1st World Problems

Did anyone else have just a really rough weekend? I am not talking about family problems or anything like that. I mean more external pressure that you just couldn't shake? I felt as though I was on the verge of tears all weekend. Not because of anything that is happening to me personally but as a reaction to not only the group in Ottawa but also in seeing how many people I considered friends who completely bought into the rhetoric.  I am pro-democracy, I am pro having your say and protesting the things that you can't live with. But in this country, my home, I never thought that people I know would be ok with Nazi flags being flown. I never thought that my countrymen would throw rocks at ambulances, or dance and urinate on a cenotaph to fallen soldiers. Never thought that they would deface a Terry Fox statue. Do they really think he would be on their side? I am embarrassed by the people who call themselves patriots. Who goes to the capital and mocks indigenous drum circles, stea...

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day.  It is also the day that the Red Army discovered and freed the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. The Nazis knew the day was coming and had stepped up the murder of the residents. They had started to burn the evidence as they could and were marching the remaining prisoners to other camps that were further away from the oncoming Red Army and the other allies.  Until the Russians came upon this camp the world had no idea how terrible the war really was. Hospitals were set up and the survivors were treated. Russian soldiers handed out chocolate to the children . More than the chocolate the survivors told stories of the human kindness they were shown.  When I was in high school we spent a day at a local university learning about the holocaust, and we were given a chance to meet survivors. Each class was sent into separate rooms where a survivor would come in and share their story. When it was my class's turn to hear a survivor's story, a small ...

Let's talk about mental health. Not because a giant corporation has turned talking about mental health into basically an advertising campaign where they get to look like the good guys. Not because it's trendy to act like you're depressed, or to use your mental health as a crutch to blame things on. But because we don't talk about it enough.  Actual mental health and what that means was not something to be talked about up until the recent past. You didn't acknowledge what was going on, you just pushed through. Think about all the older members of your family. Think about how cold they seemed. Maybe they had addiction issues. Maybe there was a cycle of abuse that they perpetuated.  Most of this probably could have been somewhat helped if they could have talked about their feelings, or what was going on in their lives. If you've been reading what has become almost my diary for a while, you'll know that my grandmother is suffering from dementia and some other is...

After yesterday, I thought it would be a good idea to keep it a little light today.  My daughter starts high school in the fall and last night we attended a virtual open house for the school she will be attending. We learned about the school motto, and who it was named after. We learned about the school's learning philosophy and about some of the features the school has to make it a place of learning. Including that there is a therapy dog in the form of a big, black lab that comes once a week.  Now that you know about the part I am most excited about, let's get to the point. I sat with her and we reacted to the presentation together, mostly in the form of laughing at something the other said. Then she got a little serious. It was during the part of the PowerPoint when they show all the different options that the school has.  I should have prefaced this by saying that there was another plan in place. She had planned to follow in her brother's footsteps by graduating from t...

It's another political post! Let me get a few things out of the way before I proceed. And yes, I did put my hair up before I started. I am very much pro-trucker. My dad was a driver, as was my husband. I know a lot of professional drivers and I know how much long-haul drivers sacrifice. Not only for their families but for the rest of us as well. Without drivers, like farmers, there would be nothing on the shelves if it weren't for the effort and time lost with their families. Now, to get on with the rest. Let's pretend that this movement is only about the new driver vaccine rule. The rule that has been put in place on both sides of the border. It is not only our government that has enacted this. America has now as well. I get it. We are all sick of the mandates, the masks, the drama of it all. The thing I am more sick of though is the overly vocal minority holding the rest of us hostage. I really don't care what people's statuses are. We all need to live our lives. ...

What is it about school pick-up time that turns people into maniacs? Today I took the truck to pick up my daughter. I pulled up to the front part of the waiting area and left room at the curb for people to be able to pull into and out of the alley there without too much trouble. A few minutes before the bell rings another vehicle comes and wedges itself in front of me. They get so close to my bumper that all I can see is their back window, and I can hear the flat line squeal of their backup alarm that should be telling them that they are too close. So now they are upon me with no room to spare and they are blocking the alley. Did I mention that the parking area on the other side of the alley is completely empty? When it came time for the car to pull out and into the road, there was no indication that they were going to leave either, just a pull out into the lane. I guess the person that was driving there was at fault for trying to drive where this obviously very important person was le...

As always the loss of a loved one I have a tendency to get a little philosophical. Honestly though, when do I not have the tendency to get a little philosophical? If overthinking were an Olympic sport, I would win gold, silver, and bronze. I am one of those who assume I am a burden to people. That I am somehow too much and not enough at the same time.  I spend a lot of time in my own head and try to censor what I say before it leaves my mouth. I usually fail at the censoring part. I am overly emotional and work constantly on keeping that choked down. Which doesn't really work either.  I treasure the people in my life and I hope they know it. I also fall off the face of the earth from time to time and forget that part of being in someone's life means that you have to maintain communication. I only speak (ok text) to most of my closest friends every couple of months.  I do think of the people in my life all the time. I hope they are well and know that if they need me I am a...

We lost a friend yesterday. He was a grumpy old man, and I loved him. I can't remember when we met him and his forever patient wife, it's almost like he was just there the whole time. My husband belongs to the Shriners. The Shriners are a volunteer group that raises money for their group of hospitals. The percentage of young guys is much smaller than the group of old guys, so my husband wound up with a best friend almost 35 years older than he is. It's not all that surprising, from all accounts my husband has been 80 since he was born. We met our friend through the Shrine. Our friend was a vocal supporter and an even more vocal critic. He didn't suffer fools and never hid an opinion. Politically we stood very far apart, but ultimately we just wanted what was best for our country and province, and had different ideas on what and who that meant.  We spent a lot of time together at Shrine functions. Dinners, dances, BBQs, parades. We traveled together to conventions and go...

