Great Distractions

I was talking to my daughter the other day. We were both in one of those downturns in life, not exactly depressed but oh-so-blah and flat. Teetering on the edge so to speak. But books were saving us both. Reading books to be precise. She had just had a great haul from Goodwill, 25 books for a few dollars and she was knee deep in them. I had browsed the shelves at Sally Anne and bought 7 for a few pennies. Marvellous finds. We gloat over such bargains. Trade them off to each other when we get together. Rate them. We know what each other likes, and often like the same. As my granddaughter does.

Our family members are voracious readers. Mainly novels but not adverse to biographies or explorations into pysche or history. A huge escape into another world. I don't understand people who don't read. I honestly think they don't know what they're missing.

Currently I'm reading a Minette Walters, "The Chameleon's Shadow". She explores the dark side of the human spirit and some of her books have been made into films or television series. This novel explores the return of a severely injured and damaged UK Iraq vet.

The other book I'm reading is "Fruit" by Brian Francis, (review here) an account of a young gay boy's growing up in small town Ontario. Beautifully written and funny. A counter balance to the darkness of the Walters'. I try to balance my reading as I always have at least two books on the go.

I plunged into Blockbuster the other day and hauled out 8 movies from the bargain bin. They just about paid me to take them away. I've watched 2 during the pre-dawn small hours the last couple of nights:

Changeling
Frost/Nixon

Both brilliant films and with enough extras on both DVDs to satisfy the hungriest of trivia appetites.

Yes. All Distractions. From Thinking: of Death, of Sleeplessness, of Work, of Aging, of Loss, of Falling into the Abyss.

The Beethoven Connection

(Ironically I can't enjoy the above YouTube due to Dialup Dementia but I have in the past and also have the CD which I am playing right now).

I met him first about 20 odd years ago. In a recovery group. He took an enormous shine to me but he was far too needy and vulnerable. Every time he asked me out I asked my friend Judy to come along too. I just couldn’t hurt the man, he was a walking wounded.

Friends referred to him as my puppy. But in a kind way. He no sooner saw me anywhere but he would came lolloping over, smiling beatifically, cling to whatever spare part of me that was available, my arm, my hand, my shoulder, often he would touch a hand to my cheek and just stand there and beam. Even when there were others around.

I never knew what he saw in me that made him light up like this. I couldn’t ask even though I wanted to. It would have implied a desire for further intimacy on my part that just wasn’t there. Physically he did nothing for me, or emotionally. Intellectually and culturally, yes. We shared a passion for Beethoven, particularly a passion for the Choral Fantasia. Neither of us had ever met anyone in our lives before who shared the same sublime desire for that wondrous piece of music and never, ever tire of it. A piece that is rarely performed live as it is so incredibly expensive to mount.

About three years after I met him, a high school friend of his (I’ll call her Nina) was divorced from her husband and she and my friend Paul (pseudonym) were married. It was an odd kind of marriage. Impossible to say whether it was happy or not. Paul and Nina sniped at each other incessantly. About everything and nothing. It was a constant background counterpoint to their lives. Paul became a workaholic. Nina quit work soon after they married, diagnosed with bi-polar disorder.

I was a welcome guest to their home to hear the latest of Paul’s audio equipment. His main hobby was constantly upgrading it. He was a total aficionado of the best in sound systems. I’ve never gone this crazy over the best of equipment though do admire it in the homes of those that do care about such things. And to be honest, I do have difficulty with the five times as much money being spent on state of the art speakers than on a brand new car. Almost an obscenity in my book.

I stopped going to their home though. They would get into a battle about which one of them had my attention at any moment in time. I felt like I was a prize in some bizarre fairground game. Paul would sit me down in his audiophile leather chair and play Beethoven for me. She would vie for my attention with her art and photos of her grandsons. He would tell her stop it. She would tell him f*** off and round and round we’d go. Enough, I said to myself about 4 years ago. I get very agitated when surrounded with such antagonism. I have to leave. So I do, not caring about the flimsy excuse offered. And in spite of many invitations I just could not go back there.

Paul hadn’t been well, he didn’t take care of himself. He carried a lot of weight, had bowel blockages which involved several surgeries and terrible pain, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart trouble. He was on a lot of medication. And then he developed pulmonary fibrosis.

The last time we were together was in the spring. Though off work on indefinite sick leave, he had treated himself to a new BMW with everything on board, I couldn’t count the luxurious add-ons. But I remember his moon roof and the talking GPS and the surround sound. The lack of oxygen in his body meant that he had driven it only a few times. Nina had taken over the driving of the dream car. We went off down the country and the sniping from breathless Paul and a controlling and almost gloating Nina was very unpleasant but he was very courtly at dinner in an out of the way restaurant, he reminded me of the old pre-marriage Paul, pulling my chair out, touching my shoulder and cheek.

I said to Nina how gentlemanly his behaviour was. I hadn’t seen that side of him in a while.

