Year End Is Coming

Yes, I know that we are less than a month away from the end of our year, 2018. There are lots of things to do during this time to end our year and to get ready for our new one.

As I am sure that you know, this is a difficult time-period for me that I am experiencing once again now. It is that time in 2014 when a disease that I had somehow picked up started coming out resulting in my near-death at year-end. If you want to read more about this, just go back to some of my earlier stories on my website.

No, it is not as troubling as before. Thank goodness. 

I have made a remarkable recovery since then after all of the efforts that I made. Oh sure, I have lost a very small amount of my resources, both physical and mental, as I recovered from this disease but I am still in pretty good shape these days. Nevertheless, there is nothing that I can do to forget about it all or even not to be troubled by it anymore. This is just not going to happen. What I can be pleased about is that I am not as concerned as before about my future.

I have to admit that I don’t know how other people act in situation similar to mine. Do they forget about everything because it is four years in the past? Alternatively, do they remember everything completely and experience it again? I don’t know the answer to it but I expect that some people are like me. They remember that there was a terrible action before but that they have recovered reasonably well since that time. It allows the person to live again as close to normally as possible.

Or that is what I’m saying given the date today. I’ll see what I experience as I again approach the day of the month when this all started to become very difficult for me. In the meantime, I better get back to writing some articles for you to read, dear reader.

ATTENDING A COUNCIL MEETING

Thanks to one of the writers on Facebook, I saw that the following can be used to watch a Council meeting or a Committee meeting in the City of Windsor from your home:

http://csg001-harmony.sliq.net/00310/Harmony/en/PowerBrowser/PowerBrowserV2/20181105/-1/4021#agenda_

Take a look at it because it will help you see what Council has done in matters that interest you. Of course, it also lets you know how well Members of Council act when doing their job.

Here’s a picture of what it lets you see. More importantly, you can hear quite well what is being said by the people in attendance at the meeting.

As you can tell, you can see not only a meeting that takes place at the time but one that was recorded in the past.

NEW BRIDGE BEING BUILT

In reading newspaper articles over the past while, it seems if the new Government bridge between Windsor and Detroit is going to start being built these days. Here is what is being done right now:

“Work has started,” said WDBA board chairman Dwight Duncan. “It’s not necessarily all visible. We have detailed drawings being done, managers being put in place. But within the next six months things will really start to progress.” (Dave Battagello, Windsor Star,November 23, 2018) 

Quite a big number of people will be hired eventually if this turns out to be true:

“More than 2,000 workers are expected to eventually have a direct hand working on the bridge project itself during the period of construction, scheduled to stretch into late 2024, the target date for the bridge to open to traffic.”

I have to admit that none of this makes much sense to me. Here’s what I mean by that written in a rather direct fashion. Will the Ambassador Bridge Company take any action to stop this from going on, for example by starting a lawsuit in Canada or the United States or both? This could take place for over a decade by the time it’s finished with a Supreme Court decision. 

Alternatively, since it seems rather quiet these days, could it be that the parties have arrived already at some kind of a deal that will be announced to help the Liberal Government around election time? It could help them get re-elected in exchange of some deal with the Bridge Company.

Who knows...I sure don’t!

LETTUCE TALK ABOUT THIS NOW

Oh no, here we go again. I have been through this before and was quite disappointed. Yes, I was told that there might be a problem with the romaine lettuce some time ago and I stopped eating it for a relatively long period of time. It just seemed to go on forever with no one really telling us what was wrong or if anything was found. Then, the whole negative process was stopped.

It is happening now one more time. However, here is what is being written in the Public Health Agency of Canada Notice:

“The Public Health Agency of Canada is collaborating with provincial public health partners, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada, as well as the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (U.S. CDC) and the United States Food and Drug Administration (U.S. FDA), to investigate an outbreak of E. coli infections in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and several U.S. states.

In Canada, based on the investigation findings to date, exposure to romaine lettuce has been identified as a source of the outbreak, but the cause of contamination has not been identified…

As the risk is ongoing, the Public Health Agency of Canada is advising individuals in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick to avoid eating romaine lettuce and salad mixes containing romaine lettuce until more is known about the outbreak and the cause of contamination.”

At least this time around, I have some confidence about what is being looked at. Unfortunately though the cause is still unknown. That is quite scary because, even if everything is said soon to be all right about the lettuce, what happens in the future? Can the same thing happen all over again?

Of course it means once again that I cannot eat romaine lettuce and who knows once again how long that will be. For what it is worth, it just seems so strange to me that is always “romaine” lettuce that is at risk and not some other type of vegetable. I wonder if there’s a different way of growing that crop that causes these problems.

Regretfully, we have switched over to another vegetable, cabbage, to be our new salad product until there is a solution is arrived at. Soon I hope. Oh sure, I do like the cabbage salad but I need my favorite lettuce meal as soon as possible to feel even healthier again.

UPDATE:  I can eat romaine lettuce again.  But for how long, who knows.