Not our usual adventure.

So glad to hear that Jim is in Neepawa.  With that anxiety gone, maybe he'll be able to relax a bit and heal faster.  I know you'll be much more relaxed, and maybe get some rest, Cathy.

During my trip to Manitou last week, the lady driving  and I had quite a conversation about the services she and her husband receive as a result of his military service. ( In India during WW2)  I mentioned it to David, and he gave more consideration to making a claim of his own.  After a month and  many phone calls, he finally got an address for someone to help filling out the form.  I Googled the address and discovered it was a Veterans Affairs office on Ellice.  This morning, off we went, parking at Portage Place.  Now, we never go downtown and certainly not to Portage Place. We couldn't find anywhere to pay for parking, which we had to do immediately upon entering the parking facility.  We ended up getting directions for the mall Customer Service, and she directed us to a pay station. Lots of walking, just to complete that task.  Then, it was just a one block walk to the building we were heading for.  We found the office and explained to the receptionist why we were there, expecting to be given an appointment sometime next month ( a bit of an exaggeration, but maybe more realistic than I think.)  She says just a minute we'll see if someone can see you, Within that moment a very nice young woman came took us into an office and got started.  She spent about an hour and a half with us, right during the noon hour and got everything sorted out.  But--she also explained that all of their computers were down and they couldn't do any work, so she was very, very happy to have something to pass the time.  

By this time it was 1:30 and we still had a very expensive hour of parking, so decided to have lunch at the food court there.  Both strange and interesting people eat there.  Many different languages are spoken. Under the "strange" description was a female security guard.  An older, short and heavy woman who was either sleeping or enjoying a chemically induced experience as she she wandered around, and around, and around the small area where we were sitting.  Not a cheap lunch, but then, we weren't really expecting cheap.

When we got home, I was exhausted, probably due to all the walking, and it being a fairly hot day.  I sat in the garden and watched David mowing the lawn, for awhile, but finally came in and went to bed for a nap.  Just before I went down, I got a call from the same lady at Veterans Affairs.  She had been appointed as our official "First point of Contact", and we would deal with her for any further activity.  She explained that things might be delayed a bit, as she would need David's official service number, from when he first joined, in 1962, even though that number had changed with amalgamation.  This lead to a frantic search on his part, just prior to supper, and he found it--written on the back of our marriage certificate in pencil.  I figure he must have had to take the certificate in to prove our marriage, when he listed me as a dependent.  According to the lady at Veterans Affairs this will shorten the time to process our claim significantly, even though we still have to have a form filled out by our doctor.

So now, it's after 8:00, and it feels like we just finished supper.  Unfortunately, I just remembered that we had started laundry this morning, just before we decided to go downtown, and there is a load in both the washer and dryer.  Have to go and take care of that.  Won't put another load into wash until tomorrow, though.