She responded without a trace of jealousy or resentment: Oh, but he adores you!

Less than two weeks ago, his breathing had gotten worse so he was hospitalized. He was finally eating again but the oxygen mask was a permanent fixture now. On July 1st, after his breakfast, he slipped back on his pillow and his breathing stilled. Forever. He was just 62 years old.

I play my beloved Choral Fantasia in his honour. And reflect on the compromises we (all of us) make in life and how elusive happiness is.

Je Regrette Paris.

Picture is of an early morning street around the corner from the small hotel on the Left Bank in Paris.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I’m finally writing about Paris. I wanted to be sure, you see. Sure of my feelings around this trip of 8 days to Paris which was an addendum to the 9 days in Dublin. A dream, right? Well, not for me. I was ready to leave her after 3 days. Really. So lock me up. I may need my head read.

The picture above shows exactly how I felt there. Empty. Wanting to be back here. Or in Ireland. Anywhere but Paris. But I pretended to my friend. Who doesn’t read this blog and has no interest in my writing. I said to her it was wonderful. How great to be back there. But I should have left my Paris memories of 40 years ago alone. Not open up that lovely Gauloise and Chanel scented box and toss all the mementoes on to the rubbish heap.

I was bored. There I said it. Bored. Me. Yes, the Musee D’Orsay was beautiful, I dutifully snapped photos, visited all the paintings and sculptures. The weather was gorgeous. The food, h’m..alright. I ho-hummed cruising the Seine, walking the Champs. All the while mouthing, well, white lies. Thing is I’m never bored. Ever. But when with someone else and I feel obliged to pretend, the sound of my own voice ringing falsely in my ears gets boring. How could I tell her? It’s her favourite city in the whole wide world. She could stay there forever. She likes to pretend she’s a real Parisienne. I’m a tourist there and anxious to get home whether to Ireland or to Newfoundland. I live in beauty all the time. I do not have to seek it elsewhere. Would that be the reason?

And everything was so, so expensive and I was just beginning to resent that by the time I left. Why spend huge money on something you’re not enjoying? Several thousand dollars all told. That I would have loved to have spent in Ireland.

Paris, Schmaris.

There. I’ve said it. Out loud.

A whiter shade of pale: or Jackson, Fawcett and McMahon.

OK, we’re all sick to death of the cult of celebrity death, am I right?
The Great Distractions, keeping the real news of our sad and sorry world at bay. American Idols in American Death.

Our heads turn to peer closely at glass coffins, white horses, a grieving drug addled young son (in the case of FF), a drug-addled dead one and an old man who made an art out of shilling anything for a buck including several million dollars as a paid side kick, paid to laugh, paid for just the right amount of obsequiousness.

Call me an old cynic: But are we all barking mad? Are we all so desperately in need of heroes and heroines that we would all bow so needily at the altar of these three lives?

As to Jackson: where to begin?

A troubled child star, abused mightily by his father as some have it, who in turn carried on the abuse to the degree of catastrophic self-mutilation, multiple surgeries, skin bleaching and anorexia, and that’s all we know of, until more will be revealed, I have no doubt. He made music, he sang, he danced and well, he made heaps and heaps of money. He spent it all. On himself. Foolishly.

Philanthropy, unlike some others in his profession who share their wealth and engage in charitable efforts, did not enter his lexicon. He exited this world leaving more debts than assets. Much like America herself. Of course there is still the dancing on his corpse to be performed in the way of ‘memorial concerts’, new records, DVDs, until every last penny is bled from his cadaver, such being the way of the Jackson family.

I’m not touching on his alleged paedophilia. Though I do note that millions and millions were paid out to the families of child-complainants. I wonder at the powerful lure of carousels and fairgrounds and miniature train journeys for these little boys, and they were all boys. He did not have sleepovers with little girls, much as he professed his love for ‘children’.

And speaking of: I wonder about his children, bought and paid for, no doubt. I wonder at the narcissism of a man who endows all three of his children with his name. I wonder at the cruelty of a father who bleaches the hair of one of his children white. I wonder at the effects of veiling on those children (against their wills) while in public. I wonder at the sanity of a man who dangles a helpless baby over a balcony.

I ask myself how can a man possibly be a good father who wasn’t fathered himself but exploited, abused and deprived of an education. I am appalled at his obvious misogyny in deliberately excluding a mother from these children’s lives.

I wonder at a man who hates himself and his race and his gender so much that he spends decades of his life and earnings on transforming himself from a black man to a white woman. A man who spent nearly a billion dollars in his life time, and all on himself in outlandish shopping trips, thoughtlessly, without a care to the needs of others less fortunate.

And his drug habits only come to life (like his one time father-in-law, Elvis) on his death bed. Another ignonimous death, another hidden drug-addled life, lived selfishly and narcissistically.

