Weather Attitude

We all know it and yet we find ourselves helpless to combat how the weather can affect our wellbeing and mental attitude. It has been grey, damp, cold and just plain “September” and so Mom and I have been hibernating in our PJs, lolling on the sofa and watching the old “Poirot” episodes. It’s hard to get motivated when one is still in their pajamas. Its one thing to have a “comfy, cozy” sort of day but it’s another thing to be constantly in the pajamas and doing nothing but vegging out!

Normally we both make the effort to get dressed every morning, even when we have had a crappy night but just lately we have been wallowing and today I said “enough is enough”. Back to the grind, the computer, the blog, to anything but this pitifulness!

Poor Cherie has been wailing and moaning because he, for one, has definitely felt that we were being no fun at all and he wants to go out to play. Well, off you go!

And here’s a little side note; Erik and Mom were really impressed when we were sitting on the deck the other day and I said “here comes John”. I can tell when he is turning the corner and when it is someone else. Most of the other vehicles take the corner at high speed but John takes it slow and easy and so there is a certain hum to his motor that sounds different from the other trucks swinging by. It’s a gift, what can I say?

American Justice

I have been following the Ivy League / Celebrity Scandal or whatever you want to call it. So Felicity Huffman thinks one month in jail for bribing an Ivy League college to get her daughter into is “too much” because “they aren’t those kind of criminals”? On “the view” they were mentioning that a poor homeless woman went to jail for five years because she lied about where her son was living so he could go to KINDERGARTEN (any kindergarten).

Now this is American Justice (and ironically wasn’t that the name of one of the TV shows Huffman appeared in?) and while I find it difficult to accept that “white collar crime” is punished by jail sentencing that happens to be the way it is in the United States so all I have to say to you, missy, is “suck it up buttercup”. Take it on the chin and all that sort of rot.

You may be wondering what I would personally endorse for the “crime” of both Huffman and the poor homeless woman? In the first instance I think honest to goodness community service (not attending red carpet events) would be better service – say in a soup kitchen for the next year so she can see how “those people” survive. In the case of the homeless woman I would suggest giving her a helping hand to get on her feet would be much more appropriate because you are talking about two human beings here, her son as well as herself. Jail time is not going to help her situation – or his. Punitive measures are not always the answer when people have done something wrong.

However “the greatest country in the world” enjoys punishing their people, the more down on their luck they are the more they enjoy grinding their heels into them. All I can say is that I thank the Good Lord every day that I was born Danish and that I live in Canada where people are given compassionate care more often than not. I don’t say Canada is perfect, but we are doing a whole lot better than the USA.

Thank you Canada and thank you Mom and Dad for raising us here.

Dark Place

The last two weeks have been especially horrific for me because I have found myself in a state of almost constant nausea which included the inevitable. This has been my fifth (or is it sixth) cycle of the chemo medicine and it is only now that it (apparently) has caught up with me. It has taken me a while to figure out why I was having gagging and vomiting episodes because it didn’t seem to happen at any one particular moment but I have realized that it MUST be because of the chemo along with the sometimes excruciating pain I have been experiencing. Don’t get me wrong, it is not the cancer per se that is causing the pain but rather the walking. Something is setting off a sort of grinding in my hip socket which may be caused by nerve pain although it doesn’t seem likely (to me anyway).

I don’t want to be a whiner but I have to say that last week was especially difficult for me. Thankfully I finished the chemo pills on Friday and almost immediately I felt better. I haven’t had an episode (well, I should say that I had a slight bit of gagging at noon yesterday but I think it was because I was really hungry – LOL).

I am anxious to see my oncologist next Tuesday with the hope that he may have some solution other than pain medicine because I do not believe that the morphine is helping at all with the particular walking pain I am having. In fact, I believe the Robaxacet that I took early this morning has helped much better because it relaxed my muscles which I think have tensed up considerably over the last few weeks. Unfortunately I don’t think the chiropractor helped at all with that bit.

And that’s enough about that. Onwards and upwards!

Binge Watching

Generally speaking I am not much of a binge watcher since I rather like structure in my life which means I like to watch a show week to week rather than a ton of episodes all at once. However in the past few years there have been very few shows that keep me entertained week to week. I think the only one that I watch regularly is Law & Order SVU and of course, Dancing with the Stars (though it has been on a long sabbatical this past year).

As a result I have been buying older shows on DVD (I cannot get Netflix in the countryside without losing my mind – that’s a tale for another time) as well as buying the Game of Throne series because I was not buying HBO for just one show so I would wait patiently for the latest season to come out and then watch the show, usually one episode per night. Now having the whole collection except for the final season (not yet out) I confess, I have done some binge watching! But even that was mild compared to what Mom and I have now been doing – we are again watching Prison Break and oh my goodness, our hearts are palpitating so much that Mom came in one night and said “my heart is still beating so fast from the show”! We haven’t watched the show since it first appeared some 10 years ago so we forget a lot of the intricate details of the story and even though we know they escape we get so tense at every little twist that it is awesomely exciting!

