Lordymama! I did push the risk a little bit today. When I
left my shack I had only walking on my mind. I had a 90
minute walk yesterday, and when I removed bandage there
was just a tiny spot of blood from booboo toe. No lymph.

I have spent a lot of time sitting or reclining with foot
elevated, higher than heart. Venous drainage optimal.
Slept last night no bandage. There was a lot of rebuilding
of skin & fascia going on all night.

Once I got out there walking I could not control my horses,
my quads. I started running for just 3-4 minutes. After a few
intervals I sat down in the grass and took off shoe. No stain
on white sock, bandage stays secure but flexible.

I was in semi-sprint coming back down the trail. But I am
well aware that with an injury like this if you take a risk at
the wrong moment you wind up with beaucoups of misery.
It feels so good after first test of booboo toe. Lordymama!

Things clear up and resolve at the New Moon. Keep booboo toe
bandaged up while I go out to do essential errands. But later today
take bandage off and give booboo toe some air.

I cannot run but I can go to the park to do stances, calisthenics,
and stretches, etc. That's what I did yesterday. Lateral motion
or torsion on ball of the foot still too risky.

Big toe injuries are too often dimissed or ignored and later com-
pound & complexify. Play it very safe.

So what do you know about fire ants? I don't know anything
about the taxonomy of ants. I love to watch their busy industry,
and I have been known to sit or crouch down to watch for 15-20
minutes. But I cannot tell one species from another.

I did go to the emergency ward of the allnew superhospital. I
knew that the wait would be long. Altogether 8 hours of
waiting in total. They looked at my swollen toe and said they
needed to do bloodwork just to see if there might be com-
plications with diabetes, kidney disease, etc.

In the waiting room I was talking with some younger hipsters,
and they said that some people at a nearby music festival
were sitting in the grass and had ant bites with lots of swelling
and pain. Then also one of the nurses who took care of me
said that other people had been showing signs of ant bites
similar to mine. He called them fire ants - an invading species
from Asia. They have been a problem in the southern states
of USA, but most recently showing up in southern Ontario.

Three doses of antibiotic so far. Four doses of antihistamines.
The swelling is mostly gone, purple colour is fading away. Just
a little bit of lymph leaking. I am grateful for emergency medicine.

I will be ready to run on the mountain of love in 5-7 days, I hope.
I cannot get drunk with the funky monk during that time.

I am grateful for two strong big toes.

I had an ecstatic, tough run in the woods on the mountain of
love on Saturday. I came back to the park right beside my shack
to do last set of pushups & abdominals. I was barefoot and doing
stretches down in the grass. I stood up to do a stretch and had an
immediate sharp, buzzing pain in my big toe.

My first thought was that I had stepped on a glass shard, but now
I think it was a bee or wasp sting, right in the joint of big toe. Maybe
a spider, too.

Anyway, my toe was pretty swollen overnight, but not that painful.
I thought I was just having an exaggerated histamine reaction.
I decided to test it out with a one hour walk. I was walking okay,
but I could feel the swelling increasing today.

Came back home, took off sock & shoe to discover that my trusty
lymphatic system was working big time with buckets of lymph. Not
so much under the toe, but to the side & top.

Most likely have to take metro & bus tomorrow to emergency and
get somebody to look into the toe to find stinger stuck in there. I
was carefully scraping the surface with a sterile scalpel, but I
cannot detect it.

I respond very well to penicillin, luckily. Have not had any for the
past 24-25 years, though. I want to be up and running again,
right toot sweet.

Thinking about what Gord Downie said the other night, and
about what Mitch said in comment on my blog, I have one
more thing to add.

I grew up in Regina, the Queen City, the home of the RCMP.
As a child I would go with family and neighbours out to the
RCMP training academy and watch the Sunset Ceremony,
in which the horses were put through their parade routines,
complex & majestic. I was quite close to RCMP culture.

At some point in the history of the NorthWest Mounted
Police and RCMP the leaders realized that it made more
sense to allow the men to have sex with native women,
in exchange for buttons and trinkets, rather than have the
men become sexually active with each other. No NWMP
men were allowed to marry native women. It was just to
prevent them from discovering the pleasure of man to man sex.

Now in our present context the excuse that police come up
with for not following through on cases of murdered and
missing aboriginal women is that maybe she was just a sex
worker and she got drunk and lost once she had some money.

We have the frame of the big picture now. We can see our
history in ways that were impossible before. The object is not
simply to point fingers at the Church and government leaders
who controlled the police. The object is to heal and change the
ethical comprehension.

In retrospect would it have been better to defy the Church and
allow NWMP + RCMP members to discover the joys of sodomy
and leave the native women alone?

I do not think that much will change if the RCMP does not
acknowledge their part in trivializing and dismissing the
female spirit of our native people.

So today CBC has given us the estimate that approximately
11.7 million people were tuned in to the Tragically Hip concert
on Saturday night. That equals one third of the entire population.

So 11.7 million people saw Gord Downie kiss all of his bandmates
on the mouth, and the women in costume crew, etc. He kissed
Everyone on the mouth before going onstage. Everybody saw that.

And by now millions of people have seen photos of the warm and
sincere embrace that he held with our Prime Minister, Justin
Trudeau. Justin's father, Pierre Elliot Trudeau was all about Justice.
His phrase was A Just Society. I remember hearing him talk about
Justice when I was fifteen years old. So that is how Justin got his name.

