My attention here will be sporadic as I have two performances coming up. Yay! - we sold out the first show but the toll on this old body will be what it is.
Along with that there is a Lughnasadh party on Friday which will be attended by my local coven including Daughter. Co-incidentally it's on my birthday, which will mark 76 turns around the sun completed.
On top of that we have the ongoing preparation for our Seniors' Activism Group and then the grand media announcement/press release, with a number of demands on government to ease the plight of so very many senior women living well below the poverty line. That is all geared towards August 29th. It was supposed to be at City Hall but hey, no parking, no access for disabilities and unbelievable liability insurance for a 2 hour gathering, no assistance with put up and tear down of tables, chairs and mikes. Our tax dollars at work. We were furious but will expose all that at a later date. For the moment we concentrate on rallying senior anarchists. We are now looking towards hosting this at a kindly nearby church.
Plans are afoot for September, a trip out here by a couple of dear friends, we should be able to spend 4 days together before they tour the rest of the province, a weekend away on a knitting retreat on Bell Island with my niece - another avid knitter - and then a week away in Cape Breton Island with another friend whom I stayed with last year. I'm beginning to haunt her, I'll have to watch that.
So all in all some lovely plans. I am learning to pace myself. I turned down a studio TV interview tomorrow morning as I knew I would be zapped for the rest of the day and my performance would suffer.
I'm senioring quite responsibly these days.
Senioring quite responsibly--that's quite a full plate! Good luck tonight and then enjoy all the upcoming events and endeavors.
ReplyDeleteThank you Joanne. I'm really watching my energy and honouring my PVD, it can zap me sideways if I'm not careful.
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That is a VERY full plate.
ReplyDeleteHave a heap of fun, a wonderful birthday and enjoy your friends. I wish you success with it all - and am glad to hear you are being moderately careful.
I will write more on it later. It is very hard to pace oneself in a highly charged theatrical enviro. My younger self would thrive on it. Get naturally high even. Now? Hooboy. More later.
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Good luck with the performances. I love the idea of senior anarchists, or activists at least. That older women are living in poverty in such a rich country is a disgrace.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't have anything leftover to protest, just to lie down and wonder where the next meal is coming from . More later on this.
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Coincidentally, Friday is my birthday too, but I won't be 76, only 67.
ReplyDeleteI read 'Back on the Boards' and wondered if you were going to be tap dancing for us...
I just wish River, this old girl is feeling whipped but not quite beaten down yet.
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Wow a busy time ahead. I wish you the best of luck.
ReplyDeleteThank you Uglemor.
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Proud of you and amazed
ReplyDeleteYou should be in my body today Ernestine, you would really relate to me.
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Remarkable! I admire you your enthusiasm and spirit WWW.
ReplyDeleteYeah the enthusiasm and spirit is here but OMG the flesh is terribly weak!!
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I didn't know you are an actress. You do have a busy schedule ahead of you. Looks like an interesting time with friends and family.
ReplyDeleteAnd, I didn't know she was a witch.
DeleteI perform when I can Gigi, many years were given over to single parenthood and earning a living and were revitalized far too late but I am enjoying these opportunities.
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Ah witchcraft, we have a mini coven and take it all very lightly but try and reclaim the goddess era when women were powerful healers.
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Someone asked my husband if I was wiccan. Because I have a very strong spirit. I took it as a very high complement.
DeleteYou were right to Gemma, my coven is filled with strength and power and energy and most of all support.
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Responsible senioring....well rats!!!
ReplyDeleteI did my best, Delores but I think I failed last night, tonight is another opportunity to pace myself.
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Lots of lovely stuff in your near future WWW - enjoy, enjoy, enjoy! Oh - and Many Happy Returns! :-)
ReplyDeleteThank you T.
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Wow!! I'm impressed!! Good for you!!
ReplyDeleteThanks Annie!
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Goodness, the city hall isn't very citizen-friendly, is it? Why not make it as difficult as possible for the hoi polloi to have any meetings in their tax-funded premises?
ReplyDeleteGood luck with all your exciting plans. Very sensible to pace yourself a bit. We oldies are no longer the youthful dynamos we used to be!
I am such a cynic Nick I think it a ploy to keep protesting riff-raff down in the pits where they belong. I think it much the same everywhere, with pols spitting out their tired old tropes and nobody accountable for accessibility and responsibility. I am reminded of Yes Minister. My father was a senior civil servant and loved it and said every script was bang on the nose. Evasion, collusion and lies.
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You're pacing yourself, like all wise people do! -Kate
ReplyDeleteNot feeling too wise today Kate but working very hard at adulting today.
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You have a lot going on! I hope you do build in some relaxing time in all that!
ReplyDeleteAh sure it's all grand. A bit torn around the edges but what odds?
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Wishing you the best, keep soldiering on. YOU CAN DO IT!
ReplyDeleteThank you chief cheerleader! I did it!!!
DeleteOn to the next now.
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Wonderful , wonderful . BRAVA !!!
DeleteOh, your wonderful "senioring" brought this poem to mind. I share it because I'm old and onery and resist those who expect women, old and young, to lie down like dogs and eat the scraps from the tables of the rich and come cringing for notice and a word of praise. (Just hope it doesn't lose the formatting)
ReplyDelete*This is a prayer for Baba Yaga.* This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for the magic of chicken feet, the heat of old hates, the way old bones hurt. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for hat knitters, sign-carriers, Congress-callers.
Old women make up the Resistance.
This is a prayer for casserole-bakers, newsletter-writers, nuisances.
Old women make up the Resistance.
This is a prayer for phone-bankers, neighborhood-canvassers, early-voters. Old women make up the Resistance.
When the Moon is full, I call to Her.
I bring coals for Her oven. I bring flour, to cover Her tracks. I bring paprika salve for Her old, sore joints.
I bring a list of complicit women. I bring a doll poked with pins and bound with vines. I bring a bottle of ancient anger.
“Come, Baba Yaga,” I say. “Come find me alone in the woods.”
She comes as she always comes: after a long, scary wait.
She comes as she always comes: riding a mortar, a mop handle, a big, black bird.
She comes as she always comes: hungry, grumpy, alone.
“Old One,” I cry, “We are deep in the darkness. We stand on the front lines, but we are afraid.”
Old One,” I say, “We are tired, our legs get shaky, our fingers are sore.”
“Old One,” I whisper, “It seems to us as if we have worked all our lives and only gone backwards.”
“Oh, shut up,” Baba Yaga says, grabbing all the cookies and putting them into her bag. “Give me those for my cat,” She demands, pointing to liver mousse, sausages, cheese.
She pulls down the skin below my eyes. “Not enough yogurt,” She decides.
“Oh,” She says, turning her chicken hut around and going way past the speed limit, “You’ll be fine. I saw it in some tea leaves. This all works out in the end.”
“Build you a fence made of bones,” She says. “Write this on your wrist: ‘By my mother’s blessing.'”
This is a prayer to Baba Yaga. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for women in sneakers. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a prayer for one more phone call. This is a prayer for Resistance.
This is a Prayer for Baba Yaga. This is a Prayer for Resistance.
~ Hecete Demeter