Indeed, there will be time to wonder/"Do I dare?" "Do I dare?" (from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot)

 You have probably heard that the Minister of Education wants schools back full time in September.  A friend of mine asked me if I was "freaked out" and I am not.  I think we have done very well in BC so far and I have confidence that whatever happens in September will be okay.  It is important for all of us to prepare as best as we can -- I have several masks (which I wear when I go out, of course) and I am planning for classes in September.  I'm really excited to be teaching one block of English (which I used to do all the time) and have been reading all the material to get ready.  Prepare for a full return to school with a couple of notebooks, a water bottle, some pens and pencils and whatever else you usually need (a positive attitude is important!).  If things take a turn for the worst (fingers crossed that they don't), you'll be ready for whatever happens!

I am sitting in my living room right now (it is early because, of course, Daisy likes to get her morning walk in at 5:15 so she can have a nice long nap when she gets back).  I have a bird feeder on my front balcony and I also put peanuts out for the squirrels.  I know they can fend for themselves in the summer, but we have a couple of neighbourhood cats who make it difficult (I have told their owners to keep their cats inside, but they give me the helpless shrug as if the cats have more power than they do!) so I like to provide a safe place for the little creatures to eat.  Anyhow, there is a fine figure of a squirrel out there right now really putting paid to the nuts and it is such a pleasure to watch her pick up a nut in her little hands (their paws are very much like hands) and nibble away at it and then move on to the next one.  

I have been enjoying my summer and binge-reading.  Presently, I am embroiled in a book (Space-opoly square -- "read a book with a title that relates to space") called A Shooting Star by Wallace Stegner (who spent some of his formative years in Eastend, Saskatchewan and who taught other famous writers like Ken Kesey, Thomas McGuane and Larry McMurtry).  It is about this wealthy woman who has no direction in her life.  I am enjoying the book but I hate the protagonist.  She blames everyone else for her troubles and keeps whining about how she wants to have a purpose but that no one will help her find it, no one is paying attention to her needs, blah, blah, blah.  There are certainly people like this, so it is realistic, but I always think the answer is to find yourself a good job.  (Good work is so helpful to making a person feel worthwhile and purposeful.)  My mother, a very wise woman, said (among other wise things), "don't expect someone else to make you happy!"  You have to find happiness in yourself.  Another person isn't responsible for you being happy and can't MAKE you happy.