MX/TX Trip # 81 ( 25 Feb 19 )

I flew back to TX today but I had to catch the 1 PM flight as opposed to the 7 AM flight as both Todd and Yvonne had early morning meeting which meant the Marjorie ( their Nanny ) had to take me to catch my flight. 

Since I got a last minute flight the only available seat was a middle one so I was hoping that the 2 people on each side are not Football size people. The guy with the window seat was an executive with Enbridge oil Company. I questioned him why he was not in business class and he said it was a last minute decision and it was the only seat left. He said he was spending a week in Houston on business. 

The guy in the aisle seat had a Hab's cap on so I ask if he was a fan or just wearing there cap. I was going to ask ( jokingly ) if he got it at a garage sale but before I got a chance he said he was a Canadien's alumni, which meant he played for the Canadiens several years ago. I then ask his name since I did not recognize him. His name is Glen Metropolit. He played 08/09 and 09/10 for Montreal . He played professionally from 95 to 17 but he had a "cup of coffee " with Washington, Atlanta, St. Louis, Pilly and Montreal. He played in Europe for most of his career. 

He said he lived in Florida so I ask what brought him to Calgary when the temp was -35 C. He said he was with the Canadiens Alumni team travelling in Western Canada raising money for charity and playing against Police/Fire fighters in such places as  Yorkton, SK, Crystal City MB and even Victoria BC. I ask if he had to carry his equipment or was it taken care of and he said they had to carry their own equipment. It was an interesting trip.

When I got to Houston I immediately checked on my connecting  flight and of course the gate was changed as it always is and it also said it was delayed due to weather. I had to get a panic call thru to Carroll as she was having a friend pick me up in McAllen and of course we were not advised of length of the delay. I finally got home an hour late however the weather was bamy as opposed to the - 31 C when I left Calgary. Cheers  

MX/TZ Trip # 8o Sports Weekend

Saturday 23 Feb 19

Every weekend is a Sports weekend in Todd's family but this weekend was the final of the hockey season for the Twins and Rhett. EM also was in a Volleyball tourney. On Saturday Rhett was playing in the 1st game of a 3 game playoff and the winner goes to the Provincials. The game went into overtime and so was my heart. They lost in overtime but there was 2 games to be played on Sunday and again next weekend so all was not lost.  
 This weekend was TSN Hometown Hockey in Okotoks and Todd was one of the directors so he had some involvement. My body is not climatized to the minus 30 C temperature so I went home to the warmth of  Todd's house. I got a airline ticket to return to TX on Monday so this my last chance to see the G/Kids playing winter sports. 

Although Rhett played a game at 11 AM he also had a Power Skating class at 3:30 in the town of Black Diamond. I volunteered to take Rhett as I wanted to see what skills they teach at this school. Twenty minutes into the class Rhett wiped the snow off his blades. like all kids do and he sliced to fingers. The instructor hollered to me that he was bleeding so I rushed to see what happened. Because of the amount of blood I rushed him to the dressing and I tired to stop the bleeding with a wet cloth. He sliced 2 fingers at 30 degree angle so the skin was over the cuts so we wrapped it with 2 bandages and I took him to the local hospital, for what I thought would be stitches. Rhett kept reminding me that he didn't care what the doctor would do or say but he was definitely playing in the playoff game on Sunday. The doctor took a look at the cuts and said  that he would glue the skin/cuts and they would be good as new in a few days. The cuts were not deep but they did bleed a lot.   


