Phone Visit with Doral

Pam is a star at keeping 3 young players going in a game

Doral and Anita called me from his hospital room. Doral said that Meighan and Anita were there with him, both wearing masks to prevent infection.

We chatted for a while about his health. He explained that if the surgeon decides to operate, that he will take blood about the amount of two fingers which Doral told the assistant might be a lot.

No, you will hardly miss it, was the reply. Doral had been interviewed to see if he would be a good candidate for surgery and he passed that test.

This is one interview when not smoking and not drinking pays off in spades. Of course we all have something in another category which is problematic on that questionnaire– so few of us pass the test with 100%. Telling stories to each other without laughing is difficult.

Doral doesn’t like to laugh, since it brings on coughing.

I was curious about some of the notes we have been receiving from him, wondering if they had been composed by Anita or by him.

If by Anita, then she is mirroring his sense of humour. Both assured me that while the notes can be read on that level, they are trying to give us just the facts.

When Doral and Anita rented the oxygen tank which would get them back to Alberta, they accidentally took along a 2 wheeled trolley that the tank was transported on.

It has to go back to the shop where they got the oxygen tank.

I told her that it is on my deck and may have been used in play with the doll houses and Fisher-Price farm that are there – me thinking that we should take it back when the tank arrives here tonight with Art Treleaven from Alberta. She said she was having the same thought – take them back together.

I told her that we have been having a wonderful day at the lake.

Pam and Rob Dirk in their favourite Shuswap breakfast spot

Their friends, Rob and Pam Dirk, who had arrived here to holiday with Anita, have continued on their holiday – today walking the 9 kilometers to Sicamous from our place and then having lunch at Blondies.

The menu offered lavender flavoured lemonade for a drink but the wonderful taste of the drink didn’t quite make up for the fact that the shop had no air-conditioning.

The weather is in the 30 degree range, very hot. I could not see how they could have walked to Sicamous and back and in fact they didn’t.

Pam picked up the phone and asked the local taxi driver if he could take them out to Bernie Road.  He agreed and she said that $25 was well worth spending. They came back to their motor home and went for a swim, only to be stuck on the lakeside of a train that was carrying work rails when they were ready to come home.

Those trains are miles long – neither going around the front or the back of the train would have worked. They yelled to the workers on the other side of the crossing,

“How long until this train moves.” “We don’t know,” was the message back, “and we are hot and tired and want to get home ourselves.”

The bonus side of the being on the wrong side of the tracks is that they got to know Marcia Bates and Tonia Bates.

Pam is a facebook friend of Tonia’s because of their common interest in pottery – but now she knows her in person.

Arta