As to Fawcett – she too shared the self-mutilation of Jackson, her face and body were a death mask of cosmetic interventiona long before she died, terrified, like Jackson, of aging. Only remembered for her jiggles on Charlie’s angels and that multi-million seller poster of huge hair, visible nipples and perfect teeth.

As to poor Ed, was there a personality? Did he bring smarm into a brand new definition of a well paid profession? And last I heard he had spent his way into bankruptcy begging with friends for loans in the last year before his death. Much like America too.

Are we all complicit in this adulation of failures? For failures they truly are. Yes, they danced and sang and acted, and actors they all were. Perhaps Ed the best of all of them. Are there lessons? Are these three just facets in a mirror of ourselves? Of our profiligate selfish ways, bending before the altar of avaricious greed, terrified of aging, afraid of living and selfish to the point of extinction?

Are we all now grieving our lost, higher selves?

Economics 101

The following came in on an email today and was too good not to share with you all:

It is

the month of August, a resort town sits next to the shores of a

lake.

It is raining and the little town looks totally deserted. Times

are

tough; everybody is in debt and everybody lives on

credit..



Suddenly, a rich tourist comes to town.





He enters the only hotel, lays a 100 dollar bill on the

reception

counter and goes to inspect the rooms upstairs in order to

pick one.



The hotel proprietor takes the 100 dollar

bill and runs to pay his

debt to the butcher.



The

Butcher takes the 100 dollar bill, and runs to pay his debt to

the pig

raiser.



The pig raiser takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to pay

his debt to

the supplier of his feed and fuel.

The supplier of

feed and fuel takes the 100 dollar bill and runs to

pay his debt to the

town's prostitute that in these hard times, gave her

"services" on

credit.



The hooker runs to the hotel and pays off her debt

with the 100

dollar bill to the hotel proprietor to pay for the rooms that

she rented

when she brought her clients there.



The

hotel proprietor then lays the 100 dollar bill back on the

counter so that

the rich tourist will not suspect anything.



At that

moment, the rich tourist comes down after inspecting the

rooms and takes

his 100 dollar bill, after saying that he did not like

any of the rooms,

and leaves town.



No one earned anything. However, the

whole town is now without debt,

and looks to the future with a lot of

optimism.



And that, ladies and

gentlemen, is how the United States Government

is doing business

today.

The Importance of Being Ansa

“Oh, wow! Aren’t those gorgeous irises?”

“Would you like me to take a picture of you beside them?”

“Oh yes, please!”





“Oh honey, I didn’t mean on top of them!”

“Whatever.....is this my best side?”

I Blink Therefore I Am.

I’m fully electrified again. The generosity and sheer goodwill of people can be astonishing.

Joe, (and his son) who had done the catastrophic work on the electricals for the garage, found a retired electrical inspector in the village (I knew this man but didn’t know of his prior profession) who came over at 10 in the morning and finished off the job at 8 o’clock that night.

It was an awful ‘tangle’, he said to me, one of the worst he’d seen. It would’ve been better if he had rewired everything from scratch as it would have been a nice short day for everyone but where you’re ‘untangling’ it takes forever, each switch, each light, each circuit. He had the patience of Job. A solid man of few words, very upset at what had been ‘done’ to me. I assured him the fellows had the best of intentions, they really thought they knew what they were doing.

At the end of all this I asked him how much I owed him, him being a master electrician ‘n all. He hemmed and hawed, said he’d hate to charge me too much would $20 an hour be OK? OMG. I can’t even imagine what this would have cost in Toronto. I paid him the money, asking him was he really sure? He looked relieved. He said he was afraid it might to be too much.

I tested all the new lights and plugs, I didn’t need to, but he was like the proud father of a newborn. Everything worked beautifully.

Then to top all this off, Joe shows up today wanting to refund ‘all’ the money I paid him or at least paying me back the money I had paid the electrician. I said of course not. He had not wilfully ‘bad-wired’ me and the rest of his work had been superb. He looked as if he could cry.

He’s back next week to build me a ramp for the garage.

Life

Life’s like that, isn’t it though?

A day can be a mix of good, not so good, and sometimes awful.

It is hard to be away from Toronto and have two good friends in not very good shape in hospital. Phonecalls and emails only fill you in on so much of it. Thoughts of them underline my day, every hour a stray thought. How are they? Is he out of the coma?

I’ve been having long overdue work done. A wooden floor has now been put in an empty shell of a new garage abandoned with abundant promises of return ‘in the fall’ in 2007 by my erstwhile handyman. I’ve also had a professional looking 16’ workbench and shelves for the tools installed in same. And hooks for hangy things. I’ve already started an empty tin collection for nails and screws. I’m a great one for the gear around the stuff. Though I must say I’m looking forward to fixing up some chairs and refinishing furniture in my very own workshed. And oh yes, Strawbella is looking forward to her new HQ.

