With the shape our poor beloved world is in, I can only be glad I am no longer in a position to do a blessed thing about it.  So I do what little I can, enriching cruises for fortunate people.  Wellll, they DO appreciate what I do and I have fun doing it.

Too many people are dying on me, good friends like Pat Finot, Joan Westgate, Ellen Morneau. Denis Mavrias, Chris Wendlandt and my most dear cousin Rosemary, who was like a sister, as we are/were both only children.  I shall miss you all.

I rejoice in the fact that I have ties to the new generation and it’s delightful.  It visits me and enjoys my super downtown apartment.  This year I welcomed Rosemary’s granddaughters, Sarah and Lily Sidorchuk, both studying at Queen’s, who were a lot of fun.  I especially enjoyed taking Sarah, as my date, to a Danse, Danse performance.  Live entertainment is my passion and, thanks to Pat Finot, I have a great fondness for modern dance. Then I have Jacqui Wong, Pam Ip’s daughter, who is at McGill and a more regular dinner date.  Our last one was the best, St. Hubert BBQ and “Pub Royale” in Theatre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts.  Pub Royal is a musical, homage to Les Cowboys Fringants, Quebec’s favorite local rock group.  Jacquie got a good dose of Quebec culture from the singers, dancers and circus acrobats.  Montreal, home to Cirque du Soleil, has theatre schools, and employs their graduates.  I am sharing my expensive habits with these kids and they are taking to them like ducks to water.  But they are all good students and I have no fear that they won’t be able to pay for live entertainment, once they graduate.  Rosemary has one more granddaughter, Jenny Sidorchuk, who will be in University too, soon.  I hope this is making her envious enough to come next year.  I am pretty sure it will. 

I saw most of my friends this year, as travel got back to normal.  I had more than four months of my very favorite cruise buddies on Holland America’s ms Zuiderdam, from January to mid-May.  I was only home long enough to do my taxes and pay my fines and balances.  In mid-July, I was off to California for a month of visiting friends before flying to Anchorage to join my next assignment.  If you missed my blogs, you can read all the back issues on www.helenmegan.com I am not going to repeat myself.

I came back from Vancouver in mid-August, with COVID, of course.  I coughed all the way home on the plane but didn’t bother testing, as it was over as fast as it came.  I would never have known I had it, if it weren’t for the pre-op routine for gallbladder surgery.  So much for that and back on the list with the gallbladder thing hanging over me like the sword of Damocles.  After seven hours, with my butt hanging out, in a waiting room, at the Montreal General Hospital on November 17, the thing finally came out on December 8.  Yes, I’m fine, thank you.  I was fine the day after.

Fall was busy.  I did get US visitors and the theatres delivered all kinds of great entertainment, while the restaurants served yummy meals.  I took a McGill Lifelong Learning course called “Inside The New Yorker” which was a lot of fun and challenged me to present an article and a story.  These McGill classes are full of retired professors, so that was intimidating, but I found a way out of it.  I picked Salman Rushdie, for the subject of the article, and the author of the story.  And, I took up Bridge again.  There’s a nice group that meets every second Tuesday afternoon at the McGill Faculty Club, which I get to frequent because I am leaving money to McGill when I die and happened to tell the right person.  Now I enjoy happy hours, elegant dinners and this very nice Bridge group.

I just upped my legacy gift to McGill as the little thing I could do to try to balance an extreme injustice that is currently going on in the province of Quebec.  In it’s zeal to protect the French language, it is now attacking our institutions of higher learning, including my Alma Mater.  I won’t bore you with the details.  I am sure you can find them on the Internet.  There are teachers and nurses’ strikes going on almost every day here, and I sure hope the situations get resolved.  It could be worse.  It could be Gaza or the Ukraine.  God bless all who suffer and I pray for a better world.

Montreal being Montreal, there is still a lot of fun to be had and I have promised myself to stay home from May to mid-August to enjoy our festivals, laughs, jazz, country music, folk music, rock, pop, franco-folies, Formula 1 races, circuses and all kinds of silliness.  I highly recommend that you come and play with me. 

With best wishes for a Merry Christmas and  Happy, Healthy New Year

Love and Purrs,

Helen and Robbie