Still Green!

Another week has passed on the shore of Lake Superior in my home town. We have seen a few snowflakes, but it’s still green outside as befits the week where we celebrate the Grey Cup Championship! It happened last Sunday—we revelled in the Rider victory over Montreal! Our first championship since 2012. Yay Riders!

Riders win! Riders win! 

The usual events of the week—a lot of choir business for Wendy and music practices for both of us played out well. Our choir, Silver Sound, is in the final stages of preparation for our concert on October 30th. Wendy has returned her attention to our ten-year reno project—she is painting in the side entry. Yay! On Friday, she took our old friend, Rauni, out for a 94th birthday celebration! The markets have been terrible all month, and all indices remain in the red to this point. The difficulties lie in figuring out what the reality is with the USA economy, and then guessing what his Orangeness will do next. This week his personally installed “experts” tried to tell us that 119,000 jobs were created in September when all other indications were that much fewer jobs were created, and that it is likely that jobs were lost! This is what the experts have been reporting, but he didn’t like that, so he installed his own experts to tell him what he wanted to hear—yes, it does sound like North Korea! In college football, the reranking went pretty much as expected. Today, my #8-Sooners beat Missouri to maintain their playoff position, while #17-Longhorns blasted Arkansas to keep their faint playoff hopes alive. In basketball, #24-Jayhawks put up a spirited effort, but lost to #5-Duke. The big event for me now is the Olympic curling trials. #1-Homan is the clear favourite on the women’s side, but my favourite, #9-Einarson, will challenge. On the men’s side, #2-Dunstone and #3-Jacobs lead the way, but I’ll still be cheering for my longtime favourite, #29-Koe, who is probably playing in his last hurrah! #6-Epping is playing well, and of course #19-Gushue always plays tough! In hockey, my Oilers and the Leafs continue their mediocre play, while the Pens are struggling along under injury issues, but being quite successful. 

Erica writes, “After very little sleep and an early morning start, we made our way back from Belgrade to Prince Albert! We had a good trip, enjoyed some wonderful hospitality on our two-day side trip to Italy and a few driving adventures. The more we travel, the less foreign new places feel. We hope to spend some time living over seas, maybe for six months, when we retire, so we can do more traveling without the big flights. It’s getting harder to recover from the swelling the flight causes. And, as we were driving back to Belgrade from Montenegro, I marvelled at road signs that said Vienna and Budapest and thought if only we had time and money, we could just keep exploring. Elizabeta enjoyed seeing her daughter, a younger brother and brother in law and other family members. It had been over two decades, which is hard to imagine. And yet, that was the reality for my own grandparents and great grandparents who immigrated to Canada. It is good to be back in our own beds!” 

Erin and Kristian are continuing to enjoy the green in Regina as well. Erin spent the week with work-work-work! Kristian is working on his job applications, and has been offered an opportunity to train as a fork-lift operator—sounds like a good option. 

Travis and Joanna are still busy with work and four dogs! Trav also took on an extra contract to make me a new set of labels for the monitor station in the camper—you can see how it has deteriorated over the years. He made two sets, one with colour, one just black and white. I haven’t decided which set to use yet—Thanks! 

And that’s enough for this week.