I’d not found another handyman, you see, finding a new anything in this little outport is very difficult, due to village politics and people being related and that kind of thing. I couldn’t offend prior handyman even if he hadn’t shown up for 2 years. Joe, my new one, is a brother of Leo, my factotum. And the matter was handled very delicately indeed, my being privy to such ways on a small island off the coast of Ireland in the summers of my childhood and having a full drenching in village-speak. I should give lessons.

Electrifying said garage has been another story. Ditches were dug for the tubing, lines were strung, and hookups were connected to my impressive looking electrical panel in the house (completed 2 years ago with circuit breakers and ‘enough power to light up the village’ per installer). The panel box reacted most unfavourably to this assault and tripped breakers, shorting out my stereo speakers permanently it looks like. I’m fair lost without my music and my CBC, I am.

An SOS went out for an electrician to sort out the mess. Electricians are very thin on the ground in this neck of the woods. The fellow who replaced my antique system two years ago was only in town briefly on vacation and is now back at his millionaire job in the Yukon. Another local is adverse to any extra work as he likes to spend his day job earnings at night on on-line poker. Another is on the town council and doesn’t want his handiwork exhibited locally because of insurance (?!).

You see the disadvantages of living in a very small community?

But I have faith. I do. Really.

I only have to look at the wee farm out back (I’ve got potatoes, I’ve got onions, I’ve got collards, yeah collards!!!) and then over my shoulder at the ocean and thank Gaia for creating such a paradise and for plopping me in the middle of it.

Charts & Graphs

I’m a great one for the charts and graphs. I find them easy to understand, and easier still to ascertain where funds, particularly government funds, are being thrown:

Take this one, a U.S. military spending vs other countries per capita chart:


Astounding, isn’t?

And then you get the health care industry bribery level (a.k.a. 'campaign contributions') in the U.S, which basically insures there will be no reform to universal health care:



Yeah, that's millions and millions.

And then you get the breakdown of cost in US dollars per person of health care in each country of the world and the most expensive is the U.S. – without universal health care! More than twice that of the superb universal health care systems in Canada, France and Sweden!

Rank Countries Amount

# 1 United States: 4,271
# 2 Switzerland: 3,857
# 3 Norway: 3,182
# 4 Denmark: 2,785
# 5 Luxembourg: 2,731
# 6 Iceland: 2,701
# 7 Germany: 2,697
# 8 France: 2,288
# 9 Japan: 2,243
# 10 Netherlands: 2,173
# 11 Sweden: 2,145
# 12 Belgium: 2,137
# 13 Austria: 2,121
# 14 Canada: 1,939
# 15 Australia: 1,714
# 16 Finland: 1,704
# 17 Italy: 1,676
# 18 United Kingdom: 1,675
# 19 Israel: 1,607
# 20 Ireland: 1,569
# 21 United Arab Emirates: 1,428
# 22 New Zealand: 1,163
# 23 Spain: 1,043
# 24 Greece: 965
# 25 Portugal: 859
# 26 Slovenia: 746
# 27 Singapore: 678
# 28 Argentina: 654
# 29 Uruguay: 621
# 30 Bahamas, The: 612
# 31 Barbados: 601
# 32 Korea, South: 470
# 33 Lebanon: 469
# 34 Saint Kitts and Nevis: 408
# 35 Czech Republic: 380
# 36 Bahrain: 358
# 37 Hungary: 318
# 38 Brazil: 308
# 39 Chile: 289
# 40 Slovakia: 285
# 41 Costa Rica: 257
# 42 Poland: 248
# 43 Panama: 246
# 44 Estonia: 243
# 45 Mexico: 236
# 46 South Africa: 230
# 47 Colombia: 227
# 48 Dominica: 208
# 49 Trinidad and Tobago: 204
# 50 Grenada: 193

{Source: World Bank}

Makes it all easier to understand, doesn't it?

Now, where's the outrage from the huddled, sick and bankrupt masses?

Solstice Blog Jam

It’s Solstice. Always a bittersweet time for me. I love the long evenings, here the sky is bright till 10.30 and the sunsets spectacular, often painting the sky in oxblood. But I’m also aware that now we are at the top of the roller coaster plunging slowly downwards to shorter days, longer nights. Solstice. I want to race around the trees, dance naked in the moonlight, wake the birds from their slumber. As I did once upon a time.

I’m down with another one of those colds that seem to plague me after each trip out of here. I had a brief layover in Toronto between flights and I seem to have picked it up there. Naturally the dreaded “Swine Flu, ZOMG!” flits through my brain like so many bats in a belfry until I am brought down to earth by the thoughts of those who would give anything to have my symptoms. One dear friend in Ontario on life support due to respiratory failure and another who had his leg amputated from diabetes last year now facing the amputation of his other leg. He’s still smoking, of course. And a dear friend here in Newfoundland who had unexpected major surgery when she was on vacation out west and is still recovering and will be for a while.

Perspective. I drag it forcibly into the belfry and start shooting it at the bats.

