June 4, 2023

Hello, Bill.

Let me introduce myself.  I have been a friend of John Fitchett since we were in Grade One.  You and I met a few times years ago at John’s place.

John died yesterday in hospital in Richmond B.C. from pneumonia, a complication of failing health.  John was seventy-six.

John wanted there to be a party when this happened.  Consequently, there will be a party, location and date undetermined.  Possibly in the fall.  I think we will be a group of around twenty at a spectacular venue which I must find.  This may happen next spring.  At that time I will send an invitation to you and your guest.  It’s our hope that you can attend.

May John rest in peace.

Lynn (Kiely)

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If this is reality, I’ll have a double with each of the two recommended sides and an Xtra-large to go!  Please.  And thank-you! At no point in my prolonged existence (now approaching three-quarters of a century) have I once anticipated seeing the world quite from this advantageous point of view. Of course I may have had images in mind, favourable estimates or predominantly psychological renditions of reality contaminated by a lot of bumpf about how to live the perfect life, observing the ritual religious imperatives and wearing the proper clothes. Seemingly we adapt to reality not so much by proving its illustration as by achieving its commonplace simplicity. The reduction of necessity to answerable equations is most certainly part of the requisite formula, just as it is axiomatic that one cannot have money and things without balance.

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I am remiss were I to deny there is no celebrity to be unwrapped in the mundane domestic events which have transpired and unfolded within our immediate family over the past five weeks. It has been a chronology most significantly characterized when examined in the context of our awakening vantage from our new apartment along the Mississippi River. It was five weeks ago today on Thursday, April 27th that we returned to Canada from our winter sojourn on Key Largo in the United States of America. At the time of our arrival home we were full of anticipation. While I cannot say that it has been a faultless reinvigoration, it has most certainly been a period of intense engagement and what in my opinion has been a period of notable accomplishment. A mere glance at our communal calendar reveals a succession of medical, dental, surgical, endodontic, legal, insurance, investment, domain name and website renewals, retail, gastronomic, social and accounting enterprises. Plus a variety of birthday and wedding anniversaries.

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Our new residential flat shimmers. We have a corner unit facing northeast and parallel to the Misssissippi River towards the Village of Appleton overlooking a series of vast cultivated pastoral fields undulating to the horizon. The 9′ floor-to-ceiling windows in all rooms on both external sides of the apartment afford a brilliant and sprightly atmosphere. The prospect of the panorama from the drawing room vista upriver is especially mesmerizing. Having my desk and computer positioned to profit with maximum advantage from this exceedingly fruitious outlook was no small calculation on my part.

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Inexplicably I had a note on my calendar today to have the sutures removed from my left hand where we believe I suffered a small but lingering blow from having fallen upon a piece of coral while wading into Florida Bay off Key Largo one afternoon this past March. Apparently the coral – which is a living organism – can if left unattended remain and grow beneath the skin, rendering signs of infection. In a prolonged series of evolving meetings in the Emergency and regular offices of the Almonte General Hospital over the past several weeks, the physicians and nurses have conducted a number of investigations and a biopsy, including most recently the stitching of the wound. I was told about a week ago that Dr. Matthew Tiffany (my family physician) would contact me to arrange the removal of the sutures. As a result there was this note on my calendar today to do so (but I haven’t any recollection that the precise time of 9:00 am had been arranged).  Nonetheless I aroused myself early this morning from my virginal lair, bathed and dressed then headed to the hospital for nine o’clock. I was determined to conclude this minor drama without further obstruction.  It naturally pleased my ears to hear the desk clerk at the hospital observe that, while there was indeed no record of my appointment to do so, she would do what was necessary to have this petty matter disposed of.

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The suddenness with which the buzz has expired is alarming.  The drugs used last Wednesday at the Perth & Smith Falls Hospital during the brutal surgery on my left knee replacement have finally worn off. At the same time the post-operative miscellany with which the hospital staff adorned me upon my gleeful withdrawal from the clinic has acquired a new-found relevance. I have spent the past hour walking up and down the apartment buiding hallway, lying upon the bed while repeatedly raising my left and right leg, bending my toes on both legs forwards and backwards, compressing my buttocks for 30-second intervals then releasing, stretching my legs while sitting. My entire universe is for the moment comprised of varying degrees of leg extremities and pressures. I never imagined that pain had such a utilitarian and therefore inarguable partiality!

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A trip to the endodontist is assured to arouse the soporific and analgesic state of mind. It is an ephemeral presence but nonetheless palpable. Considering I was the chauffeur for this unwitting alignment, my contribution was far from clinical. I too was recovering from my own intensive surgery just 24 hours ago. What did me in wasn’t today’s operative pursuit (for which naturally I was a mere bystander). Rather it was the dreamy acquaintance with the shoreline of the river as it bends its way through the county; and the classical crossover music piped through my Bose headphones.

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It isn’t often I am professionally advised not to take a shower and to avoid driving an automobile or riding a bicycle. Yet such were the prescriptions germane today, the first day following my left knee replacement surgery. As luck would have it these obstructive recommendations are acknowledged by an inexpressibly lovely day, a cloudless azure sky with a visibility of 28 km. There is a dry wind from the north at 14 km/h. The temperature is about 44°F. And if it matters the 10-day forecast is sunshine and 86°F. I took the opportunity to lounge in the sun for a half-hour on the balcony deck.

So here I am: all dressed up (or down) and nowhere to go!  Being thus inhibited is a rarefied pleasure and one to which I willingly submit notwithstanding the limitations.

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It was at six o’clock this morning that I first addressed the new day with any clarity. Not my usual hour of appointment for greeting the dawn (other than as a parenthetical necessity to void my bladder).  Nonetheless by remarkable distinction I was already out of bed, showered, shaved and dressed (though pointedly lacking any accompanying scent or pomade).  In fifteen minutes I expected to rally with Don’s Taxi at the front of our apartment building.  Our destination was the Perth & Smiths Falls Hospital on Cornelius Street, Smiths Falls.  I had been told by the hospital staff at our pre-op meeting a week ago to be there this morning at 8:30 am in preparation for my left knee replacement surgery.  Dr. Mark Roberts MB BS FRCSC is my surgeon in this matter though I understood the procedure was to be conducted robotically (of which Dr. Roberts is technically the overseer).  Hopefully I will be too anaesthetized to have any truck with the delicacies of the subsequent surgical procedure (matters from which traditionally I prefer to distance myself and to abandon to the sole concern of the presiding physician).

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In what can only be described as a miracle of nature and engineering, the field of yellow dandelions has overnight turned to a collection of white sylphlike cushions.  For the time being – that is, before a wind blows over the feathery heads of the plants and spreads the parachutes of seeds abroad – the field is dotted with fluffy motionless bulbs. The rigour and precision of the metamorphosis from yellow to white, from substance to levity, from days of absorbing sunshine until the natural evolution of casting seeds abroad, is a display of mechanical production governed by incalculable routine and design.

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