May for me is a month full of memories – some sad, some happy, some just memories. My mother (center of wedding picture 1947 at left) died 29 years ago on May 1st. My old dog, Zeke Einstein (picture top left) died 2 years ago on May 11th. I had intended to write more about them – but I find that I am unable to, and that’s all I can say about that 
May is a month of running memories – during the early ‘80’s and ‘90’s I ran 7 Johnny Miles Marathons (New Glasgow N.S.), 2 National Capital Marathons (Ottawa, ON), 2 Vancouver International Marathons, 1 Heart of New Brunswick (Fredericton, N.B.), and god knows how many 10km, 10 mile, and various length relay races (3 Cabot Trail 172 mile relays – team came first twice, second once 
) in Nova Scotia and British Columbia.
Throw in 4 or 5 European cruises while in the Navy (Mediterranean, Baltic (best cruise ever!!), and the U.K.) and May was a busy month for me in the ‘80’s!!
The past couple of weeks has seen the weather transition from really cold to really hot – the last couple of days have been plus 27 and higher with the humidex – and the trees have gone from leafless to full blossom in just two days!! A lot of landscaping and yard work going on, but the property is starting to look pretty good!! ... And Doug the Dog (third picture at left) loves being outside, but he has to be careful because of the heat.
COVID cases are still on the rise – and probably will keep rising – but the world has to get back to normal and business has to keep making money (unless you are into crypto currency – that took a trillion dollar loss in the past month) so people will just ignore precautions and not worry about getting sick. Just to be on the safe side I had my second booster shot a couple of weeks ago – and now some doctors are recommending a third booster for this fall. The federal Conservative Party leader hopefuls are holding their televised debates – what a bunch of clowns!! Ontario will be holding their elections the 2nd of June – Ford and the provincial Conservatives are looking good; the rest? Led by more clowns!! .
The war in Ukraine is still going on – Putin is still delusional; Ukrainians are starting to make inroads – the Russians have withdrawn from Kharkiv – but it’s still a no win slogging battle in the Donbas region. The Russians are battering the area with missiles and destroying dozens of towns and killing hundreds of civilians. However, most of the population in that area are predominantly Russian speaking – who exactly is Putin trying to save from the ‘Neo-Nazi Ukrainians’??? The logic seems to be seriously flawed – at the cost of civilian lives; Russian or Ukrainian speaking makes no difference – these are innocent people being slaughtered at the whim of a mad man!! Finland, and possibly Sweden, has decided to apply to join NATO – they vote this coming week, but will still have to be approved unanimously by the 30 NATO members. Putin’s not happy, but who cares. That’s a 830 mile long shared border … Russia could conceivably attack during the approval period. Again, people seem to forget that the USSR tried to invade Finland back at the beginning of WW II – they got their asses kicked that time too!! Most of the civilians have been evacuated from Mariupol – the U.N. is trying to get about 60 badly injured military evacuated as well – the remainder of the Azov Regiment intend to stay and fight. I hope Mariupol holds out.
… And now, on to lighter things. Lots of cooking (as always) going on: We have had chicken curries; Beef Rendang (again, never gets old); steaks; burgers; Roast Pork with roast veggies; Loaded pasta casseroles (bacon, sausage, ground beef, tomatoes, etc.); Chicken Salad; Steak Salad; Chicken with Oyster Sauce; Pork with Udon Noodles; Pineapple Stuffed Chicken (again); Roast Pork with Scalloped Potatoes; the list goes on . On the Netflix front we just finished watching ‘The Blacklist’ – all 168 episodes of 8 seasons!! Guess we will have to wait until next October to see Season 9. Hopefully the writing will be better (and the acting), but at least we won’t have to watch Meghan Boone any more!! (worst acting, whiniest character ever!!) . Now we will get to catch up on other series – “Ozark”, “Better Call Saul”, and “Russian Doll”. I finished Season 1 and 2 of the Argentinian series – ‘Almost Happy’ – it wasn’t bad. Season 5 of ‘Marginale’ – an Argentinian prison drama – came on and I binge watched that; excellent . Unfortunately it was also the last Season . I tried watching “Welcome to Eden” – horrible, horrible, horrible – don’t even bother trying it (unless you are a mindless millennial in which case you might consider the plot ‘deep’). So I finally started ‘Toy Boy” – a Spanish mystery series about a male stripper unjustly imprisoned for seven years for decapitating and burning his female client’s husband’s corpse and trying to prove his innocence … okay, I don’t write the scripts, I just watch them. … And do you know … I like it a lot – the murder mystery, not the many male stripper performances that occur about 3 times a show . On to golf … lots going on in the last three weeks. RBC Heritage –Cory Connors tied for 12th place, 4 strokes out of first, Adam Hadwin and Adam Svensson tied for 26th. The Mexican Open at Vidanta (Nuevo Vallarta) – Jon Rahm (Spain) won for his 7th PGA win, first since last year’s U.S. Open. Only 1 Canadian, Michael Gligic made the cut – out of 5 Canadians . It was interesting to watch as it was at Vidanta where we have a timeshare . The Wells Fargo Championship (Potomac, Maryland) was last week – the weather was absolutely horrible; cold, windy, and wet. For example – Jason Day had a 3 stroke lead going into the 3rd round (-10), at the end of the day he was plus 9 ending up at minus 1!! You can’t recover from that – Max Homa won at minus 8 for his second win at Potomac. Three Canadians did not too bad – Mackenzie Hughes tied for 9th; Nick Taylor tied for 15th; and Corey Connors tied for 21st. This week on the PGA Tour golfers are at the AT & T Byron Nelson tournament in McKinney, TX the cut was at minus 5!! Only 2 Canadians, Adam Svensson and Mike Gligic made it and they are pretty much in last place going into the last day of play. The leader, Sebastian Munoz of Spain, is at minus 21!! NFL news –Schedule just released; Seattle’s first game … at home … Monday Night Football … against Russell Wilson and the Bronco’s!! I’ll pick the Seahawks; they’ve beaten Denver before … in a Super Bowl . … And November 13th they get to play Tom Brady, uh, Tampa Bay in Munich, Germany!! … Again, I’ll take Seattle. I think this will be a good year for Seattle… they made some good picks in the NFL draft … but we will have to see how things work out next season. In hockey Maple Leafs, Oilers, and Flames made it to the first round of playoffs – all of them with home ice advantage. … And … (I wrote this 2 games ago) “they will probably be knocked out in the first round. Even though the Leafs are 3 -2 over Tampa right now, I have great faith that they will blow it, probably in game 7 … at home “. Okay, on to last night (Saturday) … nailed the Leaf’s prediction, lost to Tampa … out of the playoffs. Edmonton went to game 7, they squeaked by, so onto round two against winner of Calgary / Dallas (yup, that is going to game 7 as well). Got to go … have a great and safe week … pray for Ukraine … we will see you in a bit!!