I still have files to clear up, columns to write, stories to edit, the to do list is long. How silly it would all look if I was taken seriously ill suddenly. How meaningless. And no, I’m not depressed today, just reflective. I plan to meet with some friends in the afternoon, walk the dog, have dinner in an inn that has become a favourite and finish reading my latest book, a whopping 500 packed pages.

I marvel at the service still provided to me by a computer technician from Toronto who handled my IT dilemmas there. I called him yesterday due to Vista spooler problems. I could not print. On either of my printers. I had tried everything, web solutions, re-installs, updated drivers, etc. Saturday evening, hopeless, right? Daniel called me back within an hour and sorted it all out on the phone with me. It took 30 minutes.

How much do I owe you? I asked, willing to pay just about anything as I wept with relief. Oh, $30, he said, it only took half an hour.

Yes, these magical people walk among us, restoring our faith in the generosity of the human spirit.

One of these Days

{where the cabin will sit, if and when I get around to it!}

1. I’ll not procrastinate and then when even a small little glitch occurs in my life it won’t be cataclysmic in its domino effects.

2. I’ll actually be able to enjoy the opening up of a day when simply everything planned doesn’t happen for one reason or another.

3. I’ll actually buy the daffodil bulbs and plant them all over the little hill by the sea.

4. I’ll go to look at some small cabins and order one and get it installed way up high amongst the trees on the hill at the back of my house so I have somewhere just to meditate, dream, design without phones or computers distracting me.

5. I will actually say: How exciting, I have literally nothing to do!

6. I will sit down and take a week and edit my short story collection.

7. I will utilize a wonderful prepaid gift my daughter gave me of a service creating a book of my pictures and poems.

8. I will welcome drop in visitors and not get edgy because of (1).

9. I will have all ingredients on hand to cook a spontaneous large dinner and get on the phone and invite people over that day, last minute, like a few of my much admired friends do.

10. I will actually show up at the old folks’ home near me and say: Hey, I’d like to volunteer, anyone need some reading to?

11. I will clean a room every day, tidy up as I go, clean the bathroom after use and not be cringing when drop-ins wish to use it.

12. I will do something with my stash of wools and the plans I have to recycle old aran sweaters into awesome bags.

13. I will decide that enough is enough. More is only more. Simplicity of possessions and desires makes for serenity and like, um, discipline and routine makes for good orderly direction.

One of these days I won't behave as if I've got 200 years to live.

Safe and Sound.

(Picture is taken from a boat on the Seine last week.)

It seems like forever since I’ve been here, and I’ve missed reading my blog-buds’ posts which I will get caught up on over the next few days.

First up: Dublin

My time there was awesome, met with all I had planned to meet (with one regrettable exception) and the weather was totally accommodating. I completed the Dublin Women's Marathon and was duly medalled. My family came up from Cork to spend a couple of days sans spouses (thanks, in-laws!) so that the four (the other two are far flung at opposite ends of the earth) of us who got together felt like kids again and celebrated at midnight by taking a horse and buggy through the streets of Dublin, clip-clop, clip-clop resounding off the cobblestones and buildings as we tipped our virtual hats to the ghosts of all the more famous and patriotic who had gone before us on similar conveyances.

I don’t think we ever stopped laughing. We’ve planned a major re-union in 2011, back on the land of our mother’s ancestors on the Beara Peninsula. Guess who’s in charge of the newsletter and the T-shirts?

Dublin is a little more humbled, a little more down-to-earth and I found it refreshing. A combination of the demise of the Celtic Tiger, government corruption and the Ryan Report. Reality checks are filtering through but people are optimistic and actually looking forward to a saner time more in keeping with old values. Both of the brothers are planting, one has even gone so far as to acquire a flock of sheep (he’s an accountant, like me!) and we discussed cows and chicken coops to our heart’s content. My sister was seeking advice on tilling her urban garden and starting her self-sustaining lifestyle. We were all on the same page, as the saying goes.

One of the many highlights was a niece, sending a 3D picture of her unborn child to my brother’s mobile as we were having lunch, with the caption: “Hello, Grandad!” It will be his first and it was an emotional moment for all of us but more so for him seeing the little face and hands. Isn’t modern technology a marvel, we all said.

A major change for me since last time was the accessibility and sophistication of public transportation. I seriously think Dublin has to be on the cutting age of transit between Dart, Luas and Aircoach which brought some of my friends up from Cork in a matter of hours. My family chose the train and Luas as their methodology. When the oil crisis hits, Dublin will be just grand, thank you very much. Other cities take note.

There is so much more to write about but for now I’ll end this first episode. I’m delighted to be home back on my little corner of my little universe. It took me a solid 24 hours of travel to get back here from Paris. 24 Hours! But I napped so much on route that jet lag was deleted completely.

So what have you all been up to while my back was turned?

IT Dilemmas of the Closer Kind

I'm unclear on some modern protocols here and how to handle certain, shall we say, little challenges that come up.

