We interrupt this blog again

Just in case there was any doubt as to the intelligence of yer average American newscaster, I bring you this nugget:

Bill O'Reilly: Here are the letters. Peter Gillies, Victoria, Canada: "Has anyone noticed that life expectancy in Canada under our health system is higher than the USA?" Well, that's to be expected, Peter, because we have ten times as many people as you do. That translates to ten times as many accidents, crimes, down the line.

{Emphasis mine}

Is there any hope for our neighbour down south?

H/T
Shakespeare's Sister

We interrupt this blog...

To celebrate my 4 years of blogging with 393 posts, and to totally sympathize with millions of Americans over this poll:




Yeah, that's right folks, Jon Stewart - he's a comedian. And he's the most trusted newscaster in the U.S..

And I bring you a cartoon that just about says it all about the rest of the newscasters who didn't make the cut:

More on friendship.

And speaking of friendship - here's a lovely award from my blog-friend Irene, now displayed on the long hall of my sidebar (the award, silly, not Irene!).



I was inspired by my last post to mull over my friendships both past and present and possibly future.

What constitutes a friendship?

Here’s my list:

It is often the gut instinct (intuition) of just plain liking a person.

It is sometimes pursuit of the one by the other.

It is common interests.

It is shared values.

It is often unexpected.

It is being open to the new.

It is not expecting the status quo to remain as such.

It sometimes calls for far more selfless effort from one of the friends.

It is often disappointing.

It is cemented over trials and tribulations rather than joy.

It is trust.

It is a mirror.

It is non-judgemental.

At times, it feels the pain of the other.

It shares the joy.

It can hurt, seriously and painfully.

It's laughter.

Sometimes it’s loans: of stuff, of money, of a shoulder.
It is food, cooked, hot and ready.
It is a cuppa.
It is full of surprises.
It is intense longing.
It is hurt.
It is standing back.
It is coming forward.
It is raw emotion.
It is bride.
It is bridesmaid.
It is godparent.
It is godchild.
It is “I’m here.”
It is “I’m outta here.”



More, on the next post, about friendships. Specifically, my friendships.

Well, duh, we could have told them that. Free of charge.

UCLA Study On Friendship Among Women

An alternative to fight or flight.

A landmark UCLA study suggests friendships between women are special. They shape who we are and who we are yet to be. They soothe our tumultuous inner world, fill the emotional gaps in our marriage, and help us remember who we really are. By the way, they may do even more. Scientists now suspect that hanging out with our friends can actually counteract the kind of stomach-quivering stress most of us experience on a daily basis. A landmark UCLA study suggests that women respond to stress with a cascade of brain chemicals that cause us to make and maintain friendships with other women.

It's a stunning find that has turned five decades of stress research---most of it on men---upside down. Until this study was published, scientists generally believed that when people experience stress, they trigger a hormonal cascade that revs the body to either stand and fight or flee as fast as possible, explains Laura Cousin Klein, Ph.D., now an Assistant Professor of Biobehavioral Health at Penn State University and one of the study's authors. It's an ancient survival mechanism left over from the time we were chased across the planet by saber-toothed tigers.

Now the researchers suspect that women have a larger behavioral repertoire than just fight or flight; In fact, says Dr. Klein, it seems that when the hormone oxytocin is release as part of the stress responses in a woman, it buffers the fight or flight response and encourages her to tend children and gather with other women instead. When she actually engages in this tending or befriending, studies suggest that more oxytocin is released, which further counters stress and produces a calming effect.

This calming response does not occur in men, says Dr. Klein, because testosterone---which men produce in high levels when they're under stress---seems to reduce the effects of oxytocin. Estrogen, she adds, seems to enhance it.

The discovery that women respond to stress differently than men was made in a classic "aha" moment shared by two women scientists who were talking one day in a lab at UCLA. There was this joke that when the women who worked in the lab were stressed, they came in, cleaned the lab, had coffee, and bonded, says Dr. Klein. When the men were stressed, they holed up somewhere on their own. I commented one day to fellow researcher Shelley Taylor that nearly 90% of the stress research is on males. I showed her the data from my lab, and the two of us knew instantly that we were onto something.

