On the plus side - found a good hair cutter but when I asked for her card she said "Sorry I'm moving back to Montreal" I said "I'm coming too." She laughed. Seriously, I would like to drive down east this summer. Stop in Quebec at least a month and see about working there as an English teacher while I sharpened my conversational French. When I drove two 21 year old Quebecois girls, who had spent one night at the campground, into Vancouver in the pouring rain (because they had hitchhiked all the way across Canada, had huge backpacks and I'm a soft touch), they told me that in the smaller towns of Quebec it would be easy to get work teaching English.
My tentative plan is - after I had worked a while teaching I'd like to continue on my drive across Canada to Fredricton where my son and his fiance will be finishing their last year at UNB. I have dreamed since childhood of seeing the Canadian Maritime Provinces.
Daydreams aside to continue enumerating things onthe plus side of my life, I have been adopted as a friend by a lovely, generous Christian couple whom I met my first time at a church in this community where I'm thinking I could happily live. Sunday night a very large, dangerously hungry black bear awoke us - one other camping party, the caretaker and me - three times that night dumping over the garbage cans. The last visit into camp after it finished with the cans which are a good distance from my tent, as I watched through my screened roof, it began to head down the road towards me then was about to walk across the little wooden bridge that comes out just feet from my tent. John, the caretaker had given me a aerosol horn which scares away bears. I had tried it once and used it twice before so when that big scary thing kept coming my way I let off a blast, it contined and so I pressed the panic button again only to find that their was no more air and it made only a patheticly inaudible toot. Just then it stopped and I couldn't see it behind a cedar bough; it must have smelled Joe - John's muscular, brave pit bull. What a relief to see John and the dog beside my tent. He had heard the bear horn and come to for the third time in one night drive it off. So when this nice couple befriended me at church and graciously invited me to stay it didn't take more than 1/2 a day for me to accept the offer.
The town I'm in is a very crowded bedroom community to our biggest city but . . . the redeeming quailty is that it's very close to beautiful, bountiful wilderness and unlike my last community for the 5 years up to 2006, it does not have the 401 freeway running through it with all the polluting diesel trucks traversing it day and night. I've been here over a week and have found my eyes ( I suffer from chronic, severe dry eye syndrome) are about 60 - 70% better than they were in the semi-arid region I lived in from July 2007 until June 2008.
I went to look at some rentals today with a property management rep. guy. They were brand new and I really liked the most expensive one - of course - the other two had relatively ugly views and little privacy. The one I like is 2.5 times more than I should pay by myself but I am going to see about having 2 students room and board with me.
If I'm going to do that I should buy so I can build up some equity in a home, but I would like to try it before I buy a place with that in mind. Otherwise I could buy a house with a suite and have tenants to pay part of the mtge.
My tooth is coming out tomorrow - I'm glad as it is very uncomfortable, probably abcessed and split right in half vertically - it's a bicuspid and will give me an even more unattractive smile - I've been grinding my teeth for years and they are short now. When I was young I had perfect teeth so I can't complain as at least I've had nice teeth at one time. I wish they weren't going but in the whole scheme of things this is not earth shattering - just disappointing. Kind of like how I felt about having someone I love attempt to insult me - I don't get insulted anymore - partly because I don't seem to need anyone's approval in my old age and partly because I know who I am in my Father's eyes and how OK I am for His purposes - I guess those two are related but like loosing an old favorite tooth having someone you care about try to make you feel bad is not pleasant.
I get my car fixed in the morning - good on the fixing bad on the bill. I'll look at more listings while I wait for it, then travel for 3/4 of an hour to my old dentist for the extraction. On Friday I go to my grandson's year end concert at his Montessori school then get a massage therapy treatment. Sat. and Sunday I hope to look at many housing options and find one for the first of July. Or arrange for my cross-Canada road trip. Whichever option it is I look forward to it.