Dilemma 1:
Three of my clients have requested to befriend me on Facebook. Now certain clients I'm friends with. But these three I am not. And I don't want to be an insta-friend because of FB a la Nestle just-add-water for a real live friend.


(a)I can reject them of course and if they are the thick as two planks variety of homo sapiens they can huff off and find another tax accountant.
(b)I can limit their access to my photo albums, personal activities, thus incurring the same kind of high dudgeon response.
or
(c)I can ignore them.


Dilemma 2:
I'm being stalked on my blog by someone who has managed to break my anonymity. This person can reveal personal details of my life to others of his and my social circles that I would choose not to disclose. He is not a friend but a very distant acquaintance. But we know the same people.
Do I just:

(a)ignore him and pray he blows off.
(b)remove really personal blog posts
(c)say how dare you without my permission.
(d)say when you breach someone's privacy accidentally (right!) could you like let her know and ask permission before ploughing through her entire blog?

Common vexations of the modern era we live in.

I'll be off to Dublin and Paris for the next couple of weeks so attendance here may be sporadic. I will try and post from the road and catch up on your doings if I can.

Stay well my good blog buddies, until we meet again!

Canadian Breaking News

I think I must be living in an alternative universe to the pundits and politicians out there. Am I alone?

Just about every few weeks our eminent ministers up here in the Great White North revise their expectations for an economic recovery. First it was going to be the summer of 2009, then the end of the year, then the end of next year and now it is shoved off down the road to maybe end of 2011.

Every month there is astonishment expressed at the level of unemployment. Way beyond predictions they say, shaking their heads, baffled. And British Columbia – what the hell has happened, they say, puzzled yet again, the unemployment rate is through the roof there, worst in Canada! They just can’t explain it.

And yes, the fisheries are in trouble, and the forests too and good grief, look at the farmers, they can’t afford fertilizers, but hey, over here Canadian Auto Makers, here’s another handout.

And we’ll make a lot of noise about credit cards, just like Mr. Obama did in the USA, but hey, noise is good because just like him we have no intention of legislating the capping of the usurious interest rates these avaricious loan sharks beat you with . Your local payday loan dealer could do better rates than Mastercard’s 30%, go there and stop whining, what's that? oh oops, it slipped our minds, silly us, you don't have a job! And yes we know, those payday loan outfits are all owned by the major banks anyway. Multiple pockets, tee-hee, and one of the pockets is for us, hefty campaign donations being our thang ‘n’ all.

And Mr. Obama admits last week that yeah, alright, OK, the USA is broke now. And today I hear on the radio, that Canada could be in some economic trouble too, yeah maybe serious, for even though our banks are the soundest in the world, brag, brag, it seems like with all this unemployment and ZOMG so many retirees - how dare they mooch off the public purse - and corporate and personal bankruptcies and outsourcing to India and Mexico, and oh yeah all our troops over there in Afghanistan that costs erm, not sure how much but A LOT, there are not enough taxes being collected to cover oh, lots of stuff, like McHighways and oh, tar sands projects in Alberta, and ahem, unemployment insurance.

And when all this is said and done, our lovely and brilliant Governor-General of Canada, Michaëlle Jean, goes and eats the raw heart of a freshly killed seal. (She gutted it first, so that was OK). Because you see, the EU has banned all Canadian seal products and that is affecting our economy even more adversely than anything else. So what's a governor to do?

And there was just too much to link in and I’m too tired to do it, but Google any of this and you’ll see it all verified.

And who said Canada is dull?

Our Governor-General eats raw hearts for us!

Top that, USA and UK!

{Picture courtesy Canadian Press}

From Scones to Scrotums

Sometimes I have to giggle as I cruise around my favourite bloggers in the morning.

Diverse they surely are. And I imagine all of us are truly unique in the selections we read. Here’s a little sample of some of mine.

Today I can read about Wicklow trekking and grumpy old men.

And colourful birds in back yards.

And a once a week post from one of my faves, James Howard Kunstler and this week he’s into:

General Motors is reduced to lunch meat on industrial-capital's All-You-Can-Eat buffet spread.

I just love that man’s turn of phrase.

Here’s another sample:

Now, their incomes have stopped coming in altogether and they are sinking into swamp of entropy already occupied by the tattoo-for-lunch-bunch. Of course, this has plenty of dire sociopolitical implications

.

And I should pay attention to my horoscope while I'm drooling around the favourite spots for it cautions:

Monday, May 25
Don't forget to focus some attention on your most important goals and priorities today. You could be so distracted by what's going on with everyone else around you that you forget to tend to your own needs right now. Just be sure that some people don't try to take advantage of your generous spirit today.

And yeah, you're dying, admit it: I know you are.

Here’s Scones

And here’s Scrotums

Awards

My cup runneth over.

Irene at the Gossamer Woman just presented me with the loveliest award which I am thrilled to accept but I feel it is totally undeserved. Building bridges. Well it is something to aspire to, surely?