The women cleared their schedules and started meeting with one scientist after another from various research specialties. Very quickly, Drs. Klein and Taylor discovered that by not including women in stress research, scientists had made a huge mistake: The fact that women respond to stress differently than men has significant implications for our health.

It may take some time for new studies to reveal all the ways that oxytocin encourages us to care for children and hang out with other women, but the "tend and befriend" notion developed by Drs. Klein and Taylor may explain why women consistently outlive men. Study after study has found that social ties reduce our risk of disease by lowering blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol. There's no doubt, says Dr. Klein, that friends are helping us live longer.

In one study, for example, researchers found that people who had no friends increased their risk of death over a 6-month period. In another study, those who had the most friends over a 9-year period cut their risk of death by more than 60%.

Friends are also helping us live better. The famed Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found that the more friends women had, the less likely they were to develop physical impairments as they aged, and the more likely they were to be leading a joyful life. In fact, the results were so significant, the researchers concluded, that not having close friends or confidants was as detrimental to your health as smoking or carrying extra weight.

And that's not all. When the researchers looked at how well the women functioned after the death of their spouse, they found that even in the face of this biggest stressor of all, those women who had a close friend and confidante were more likely to survive the experience without any new physical impairments or permanent loss of vitality. Those without friends were not always so fortunate. Yet if friends counter the stress that seems to swallow up so much of our life these days, if they keep us healthy and even add years to our life, why is it so hard to find time to be with them? That's a question that also troubles researcher Ruthellen Josselson, Ph.D., co-author of Best Friends: The Pleasures and Perils of Girls' and Women's Friendships (Three Rivers Press, 1998). The following paragraph is, in my opinion, very, very true and something all women should be aware of and NOT put our female friends on the back burners.

Every time we get overly busy with work and family, the first thing we do is let go of friendships with other women, explains Dr. Josselson. We push them right to the back burner. That's really a mistake because women are such a source of strength to each other. We nurture one another. And we need to have unpressured space in which we can do the special kind of talk that women do when they're with other women. It's a very healing experience.

Taylor, S. E., Klein, L.C., Lewis, B. P., Gruenewald, T. L., Gurung, R. A. R., & Updegraff, J. A. Behaviorial Responses to Stress: Tend and Befriend, Not Fight or Flight"

Sissi and Gigi and Roy and Me.

When I was 12, amongst many cinemas in Cork, Ireland, where I grew up, there was the small Lee Cinema. The Lee showed mainly foreign films. With subtitles. But often there were peculiar little festivals like the Roy Rogers Festival where for a whole week they showed Roger and Dale beaming from atop their horses, all large cowboy smiles with gorgeous American orthodontistry on display, said smiles sporadically removed by the wicked Indians attacking them. But always victoriously restored when Indians were quickly dispatched. I loved Roy. Resented Dale. Why wasn’t I born over there and maybe I could capture Roy’s heart? And then maybe he’d let me borrow Trigger occasionally?

But above all, I loved the foreign films. I loved the sound of Italian, French, German and Spanish that poured from the screen (so much so that I took 5 languages in high school). The sheer exotica of the films themselves were much sliced and diced by the censors if not outright banned from our pristine emerald shores. Every film shown was suitable for all ages - a 12 year old could watch alongside a 95 year old as no minds, no matter what the age, could be polluted with sex. Violence -yes, of course - but never the naughty bits and their nefarious displays and placements. Sex hurts more than guns was the message.

I never knew what Gigi was all about until I saw it uncensored over here in Canada. Many movie plots made no sense whatsover, being heavily scissored and chopped to maintain the remarkable purity and childlike innocence of the natives.

What remained was the angst, the locations, the costumes, the drama, the music, the foreign languages tripping so unerringly off the pouty lips of alluring, exotic actresses. Pouty lips were banned in Ireland in those days.

