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The 2017 Fox Report

My house is so big I can’t get Wifi in the kitchen …” Weird Al Yankovic’s First World Problems.

The phone rang one Saturday morning. At that moment, I remembered that I had disconnected the phone by the bed while cleaning and never did reconnect it.  In my stupor, I was certain this was a family emergency.  Don doesn’t run for the phone from bed. After a tumble down the stairs, a smacked head and bruised ribs, he learned that lesson.  I had not.  As I leapt out of bed, I realized I had been sleeping on both arms, and they were still fast asleep.  I tried to grab my robe, but the fingers didn’t work.  I was down the stairs before the 3rd ring (amazingly lucky that I did not need to grab for support).  I hopped around the table flailing my rubber flipper-arms until I knocked the receiver from the cradle. “Hello”?”  Silence.  “Hello?”   “Honnnnnnk !!!!!  This is your captain speaking.  You qualify for ….”  All that for a telemarketing call?   Hanging the phone up required creativity – my mouth. “Good dawnie …. get the phone….. good girl”.  Back to bed, but now my arms started to come to life with pins and needles. “Ah Ah Ah”.  I’m old enough to know that nothing ever good comes from a day that starts so cruelly.  I went back to sleep for several hours and started over. We pay for voicemail, so it’s time to start using it!

Other than a touch of accessional stupidity and a host of first world irritants (such as  charges from exceeding my cell data plan, having to buy something I didn’t really want just to qualify for free shipping, trifocals that make sure nothing is in focus, and difficulties getting into child-safety lids) we had a good year. The more I think of what could have been, the more I am grateful for what 2017 was – uneventful.

I am off contract this year.  I did not get hired to any of the BC positions that interested me, but we continue to look for a suitable, affordable BC retirement property. This year’s dry summer and long, warm fall made our property in Saskatchewan wonderful again, at least until the -40’s of the year-end holiday season. I’ve been learning to get comfortable in front of a camera, and with digital sound and video editing software.  I set up a youtube channel at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSGWTOfi80WGu8CrvEIMqpQ.

We spent much of the summer in BC, and managed to avoid the fires and heavy smoke.  One highlight was Wells Grey Provincial Park near Clearwater (1.5 hr north of Kamloops), where we hiked for several days.  The tourist information says “5,250 square kilometers of alpine wilderness, borne from volcanoes and carved by glaciers, one of the most unique landscapes in all of BC; where your days are measured in vertical feet, big game sightings and the number of waterfalls shot in your camera.” (http://www.wellsgray.ca/site/stories/1460751307.html).  That’s accurate! There are 39 named water falls, with Helmchen Falls, at 141m (463ft) being the 4th highest in the world.   It is much higher than Niagara Falls’ 50 m (165ft) but not as wide. Many spectacular views are quite accessible. The area is a bit unusual in that there is private land within the Park. It’s rainforest, so there are huge cedar and fir trees, with regular showers.  Wells Grey is a great place to holiday!

We fell in love with Kaslo, on Kootenay Lake in BC.  As we see it, Kaslo (pop 1000 ish) is where the artists go to live when they get priced out of Nelson, or want a smaller community.  Kaslo boasts of having 1% of the population play classical guitar! That beats most cities. They host an international classical guitar festival bi-annually and an international jazz festival annually, with a floating stage on the lake.  We were made so welcome in this community.  There are certainly some fine musicians in the area and it is a beautiful mountain town, about an hour up Kootenay Lake from Nelson.  It seems like it is rapidly becoming a retirement community, as there are few jobs.


We had fun hiking up an old logging road in Ymir (pop 230 ish), about 30 min out of Nelson. They’ve turned the old turn of the century gold rush brothel into a hotel.    The general store impressed me with fair trade organic coffee, a small café with espresso/cappuccino with locally raised organic goat milk, and home-made gluten free treats.  The produce was local organic, and a better selection than we find in most Saskatchewan supermarkets.

Alas! My 1988 Toyota Tercel is in my mechanic’s yard waiting for a new head gasket. She has been our mostly summer “emergency” vehicle.  She is a little mixed up about that, being the cause of the last two emergencies! Don’s 1987 4WD Tercel wagon is our mostly winter “rescue vehicle”, and she has done just that, rescuing me when the KIA SUV hit the ditch or had to go in the shop.  Ok!  I get it!  I just need to change what I call my Toyota after this fix, and she will stop having emergencies.  Maybe she will be called our mostly-summer zippy gravel road visiting carriage.  Our Tercels have been loyal, dependable friends, and we still have great affection for them. Both are under 300,000 km, with many miles yet for a Toyota! Older vehicles qualify for antique plates in SK, with reasonable insurance.

Usually this newsletter gives the highlights of the gene pool cleanse competition called the Darwinian Awards.  Instead, this year Don kept track of some of the reports he heard on late night talk radio. He calls it “kook radio”.

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Planet X will pass near Earth in the spring of 2018, and her eccentric orbit will cause havoc with our weather and electrical grids.
 

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The Easter Island statues are sculptures made of aliens and levitated into position using secret technologies from Atlantis.
 

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Demons are disembodied spirits of giants who lived on the earth before Adam and Eve.
 

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The “face” seen in Mars is a real sculpture carved by ancient inhabitants.  The remains of office buildings, complete with chairs and desks can also be seen there.  We are all Martian descendants, since they colonized Earth when their planet was dying.
 

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The alien Anunakis built the pyramids as giant gold sluices, using mutated human labour.  They mutated our evolution to make us useful slaves.
 

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    Earth’s core is inhabited by a reptilian alien race, waiting to take over once they win the war with the Grays, another alien race. There is an inter-alien war on Earth. (Do you think this may explain why no one ahead of me ever pays for my coffee in the Tim’s Drive-Thru?).
 

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Sasquatches are multi-dimensional beings.
 

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Global warming is false, but we should all worry about the coming ice age.
 

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Physical proof of UFOs is unnecessary.  Since matter is 90% space anyway, lack of physical proof is irrelevant.
 

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Donald Trump is necessary to the “end times” prophesy.  He will cleanse the soul of America to make it ready for the return of Jesus.

That last one has us a bit worried … Makes me wonder, if we can’t trust what talk radio reports late at night, is there any truth to their day time reporting?

Wishing you a healthy, happy and prosperous 2018.

Dawn and Don