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A Week in the Life of Your Favourite Blogger...




Sunday, May 29, 2016

You have no doubt heard retired people say it: “I can’t believe how busy I am!  Good gracious, I’m supposed to be retired!”

And that is certainly how I feel.

For example, here’s some of what has occupied me this past week:
  • Heather and I drive our friends, Werner and Mary, to the airport – they’re on another cruise.
  • Another long-term friend is our guest for dinner – the conversation lasting late into the night.
  • An eighty minute Skype conversation with lifelong friends of ours, who live in the Province of Québec.
  • A ninety minute coffee with a somewhat younger friend – who bills himself as “Winnipeg’s friendliest undertaker.”
  • Intense study of financial statements, committee reports, and a hundred pages of other materials, in preparation for the Annual General Meeting of the Manitoba Medical Services Foundation (MMSF), where I’m a member of their Board of Directors.
  • The MMSF Annual General Meeting itself.
  • A haircut.
  • Intense study of another bunch of material – this time preparing for a meeting of our diocesan Board on Canons and Rules of Order (“canons,” in case you didn’t know, are the by-laws of a Christian denomination).
  • Heather and I are dinner guests at the home of fellow-members of St. Margaret’s church.
  • The meeting of the Board on Canons, for which I had been preparing.
  • Heather and I attend the annual banquet for Manitoba Blue Cross and MMSF directors (Blue Cross being a major sponsor/supporter of MMSF).
  • A three-hour lunch with a member of the clergy – something of a mentoring relationship.
  • A social evening at the home of friends.
  • A whole day without appointments (praise and thanksgiving offered to Heaven) – correspondence gets partially caught up; housework gets done, after a fashion.
  • On four separate days I also manage to get in an hour’s practice on the clarinet – having in mind that I will perform a couple of numbers in public, next Sunday, June 5, at St. Margaret’s.
...all of which is a fair synopsis of the visible and measurable events of the seven days just concluded.  Tomorrow, and the upcoming week, will be much the same, with lunches, coffee-times, and dinners with various people, plus a music rehearsal for next Sunday’s “concert,” and (ugh) a dental appointment.  Of particular note is an event that Heather and I will attend on Wednesday (June 1); it’s a fundraiser in behalf of the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra, and it is an evening in a private home, with several of the musicians having an informal jam session, and interacting with the guests.



Every now and then you will see in this blog a lament that I’ve been unable to post anything for the longest while, and, at risk of repeating myself one too many times, that is certainly the case now – my last entry having been dated November 18, 2015 – six months ago!

In that interval, Heather and I went to B.C. for Christmas, and then in February we went with friends on a cruise through the Panama Canal.

In April I became a sort of temporary pastor of two rural Lutheran congregations, driving 100 km. Northeast of Winnipeg on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter, and all the Sundays in April, to preside and preach at their worship services.  It was a delightful experience and mutually rewarding.

Also in April I turned seventy-five!!!  This birthday felt momentous – more so, even, than my sixty-fifth, or my seventieth (both considered to be milestones)!  For the occasion, and as a complete surprise, Heather arranged to bring Chris and Rachael to Winnipeg from their homes, respectively, in B.C. and in California.  When they walked into the apartment, I burst into tears – of complete happiness.

Will I ever post vivid details of such events on this website?  All I can say right now is, “I might.”

You can always check the “Oxbows” page to see if anything new appears, dated sometime between November 18, 2015 and today, May 29, 2016.


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