In true blog protocol I pass it on to these blog friends I admire and who reach out across boundaries with their sparkling honesty and truth:

Tessa at Nuts and Mutton
Twilight at Twilight Starsong
Verna at Out of the Cube
Nick at Nickhereandnow
Grannymar at Grannymar
and
Conor at Conorjte

To sleep, perchance to dream.....

It is when I comment on Irene’s blog that I often get an idea for a post of my own. Out of the blue so to speak, I go off on a meandering track in my head and before I know it I’m in another place unrelated to what she has said. Like now. I was thinking of bedrooms in a comment I made on hers.

They say (and I really mean ‘they’ – I haven’t a clue where I heard this, maybe an interview on CBC radio) that we never quite leave the bedroom we had when we grew up for it is always somewhere in the psyche. That’s true for me.

I was the only girl in a family of five children for a long time. My long-awaited sister was born when I was nearly fourteen. Our house was tiny by today’s standards but considered the norm for then. A brand new semi-detached three-bedroom in a suburb of Cork, Ireland. The three-bedroom layout never made sense to me, given that the average family size in Ireland when I was growing up was six or seven children. One large bedroom where the parents slept, one medium sized (referred to as the ‘back room’) and one which was called a ‘box room’ which was 6’ X 6’. I do not jest. You could squeeze in a single bed and very little else. A small chest of drawers, perhaps. My wardrobe sat in the hall outside the door.

Still, I had the lap of luxury compared with others of my friends who had to share with sisters or kip out in the front parlour on a couch.

When my sister was born, bunk beds were squashed into the little box room. It was still luxurious as my four brothers had two sets of bunk beds and a lot of ‘aggro’ in the back room.

Since then, I’ve had various bedrooms, some vast in scale, for example one that my ex-husband and I made into a library with a fireplace and a king-size bed that could accommodate kids, dogs and cats with room to spare. Palatial. But also a little scary to me. All that wide open space never felt homey or safe. For the bedroom I feel most comfortable in is in a small one, not quite a 6’ X 6’ but a 9’ X 9’.

That’s my bedroom of today. Rather excellent high thread count sheets and pillows, a glorious duvet, a window that opens to the sea air, a chest for clothes at the end of it, and books piled on the two night-tables. A good reading lamp. Nothing more. Nothing less. And a blessed dog to guard me while I sleep.

I wouldn’t trade it for the Taj Mahal. (On second thoughts, maybe for a couple or four or one of Grannymar’s Toyboys?)

What about your bedroom?

In Ireland, Jesus Wept

The Irish Child Abuse Commission Report, previously anticipated in my blog post here, is finally public and it is horrific. Tens of thousands of innocent Irish children tortured in state-sanctioned and inspected religious institutions. Tens of thousands.

I only read bits and pieces of it so far, between tears, between walking away and just trying to absorb the full extent of the little reading I've done on the atrocities committed by the Irish religious orders entrusted with the children in their care. The neediest of children, orphans, abandoned, ofspring of incestuous relationships, rapes, or just impoverished parents (widowers, widows, separated) putting them into care.

Apart from the sexual atrocities committed on these innocent children, some as young as 6, there was the brutality of their day-to-day life, often without the benefit of the education that was promised them at the outset, used as slaves in laundries, farms and residential shops. Along with being half-starved, they had to wear rough, itchy tweed clothes most times without benefit of underwear and were beaten savagely, often by more than one religious brother, on a daily basis. Just for the sin of being left-handed or a bedwetter.

He ...(Br X)... flogged me one time, I was working in the piggery. I used to be starving,
the pigs used to get the Brothers’ leftovers and one day there was lovely potatoes and I
took some and I took a turnip. Br ...X... caught me and he brought me up to the
dormitory, he let down my trousers and he lashed me. He always wore a leather,
around 18 inches ...(long)... and it was all stitched with wax, his leather was very thin. It
was about an inch and a half, others had leathers about 2 inches. He lashed me, he
flogged me.

Wetting the bed merited a punishment just shy of a hanging:

I was beaten stark naked for wetting the bed, 2 or 3 different people would beat me.
You would be called up after breakfast by Br ...X.... He was evil. He liked beating kids
naked, he would put your head between his legs ...(while he beat you)... for wetting the
bed, and more bed-wetting boys would be there as well ...(watching)... The night
watchman would get you up at night with a stick, every night. He would beat you out of
the bed. You’d have to bring the sheets up to be washed to the laundry and a bigger
boy would beat you with a stick there, he was the senior in the laundry

And the catalogue of injuries and atrocities continues:

Witnesses reported a catalogue of injuries to themselves and co-residents as a result of
physical abuse by religious and lay staff members in the 26 Schools reported to the Committee.
Two hundred and twenty four (224) reports were heard of injuries including: breaks to ribs,
noses, wrists, arms and legs, injuries to head, genitalia, back, mouth, eye, ear, hand, jaw, face
and kidney. Sixty four (64) witnesses reported being left unable to walk, sit, stand or lie down as
a result of those injuries. Other injuries included burns, dog bites, lacerations, broken teeth,
dislocated shoulders, injuries to the soles of feet, and burst chilblains. Chilblains were a
common ailment in the pre-1970s period and male witnesses reported experiencing severe pain
after being struck on hands and legs with chilblains. Witnesses reported that at times they were
beaten until their chilblains burst and bled.

