The day began not at all well.  This, in spite of the welcoming morning sunshine, blue sky and bracing atmosphere. It was an ideal September morn. Last evening as I had prepared myself for the usual late afternoon bustle at my withdrawing room desk, I chose for a switch – and as a conscious effort for clarity and refreshment – to avoid THC completely. Instead I contented myself with only the usual mug of chilled black coffee, abandoning the measured milligrams of the other stuff (which in my defence I fashioned not as a psychedelic but rather as a painkiller).

We retired last evening not long after nine o’clock. I slept miserably throughout the night. My left leg was peppered with sporadic pain. When I finally awoke at 7:00 am – as though released from prison – I felt overwhelmingly arthritic. The aching stretched from my previously broken ribs (which by the admission of my family physician seem never to have properly healed) throughout my pelvis, groin and lower spine, shooting pains through both legs indiscriminately. The pain radiated to the tips of the toes of both feet. Apparently the recovering left knee replacement was only part of the problem (if indeed it remains anything but the most comparatively minute contamination of the whole). I wishfully reflected that I ought to have paid that surgeon in Florida $60,000 for the suggested spinal surgery (which by the way was subsequently dismissed in Canada by the specialist at the Ottawa Civic Hospital). For the record, I think the latter was the right decision all considered.

Even though we enjoyed a pleasing reunion for breakfast this morning with my erstwhile physician at the golf club, my agonizing condition only deteriorated throughout the remainder of the day. Try what I might, I just couldn’t subdue the discomfort. Although I took my customary Tylenol Arthritis® at noon it did nothing whatsoever. I could only attribute the malaise to withdrawal from THC which admittedly I had been consuming every day since we returned to Canada last April.

The annoyance increased in its aggravation during the early afternoon as we addressed a silly but salty matter of interior decoration; namely, replacing all or part of the dining room assembly. With the application of sometimes testy suggestion and trial-and-error we settled upon what we reasoned was the least invasive and expensive alternative; viz., pillows for the antique oak chairs. I am looking at them now.  They are an unqualified success!  The product no less of Canadian Tire.

Once having adjudicated this disputed matter, we immediately undertook the return of the other chairs to my sister and her husband, who had kindly offered us the alternatives. But the purge was not yet complete.  As we motored into the city in pursuit of our latest ambition, I mistakenly took a route along an unfamiliar pathway.  While we of course succeeded to reach our goal, it was not without added stress and strain, albeit a minor inconvenience in the overall scheme of things.

The dénouement of this tragedy was as swift and unpredicted as its beginning. In good Shakespearean tradition the precipitous climax of the preceding chain of events is the settlement of all obstruction. We have punctuated the finale with a light evening meal which appears to have reunited us unwittingly to Middle-C.