Turns out she had ended up at the hospital all day in Emergency, in major pain, and was shipped to the CHI for emergency surgery that evening. I only get less than the bare facts from her poor mother, who calls me at 10:00, but is so "discombobulated", (to quote her daughter later), that I go to bed wondering where she REALLY is and what has REALLY happened. I don't want to call her husband in Michigan, and worry him, if he doesn't know. According to the mother, he doesn't know. I find out later the next day, after her hubby and I have tracked her down, that ALL HE knew was that she was at the hospital, because VISA had notified him of a large debit on his card. Can you imagine? He went to bed like I did, wondering where and what had happened to his wife. Why hadn't my friend called? The battery on her phone was dying. She was trying to conserve it. So no one knew where my friend was, except her elderly mother, who was exhausted and overwrought, having spent eight hours in Emergency with her daughter. Everything ended well, but HOLY JEEPERS PEOPLE.... call, or text! It only takes a minute to let people know where you are are, especially when it is at the HOSPITAL!!!
I guess I S*H*O*U*L*D thank my Camino walking partner, for making me much more aware of how important it is for people to know where you are; it is especially so for those of us who live alone. Posting on FB doesn't cut it here! So check on your elderly neighbours and family. Anything and eveything can happen, and in these deep, dark days of winter, we are all vulnerable.
SO.... I will end on the romantic note on which I started, with a slight bow to that most CRASS, COMMERCIALIZED, AND MERCHANDIZED DAY of the year... VALENTINE'S DAY - EL DIA DE LOS ENAMORADOS. Don't buy anything! Just GIVE lots of hugs that day. They are better for you than chocolate. Honestly!!! PS: Make sure they last SEVEN seconds.
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