It truly does take a village.  I grew up with my extended family. So many aunts, uncles, and cousins. Can't forget the grandparents. Because of this village, I was able to experience life in many different ways and I grew to appreciate the input that a community can have when it comes to raising good people.  Due to this upbringing, I knew no other way to raise my own kids. I am an only child, so my aunts, uncles, and cousins became theirs. As did my friends. My son somehow became a gear head. Apart from the most basic of car maintenance knowledge, I have no idea what he is talking about most days. Thankfully though he has my dad's older brother, the other gear head in the family.  Not long ago when we still had the '59 Ford, my uncle would just drop by to talk to my son and work on the truck together. One day they went on a drive together and ran out of gas. When I got the call that they needed help all I could hear in the background was my uncle's giggle and the delig...

I am having a scattery brain kind of day.  I can't seem to focus on anything. I am fairly easily distracted anyway, but today seems to be worse than normal. But today, I have decided that instead of punishing myself and forcing something I am just going to continue with all the tabs in my mind open, although I will try to keep track of which one the sound is coming from. Mostly so I can change the song twenty seconds in when I decide the one playing is not the one I want to hear. I haven't been sleeping again, but then I wore socks to bed last night and actually got a full six hours. Maybe that is what the problem is. It's taking less effort to keep to the basic tasks at hand so it's as though I am flicking through channels trying to find something to watch.  I am a huge trivia and facts fan. I like knowing things, weird things, odd things, even almost boring things. I don't always learn them to share, usually, as I read them they get filed away and only come up if ...

Comfort food, by definition, brings comfort.  I mean, there it all is in the description. I like to ask people about their favorite comfort foods. Not because I need to hear people talk about food. But, because generally when they are telling me about their favourite foods, they tell me another story about themselves. My comfort food from my mom is her Cesar salad dressing. It's made in an old-fashioned way. Oil, anchovies, egg yolk, and the rest. For me, it is more about watching her make it, and the freedom that she gives herself to relax while she's making it. It's darn tasty, too. With my Aunt (my dad's oldest sister) it is her funeral potatoes (also called hashbrown casserole). I have always loved to eat it, and it meant that I was back on my home turf with her.  My other aunt (my dad's older brother's wife) is rice. Just plain white rice with butter and salt. Not that she couldn't cook. She can, quite well actually. The rice was more about being my par...

My daughter went back to school today.  She hasn't been out long, two weeks for Christmas break, and then one more tacked on while the government said that they were going to give the schools a chance to make the schools a little safer. This was supposed to include upgraded air filters, N95 masks for all, and the ever-elusive at-home rapid tests were even going to be handed out twice a week.  You would think at this point I would have stopped taking our current provincial government at their word. You would think I would know to take everything they say with a grain of salt. But I don't. I still think that they are not only going to do what they say they are going to. I still think that they care about us, the public. And because of all of this, I am stuck. I know that my daughter needs to be in school to learn. She is a kid who needs to be amongst her peers and within their safe social structure to learn at the best of her ability. But, when she was born she was in the NICU f...

Sometimes when I talk, my mother comes out.  I don't know when I first heard that quote, but as I get older it becomes more and more true. It could be a turn of phrase or a certain cadence of speaking. My kids are the usual recipients of most of my "mom-speak". Through many circumstances, I grew up mostly on my own. My mom worked hard to provide for us and that meant she didn't spend as much time with me as either one of us would have wanted. She wasn't mothered either, her mom passed when she was 12. So, it is always funny to me when I hear her reflected in whatever it is I am saying. As I get older, and I reflect more on myself and my family's history it strikes me that these echoes from my mom may not be just from her. She may have picked them up from the mother she lost too soon, or from the other women that helped to raise her before and after the loss. Maybe they come from my mom's grandmother who would yell at her in French, English, and  Mi'kma...

When was the first time you traveled on a plane? I don't remember the first time, I was very young. It was sometime in the early '80s. Flying when I was a kid always seemed like such a luxury to me. Most of the flying I did was as an "unaccompanied minor". So I got to board the plane first, the aircrew took amazing care of me, and except for the one time they forgot about me between flights even the security people took extra time to make sure I was ok.  Flying for me has always meant that I was on an adventure. Lately, it is a cramped adventure when all there is to look forward to is a bag of pretzels, being way too close to strangers, and for some reason Ginger Ale that tastes like manna from heaven. Covid has even removed food for purchase on flights unless you're in first class.  I think as planes have crammed more seats onto planes, and some of the nice touches (food, space, not feeling like cattle) have faded away there has been a shift in how flying is perc...

We made it! Only to be caught in yet another round of the same. Groundhog Day is a movie that I have seen a handful of times. It's the usual Bill Murray fare, where he plays most of the movie as a narcissistic madcap and the other actors just try to keep up.  Instead of waking up every morning to "I got you babe" though we are waking up to the same government stern warnings, sometimes with the finger waggles, sometimes with stern eyebrows. Still plying the do as I say, not as I do message. Those who aren't vaccinated still aren't vaccinated, those who won't wear masks still won't. The only difference now is it seems that we are all sharing the same facing the same levels of depression and despair.  I traveled over Christmas to a place that has approached this pandemic in a very different way.  For the most part, people don't wear masks, or socially distance, or avoid gathering in large groups. They have picked up and just gotten on with it. To be hones...