Alberta holiday

Nearing the end of my Alberta vacation, I am finally catching up with the blog. There have been many Pollyanna moments; the weather is scorching, but it's pretty dry, so I can manage. It always amazes me that I can put a sopping wet T-shirt on the clothesline in Red Deer and see it dry in an hour, quite unlike in muggy Toronto.

In Edmonton, I stayed with Helen and Mitch, and the highlight, as always, was our lame attempt at singing old Dylan songs and other 60s classics with Mitch on guitar. We probably sounded like three drunken cats, but it was great fun. And while I was there I purchased and finished reading The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. We also went shopping on Whyte Ave.; though I'm not a big shopper anymore, I've found that months of being mostly cooped up in the house has left me aching to browse and put down a few dollars.

Next I took a bus to Calgary and went to stay with Joan and Paul and their now-grownup kids in the foothills near Bragg Creek. They live in such a relaxing and beautiful spot amid huge conifers and a short walk (which we took several times) from the shallow, rushing Elbow River and its stony shores. While there I celebrated my 52nd birthday; it was a clear, hot day, and Joan and Paul drove me up to Banff, where I had lunch with Moira at the Banff Centre while they hiked. Then, as my birthday gift, we had a short canoe ride on the Bow River, me sitting in the middle like the Queen of the Nile (if the Queen of the Nile wore a fluorescent orange life preserver and a Tilley hat). The contrast between the hot sun and the glacial water was true Alberta. Afterward we had dinner in Canmore, at a restaurant I would recommend, the Rocky Mountain Flatbread Company.

Now I'm in Red Deer with Matt and Keith, where I indulged my shopping bug some more by buying, get this, a Tilley Endurables blouse, and a new Derek Alexander handbag (I am so not a labels person, but I am trying to fit in with the modern ethos -- I am of the generation of working-class girls who would never have thought to mention "who" I'm wearing because it was the "what" and the "where did you get it" that mattered, and I admit I sometimes laugh at my young friends who are so focused on designer names). Last night we waded in Sylvan Lake and ate Big Moo ice cream, and I've had some nice walks near the Red Deer River.

This weekend the children's theatre group of which Matt is artistic director, Treehouse Youth Theatre, has several performances as part of Red Deer's CentreFest street performers festival, so he's busy with that, and I'll head down there today or tomorrow. Other than that I've been playing Boggle and Scrabble and exercising my thoracic duct (laughing) by reading David Sedaris books. And I had a brief visit with an aunt of mine who is languishing, but physically healthy, in a long-term-care facility here in Red Deer -- she has frontal-lobe dementia, can't speak and knows no one. I think she's 71. But when I sang to her -- "Heart of My Heart" and "You Are My Sunshine" -- her eyes got big, she looked me straight in the eye, and she laughed heartily. It was a difficult visit, because I had just got news that my father, her older brother, who has a different form of dementia, is going into long-term care on Monday. He's only 74.

As for my health: the day before I left for Alberta I started having tremendous shoulder blade pain, which I think was stirred up by the lymphatic drainage massage, and I've been living on Tylenol 3s since I got here, sleeping poorly and unable to sit for long periods. Pretty miserable on that score. But I haven't had to take a T3 for the past 24 hours, and the discomfort is settling down to a dull roar, thank goodness. Meanwhile, I can walk pretty well on a flat surface, but the least little hill has me huffing and puffing like a steam train. Is it just being wildly out of shape, or has my heart been damaged by the chemo?

At least I can now taste my food.