The very best of foreign films, in my child-view, were the “Sissi” series, made in Austria in German.

I just couldn’t get enough of them. They introduced the exquisite Romy Schneider to the world and the story of the real Sissi was heavily romanticized. But there could not be enough of that for a 12 year old! I lapped them up, time and again.

And I also read the many biographies written about her, an independent woman, born long before her time and brutally and randomly assassinated at the age of 60 in 1894.

Over the years I’ve tried to get copies of these films in the original format and thought I had succeeded a few times, only to return them. One series was dubbed into awful English. Another was dubbed into French with English subtitles. I returned that. I wanted the original German with the English subtitles. I never gave up. My tenacity has finally paid off. On its way to me now, as I write, is the original series, in German, with English subtitles.

I can hardly wait. But part of me knows I can never go home again, I can never recapture the feelings of a 12 year old watching those films. So maybe I should just leave these past experiences alone?

Do you have any tales about attempting to recapture a memory from childhood?

Photo of the Week

H/T Bartcop

Thank you, thank you, thank you, President Carter!!

I've always admired the man. Sure, he had his faults. But his work for Habitat for Humanity, his humility and his downright civility have endeared him to many.

And today, in his 85th year, he completely blows me over with this:

"This view that women are somehow inferior to men ... has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women's equal rights across the world for centuries. The male interpretations of religious texts and the way they interact with, and reinforce, traditional practices justify some of the most pervasive, persistent, flagrant and damaging examples of human rights abuses. ... It is simply self-defeating for any community to discriminate against half its population. ... The justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a Higher Authority, is unacceptable."

—Former President Jimmy Carter, who has, after six decades, severed his ties with the Southern Baptist Convention because of their institutional gender inequality

H/T Shakesville

I’m not Scared of Dyin’……

I'm not scared of dying and I don't really care
If it's peace you find in dying, well then, let the time be near
If it's peace you find in dying, well then dying time is near
Just bundle up my coffin, 'cause it's cold way down there
I hear that it's cold way down there, yeah crazy cold, way down there
And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be, one child born
In this world to carry on, to carry on

My troubles are many there as deep as a well
I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell
Swear there ain't no heaven and I'll pray there ain't no hell
But I'll never know by livin' only my dyin' will tell
Yes only my dyin' will tell, oh yeah, only my dyin' will tell

And when I die, and when I'm gone
There'll be, one child born
In this world to carry on, to carry on…. (Song by Laura Nyro (thanks Rhea!) Performed by Blood Sweat & Tears)

I was riveted on this NYT article. These nuns have surely found a way to die in peace, at home, without the intervention of extraordinary measures to keep them alive while amongst life long friends.

The severe ravages and mental deterioration due to Alzheimers and other elder-type diseases have not affected these nuns and priests. Many are engaged with creative and intellectual pursuits. Most have been well-educated with a rich inner life and have friendships in community going back seventy years in some cases.

I was reminded of the Time article of many years ago – 2001 – (I just found it, thank you Google! )


The nuns volunteered to take part in what has now become known as the ‘Nun Study’ where tests are regularly conducted and assessments of mental agility and ability are tracked.


Take this:

One is Sister Esther Boor, who at 106 speeds through the labyrinth of halls with a royal blue walker, glazes ceramic nativity scenes for the gift shop and pedals an exercise bike every day, her black veil flapping, an orange towel draped over her legs for modesty.
"Sometimes I feel like I'm 150, but I just made up my mind I'm not going to give up," said Sister Esther, who gives her exercise therapists yellow notes with phrases from books she reads. "Think no evil, do no evil, hear no evil," she wrote recently, "and you will never write a best-selling novel."

The bottom line, I believe, is living with passion and curiosity. Daily reading, writing, knitting, walking, etc., seem to be the common element in a positive quality of life extension as we age. And community.

And: oh yes, compassion, kindness and patience with others. I really need to work on those.

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?