24 Feb Sunday

Today the Twins are playing the finals for all the "money " in a winner take all game. The Twin's  team never lost a league game all year so they may have been complacent although 9 years old don't normal think like us adults. The first  3 period was a barnburner and ended in a tie. Overtime proved nothing so it was on to a shootout. Our G/son , Quinn is the goaltender and a lost would be on his shoulders. However, the other team missed on there first 2 shots and Quinn's team scored on both of their shots. Game over, we win the cup but it sure increased my blood pressure and heart beat. Cheers

MX/TX #79 Trip to Calgary/ Okotoks

Wednesday 21 Feb 19
I flew to Calgary today and went right to the foothills hospital via a taxi with the idea that I would hopefully get checked over because of the dull ache in my upper left chest area. What a shock when I walked into the ER. There was about 30 people in the waiting room and 4 or 5  people lined up to see the Trauma Nurse . Then I looked at a large TV screen which said " Time to see a Doctor " 4 hours. I ask the guy ahead of me if he thought the 4 hour wait was reasonable and he said you will be lucky to see a doctor in 4 hours. Of course the Trauma Nurse will determine the urgency and if necessary a person who needs attention will jump the cue and rightly so. 

Since my daughter in law ( Yvonne ) works at a bldg next to the hospital,  I decided to return to the ER tomorrow and hopefully get a better position in the cue. I then called my son ( Todd ) at his shop and said I would take a taxi to the shop. 

The taxi driver was from India but immigrated to Canada some 40 years ago but still had the accent. I do not know the address of my son's shop, although I have been there a hundred times so I told the driver that it is on Barlow on the south end of Deerfoot Trail near a casino and he says I know exactly where you mean. Then I noticed that he was getting near Deerfoot but in the wrong lane so I challenged him if he understood my direction. 
Apparently he only heard Barlow and casino  and as it turns out there is a casino at the north end of Barlow , which was the one he assumed I wanted.  He did not realize there was  another one at the south end of Barlow and Deerfoot which is the one I was referring to.  Finally I got him to turn south on Deerfoot and then he was aware of my destination. He did say that he seldom travels to this end of Calgary, hence he never thought of the Deerfoot casino.

Thursday 22 Feb

Yvonne leaves for work at 6:15 AM to beat the traffic so we arrived at the hospital around 7 AM and there was 4 people in the waiting and no line up at the Trauma Nurse so within 5 minutes I was in the nurse station waiting room along with 5 other. The nurses started to pick us off one at a time. Number 3 was a slovenly dressed man of about 30 ish and as he was bing lead to a booth by a nurse he kicked a sign left by a janitor and the sign hit the ceiling and broke a ceiling tile and then he laid some profanity on the janitor. A senior nurse grab the phone and called security and then everything else was out of my sight line so i missed the charades.  

After 10 or 15 minutes I was taken to a booth and told to remove my shirt so the they could do an ECG and take some blood. I immediately fell asleep until the lab tech arrived. This was followed with a Xray and then a wait for the doctor. Long story short , I was checked over and there was no indication of any heart problem so I was released. 

This is a hectic weekend as Todd is involved  with Rogers Hometown Hockey in Okotoks. Tonight I got the detail to take Emily (16 ) to Volleyball practice and  Rhett ( 11 ) and we are have a blizzard so I will get the feel of winter driving. 

Friday 22 Feb

Today I was detailed to take the Twins to hockey practice at PM at 4 PM as they are off school this week so I had to kill the rest of the day somehow. Todd's hockey rink was covered with 3/4 inches of snow so I decided to clean it off with the snow blower. The kids had friends over so they dug tunnels in the 6 ft drifts in the yard. So how long can it take to clear a 100 X 50 ft rink. Three hours during this very cold weather that they are having in AB. That is considered a days work for me so I took the rest of the day off. Cheers

MX/TX Trip #78 Happenings ( Sun, Mon, Tues )

After breakfast on Sunday with our friends we went to Harlingen as they have an excellent tourist information booth and we ( mostly Carroll ) are planning to go thru OK on the way home so we wanted to pick up a map  of TX and OK. I told Carroll that she would not get an OK map in a TX info booth but she had to find out for herself, and of course I was right. We have a GPS and an iPhone but we still like to have a map of our travel areas. 

All was not lost as Carroll decided that we may as well shop, since we were already in Harlingen which has all the proverbial stores. After an hour or so I reminded Carroll that the curling was on TV and it was much more interesting than shopping. 