There is more. Far, far more. For instance, there was minimum medical care and dental care was extraction by a nurse, often without benefit of anaesthetic.
It is all shocking and hard to stomach. I've only read bits and pieces as I've said. But this abusive mentality pervaded many religious institutions in Ireland right up to the eighties, often conscripting the older children in their care to abuse the younger ones.

Hopefully, with this floodlighting of the systemic problem there will be healing for the unfortunate victims. Retribution? Most perpetrators are probably dead. I know I personally, witnessed abuse. Mild compared to this report, but still abuse - belittling by nuns, favouritism, corporal punishment with sticks and belts.

And I salute the courage of all concerned in coming forward.

Is the Irish government finally separating the matters of church and state? I hope so.

And below (courtesy of the Irish Times) a picture of a dormitory (imagine a childhood spent in that stark unending room) at Artane, where much abuse took place.

What Else Have I Missed?

You can live your whole life just about and miss out on something so important, so life changing, so incredibly profound, that it rattles you to the very core when it reveals itself.

I mean there I was innocently going along for years with the vagaries of plastic wrap, aluminum foil and wax paper in those boxes. You know the ones where you could successfully slice your wrist open on the toothy cutting edge if you so desired and gently fall down in a pool of your own blood only to be discovered days later.....

But enough of that. I often succeed in cutting a finger, all par for the course to get that perfect length of wrap out and severed smartly (as if this ever happened!) on the afore mentioned sawtooth edge.

Of course it's rarely perfect as the bloody roll always manages to wriggle out of the box and land on the floor or leaps off in a quick jog to the other end of the room. I invariable sigh, get the scissors, manually unwind the roll and cut off the piece I need.

I've been doing this since God was a paper boy.

And then, today, I'm doing my bit with the saran wrap, the usual struggle, box collapses, the plastic film roll pops out and on to the counter and lo and behold, I say LO AND BEHOLD, as I'm painfully inserting it back in again, on high alert for the suicide sawtooth edge, I note these little TABS on the sides of the box. TABS. That you like, push in. To secure the roll in place. So you can tug and cut. Without fear of a mental breakdown or chasing the roll all over the house.

How come I never knew this? How come no one every showed me?

OK. Now you all tell me you've ALWAYS known about this. Go on. I double dare you.

Very Local Highlights

I always have a few days of uncertainty when I get back here to Newfoundland, straddling momentarily the metropolitan world I've left behind, with its dear friends, its culture, its diversity with the tiny outport world I also love.

And then little things start to take over. We've dug 4 beds in the meadow this year, one for turnips, one for (of course) potatoes, one for carrots, one for cabbages and another small one for golden onions.

I've been sizing up 2 gorgeous apple trees at $39.99 each. Apple trees need partners so I have to have 2. I haven't bought them yet. These are in blossom and about 5' high and the smell, my dear - I keep thinking after reading a post at Irene's yesterday, about the blossoms' scent wafting on to the sheets on the clothesline, much like the blooming hawthorn hedge around my grandmother's drying sheets pervaded hers.

And then a few authors in the village consulted me about this guy who wanted to conduct a writing workshop, a big city fellah, they tell me, and why should they give the business to him when I was right there and I could facilitate one and it would be far better, said they, as I'd already advised some of them privately on some of their writing and had shared and read mine with them. So what better person? Ahem, said I, of course, but I'd need payment and a space. Oh that's alright love, said Joe, who's the self-appointed leader, it's all arranged, a nice big payment for you and a lovely space out on the next bay for the taking and the rent's covered. When do you want to get started and do you want to do the announcement? And, he adds, I think there'll be more interested than we have space for so you may need to run a series.

OMG, thought I, OMG!!!!!! Is this the manifestation of a dream or what??? OMG!!!!

I didn't share these thoughts with Joe. I nodded seriously like the adult I sometimes pretend to be and said I valued their trust and confidence and I would not let them down.

I am beyond excited about this. Beyond. I start when I get back from Europe. 8 is the magic number in my experience. So I said 8
would be the maximum class size. And it would be held once a week over two hours for 8 weeks with 8 participants and lots of work. Everyone is enthused. I said maybe we could have a performance at the end of the 8 weeks. A stage show. Lovely background music played by the locals and some readings of the fine-tuned works. Massive enthusiasm by all.

I think we're on to something here. I can hardly wait to get back from Paris. I never thought I'd say that.

Can you believe it?