Justin Trudeau has shown us already many times that he is capable
of being vulnerable and soft with other men. For good balance he has
shown us his skill in the boxing ring. He is a good boxer. That is a
different kind of intimacy.

Gord Downie might not have much longer to live. We all know that now.
He has encouraged us to look closely at the history of abuse of native
people, and historically this is a condemnation of Christian churches and
the RCMP. It is a terrible story, but Gord Downie tells us that Justin
is the right one to begin to set things right. We shall see.

I am still buzzing and sparkling from that magical night.

Normally I save Saturdays for a long run in the woods on
the mountain of love. But I am taking a little vacation from
volunteer chores at the street mission, so I can change the
running schedule as I please.

I walked from my shack over Mt. Royal and down the other
side, towards the mighty St. Lawrence river, to the neighbour-
hood called Monkland. A big street festival going on there,
thousands of happy hip people on a hot, sweaty day. Good
music, food & drink.

The main reason for going was the screening of the last
concert by The Tragically Hip, live from Kingston, on
huge big screen provided by CBC.

I run out of words to describe the show. It was a deeply
moving, spiritual, magical event, to be sure.

The front man, the one and only Gord Downie has an
inoperable brain tumour. Cancer. This was the last show
of a country-wide tour. Unbelievable atmosphere out on
the street, singing and screaming with about 6,000 sweaty people,
ecstatic, but sad, as well. I have never seen so many people
crying, singing, laughing and crying again.

Something deeply magical happened last night, all across this
country, with outdoor screenings and combined CBC Radio and
television. The Olympic coverage got interrupted for it.

Very unusual emotional convergence and coherence last night.

Lots of people got kissed by total strangers last night. We all
came together. Unprecedented.

My legs started to turn into jelly after about 75 minutes standing
on the street. I came back home by bus & metro. As I came
back to my shack and turned radio on, I heard the second and
third encores, with tears streaming down my face.

It has started to rain just now. Tears from the sky. I think I will
have a good run on the mountain of love.

I worked hard doing physical chores at the street mission
where I volunteer, but I still wanted to keep on going when
I got home. I changed into my shorts for the first time this
year. My cat died last August, and he left me his whole
stash of catnip. I just sprinkle it on the floor and roll around
in it and meow loudly.

That being done I got my oversize bongo drum and went
over to play drums with all my crazy, beautiful neighbours,
who have come here from all over the dingdong planet.
Fusion takes place at the deep center, white hot blazing
away.

It is a privilege to live here together with the whole world.

The huge sprawling, wooded rock pile, right out my door
is a living, breathing spiritual being. Called Parc du Mont
Royal. It has called me to come live here.

I miss my good cat, Buster.

I have been running on the big, sprawling, wooded rockpile right
outside my door since April. I am very possessive about the mountain
of love. Running is the best way to show my devotion to Montreal.
Everything makes sense when the forest embraces me and
breathes me into itself.

I can continue running through pain right up until the heavy snow
comes, or I can stop now. I am going to stop now. I have been at
this junction before and have made the wrong decision before.
Now is the time to switch back to just walking on Mt. Royal.

Probably by January or February I will want to run on the treadmill
at the gym just up the street. They are very generous to allow
people on welfare to work out for half price. They are very good
people.

I have been taking ibuprofen for three days now for a very old
running injury that has flared up again. It works very well for me,
but it is all too easy to think that the biomechanics are still sound.
The biomechanics are not still sound. I need to take everything
apart and inspect closely.

I do at least a little bit of muscle stretching every day. On running
days I do at least 20 minutes of stretches afterwards. I do
range of motion and balance exercises all the time, every day.

One thing that I have not been doing lately is deep static stances.
I used to be able to do 20 minute horse stances 3 or 4 times a
week. And a steady kicking routine. I think that I want to get back
into that.

I have two small wobble boards, one for each foot. I do like to
use them in winter to keep my ankle joints strong & versatile.
I have many pieces of home workout equipment. Get naked
and stand on wobble boards holding a heavy staff or dumb bells.
Listen to CCR Heard It Through The Grapevine. My old cat left
me all of his catnip stash. Good way to live through winter.

Heavy pouring rain here now. Some of the weather comes from
the remainders of Hurricane Patricia. Big winds come and go.
The fall colours are at their peak, but there won't be much left
to see after the winds.

The past 3 days we have been doing a massive big cleanup
and rearrangement of workspaces at the street mission where
I volunteer. Lots of heavy lifting, hauling, pulling, shoving, etc.
But I was determined to stay on schedule with running in the
woods, and also my gym workout, yesterday.

I left the mission, came home, quickly changed into my run-
ning gear. I do not let anything get in my way when I am
preparing to run. My focus & desire is such that I dismiss any
kind of social interaction. Not a good time to meet new people.

My old cat died 65 days ago. He left me his entire stash of
catnip. I just sprinkle it on the floor and roll around in it.
I think of my good old cat as I get ready to run.

I ran for one hundred minutes in heavy pouring rain. All alone.
That is perfect tough ecstatic solitude. I need that. I stopped
to get down in the mud between two oaks to do pushups.
Focus and desire.