Every once in a while I get a slight but dull ache  in my upper left chest and  shoulder area and I felt it for the passed 3 mornings. So I  decided that I should fly back to Calgary to have it checked to make sure it is not heart related.  I have travel insurance but I also have 2 pre-condition and if I have it checked here and the doctor suggest that it could be one of these pre-conditions my insurance would cease immediately. Also , by returning to AB my AB health Insurance is reset and I would have coverage for 40 days. Hence I get a refund from the Travel Insurance. 

On Tuesday I  found a last minute seat for Wednesday so I took it. Unfortunately I had to be at the check in by 5 AM so our friend from Brandon took me to the airport. Cheers  

MX/TX Trip # 77 Happenings ( Thursday,Friday, Saturday )

Since not much is happening when you are settled in the same  RV Park , like we are doing now , I will bunch several days of "activities", if you can call it that into each report. 

The main topic here is how different the weather is from what it has been in years passed. It is fair to said the weather is not conducive to the phase " Sunny Texas" because most days start with overcast, fog, mist and sometimes the Sun. Some our friends are golfers and many days they start their game with jackets/coats  and as an avid golfers they normally "sugar coat "   the weather by saying that the Sun peaked thru etc etc. 

We did not do much on Valentines Day but on Friday we went to MX , which is only 7 miles away , with our friends the Nahas. Neither of us had a need to visit MX but we just want to kill a day and we planned to have lunch while we were there, which we did. Larry and I had our shoes shine as Larry has been going to the same guy for 20 years. Apparently the "shine Guy " is from Monterey, and  comes to " Progresso " this border town every winter because business is better  because of us  "Winter Texans. " Then we met the ladies and had lunch at one of the restaurants that is a favourite for the Gringos. We would normally pick up a bottle of booze but TX has slapped a 2.75 tax on all booze coming into TX so the it just as cheap to buy in TX. 

On Saturday we went to the local Flea market as Carroll was looking for Bamboo sheets. We squeezed the Flea market trip in between the Scotties and hockey and this will continue for the next week. Cheers 

MX /TX Trip # 76 ATM Card arrived ( Wednesday)

Of course we had to hang around waiting on UPS to deliver the card and they usually deliver in the early afternoon but you can't count on the timing so we stayed home even thought it was a nice sunny day for a change. 

Since UPS had not arrived by 2 PM Carroll decided that she needed something from the Dollar store which is about a KM away and she would sign for the card if he arrived while I was away. Just as I passed the office I seen the UPS truck, which means that the driver was getting some Address numbers from the office so I waited until he came back to his truck. I said do you have a parcel for Esler and he said you bet I do just sign here. I now feel better that I have my ATM card in my wallet. 

Tonight is Card night and I play Euchre . There  was also entertainment in the rec hall so Carroll went with another lady and for 7.00 it was apparently OK, which means I would not have enjoyed it.

I have played Euchre with the same 12 people for two years and not one person knew my name when I walked into the room.  I said you can't all have Alzheimer, somebody must know my name. I even rented one guys Park model 2 years ago. I guess when they leave in the Spring they "dump" all the names and then get re-introduced when the return in the Fall. So now you know what kind of people hang out in these RV Parks. Cheers  


   

MX/TX Trip # 75 ATM Card ( Tuesday )

TD advised me that my ATM card would arrive between 5 and 7 business days and that I would have to sign for it. That would mean it would arrive on the 14 or 15 th so I planned to be home on those days which is not a real hardship since the weather is not conducive to doing much besides reading, watching TV or play cards with friends.  Actually it rained during the night and continued off and on until 5 PM when the sun broke thru for an hour. 

We stepped out for and hour to get milk and bread bread and when we got home we had a note from UPS that said they were here and they would try again tomorrow. I love the service; 3 business days, but I really didn't expect it that quick so now we get to stay home tomorrow.  Not a problem with our shitty weather. Cheers