Oh, Canada!

will this have been my last time to visit?

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Last week I went to Toronto to visit a friend. I hadn't seen her since my last visit in 2017 when I still had long red hair and lived in California. My friend, also named Sandra, still lives where she lived then, and looks much the same except for having lost a lot of weight.

She and I have been friends for almost thirty years. We're both playwrights, and we met through the International Centre for Women Playwrights at the ICWP conference in Galway, Ireland. I don't know whether I had a reading of one of my plays that year. I honestly don't remember, so maybe I didn't. But Sandra performed her own play D'arcy. It's a passionate drama about the assassination of Thomas D'arcy McGee. He was an Irish patriot, Canadian statesman assassinated by Irish-American Fenians.

I visited her in Calgary a couple of times before she moved back to Toronto. She came to Portland in 2001 when I organized a mini-ICWP conference here. I had a great time showing her around the area while she was here.

For various reasons, we both think this might have been our last in person visit. It was important for me to go (she hasn't been able to travel for many years).

She lives right off the lake in an apartment. She can see the lake from her balcony. She also has large trees for shade. She and her cat Cubby were great hosts. Unfortunately, I was not such a great guest.

I arrived late Friday night. Saturday I was tired and didn't feel great, but Sunday morning I woke up knowing I was in the midst of a diverticulitis attack and needed to see a doctor. My Kaiser doctor had previously told me I could get help from Kaiser no matter where I was. I just had to call. So I called. I talked to a couple of different people, both of whom told me they couldn't help me because I was out of the country, plus it was Sunday -- no doctors were available.

I called Allianz, because I had bought travel insurance (mostly in case the airlines caused problems), and they told me I was covered for doctors, hospital, meds, whatever I needed. I just had to find somewhere to go. They did have one walk-in doctor to offer. I took down the address and Sandra drove me there. It was so much farther than I imagined. Then I went in and they had one doctor and the wait time was three hours. We went to two more places, neither of which could help, before we finally found a walk in where I could be seen. They said the wait would be 25-30 minutes. Fifty minutes later, I saw the doctor.

He agreed with my self-diagnosis of diverticulitis, but felt it might be worse -- as in peritonitis -- and advised me to go to the emergency room. I felt sure I'd be better if he prescribed antibiotics. He did prescribe them, and I promised to go to the ER the next day if I didn't feel better.

In the morning I did feel a bit better, and by afternoon better for sure. But I took it easy for sure. The next day Sandra and I had a great time. We even went out to lunch. We chatted and laughed all day.

Then it was Wednesday, time for me to return to Portland. Because it was an international flight, I needed to be at the airport three hours early. We actually arrived four hours early, so I convinced her to drive on, and we'd have coffee.

We went to Tim Horton's. I had an iced Chai Latte (delicious) and a cheese tea biscuit. I'd never had one, and it was just right. Sandra had coffee and a pastry. Again, we talked and laughed.

At the airport we had a super long hug as we said goodbye.

Lake Ontario, Toronto

My flight home was via Seattle and we flew over western Washington across to Seattle. I had a window seat, and some of the best views of the land I'd ever seen. I've always loved looking down at the earth (once we're below the clouds), and this was spectacular. At first the land looked like a beautiful patchwork quilt of rich greens and browns of every shade. Lakes and rivers made their appearances, ignoring geometric shapes altogether. But as we got closer to Seattle, we began to cross the Cascade Mountain range. I didn't remember the range being so wide. It seemed to be hundreds of miles of rumpled earth, heaved up into bigger and bigger piles, creating mountains and valleys.

At one point I could see the taller mountains of the range including Mount Saint Helens, Mount Adams, Mount Jefferson, and Mount Rainier.

Photo by Guillaume Marques on Unsplash

As we neared Seattle, the skies showed clear evidence of the Bear Gulch fire burning in the Olympic National Rain Forest (one of the most beautiful places in the world, imo). The sky reminded me of the old days when Los Angeles was covered in smog. Ugly, yellowish gray clouds smothering the view.

By the time I got to Portland, it was pitch black. When I got home, only Louie was waiting up for me.

And that my friends, is how I spent my End of Summer vacation.

How was your summer? Did you go on vacation? Tell me all about it, I love to hear about travels.