Yes once in a while a truly great innovative story will appear on television but they are so far apart that it is really a shame. In the past decade I can think of Downton Abbey and Game of Thrones as true standouts. John also has really enjoyed Poldark but since I missed out from the beginning I can’t get into it at all which is rather a pity because I do enjoy period pieces. He also watches Victoria but I loathe historical dramas that are not accurate and the snippets I have watched portray a very different Victoria from her true self (she was really not a very nice person at all). A show I am watching now (in its final, third season) is Jamestown which is pretty good entertainment.

I really miss the great miniseries of yore, Rich Man Poor Man, Roots, Captain & the Kings, Testimony of Two Men and Centennial. Now those were really great serials!

My Cancer, My Pain

My readers know that I have not written very much about my cancer or my situation, merely alluding to it once in a while but today I want to write a little bit more.

A little over two years ago I received the shock of my life when I was told that I had Stage Four Cancer, “that I was terminal”. With true Scandinavian phlegm I held the strap tight and carried on. I have taken all the various treatments they have advocated and have managed to survive the side effects (thankfully they have for the most part been fairly mild, barring the neuropathy). I haven’t complained and have been rather stoic about what is happening inside my body. I even managed to be heroic when they performed the ileostomy and within a few days I was handling the change of the bag myself because I took the philosophy that I had to do it sooner or later. My sisters were staggered but proud of me because they know that of the three of us I have had the reputation of being the “medical wimp”. I don’t like to know, hear or see anything horrid but now I was having it happen to me and I took it like a man. (here you are supposed to laugh since we all know what babies men are when it comes to a splinter much less an illness).

Yes, I have taken it all “with a grain of salt”. I have been tough, resilient and not terribly modest about it (evidently).

Last September I started to get a pain in my side and I was told that the tumour had grown and was pushing on my pelvis. I have not had my CT scan yet (another couple of weeks) but the pain I am now experiencing is becoming progressively worse and I very much fear that it could be the tumour. My blood work has shown that my cancer marker has gone down in my body and I have been so hopeful that the medicine has been working and that maybe, miracle of miracles, I could even be in remission. But last night I was close to tears and terribly distraught because even lying down I was feeling such pain along my back and leg that I had doubts I could carry on.

Today the sun is shining and while sitting here in my big leather chair typing away I feel pretty good, pain free even. What a difference a few hours make. I am back to feeling optimistic and thinking that the pain is really just a pinched nerve in my back and that maybe I should see the chiropractor and have an adjustment.

“One can always hope.”

Crying as Therapy

My family are not criers; I am not a crier. Once when I was at work a person upset me so much that when I ran into a good, kind colleague a few minutes later I actually began crying and then apologized “for losing my composure”. I did the same thing when I was in the hospital two years ago when I suddenly lost my Scandinavia phlegm and began crying because of more negative news about my condition and then I apologized to the nurse who was so kindly holding my hand. She condoled with me, telling me that I had every right to cry.

I am not a crier about myself or my plight. I will, however, sob unashamedly over a movie, even a commercial can bring tears to my eyes but that isn’t real “crying”, in my view.

Last night my mother came into my room and hugged me and held my hand and choked out her words to me because I had to lie down in order for her to give me my blood thinner shot. I have been in so much pain the last two weeks whenever I stand or walk for only a minute or so and it is becoming almost too much to bear. She said she wished she could do something to help me. Then she began to cry.

“Oh Mummy, don’t cry. I am alright. I will be alright. Don’t cry Mummy, you do everything for me. You are the best mother in the world.” I condoled with her but I know she went back in her room and cried some more.

We are not a family of criers but in our hearts, we cry just like everyone else.

Good Bones, a poem

Coincidentally the PBS program “Story in the Public Square” last Saturday did an interview with Maggie Smith, the poet whose most famous poem is “Good Bones”. It was published three days after the Orlando shooting and the poem was shared on Facebook and Twitter in response. Ms. Smith said that every time there is a tragedy the poem goes viral again. How very strange that only a few hours after watching this interview 2 more mass shootings occurred in America and one can assume that the poem is again being shared even as I am now doing.

I had never heard of MotionPoems before but here is a link to this one. It will make you appreciate the poem so much more, particularly if you are not given to poetry reading usually.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6tokL583A8

Good Bones  By Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

 

 

 

 

Agnotology

Agnotology is the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt, particularly the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data.

I thought I would use this title for my subject rather than one that would cause too much angst in the initial viewing. The subject is capital punishment and how it is used by Americans in answer to this weekend’s mass shootings in Dayton and El Paso. I could use words such as moronic, ignorant, and capitalistic or a string of other negative words to describe some of the emotions I feel every time I hear about another tragedy in America but what does that do?

The truth is that the bottom line of what I feel is complete and utter bafflement that the American people are more enamoured of their “God given right to own guns” than of the logic in NOT owning guns, period. What is the use of bewailing the shootings and holding candlelight vigils AFTER THE FACT? What is the point of talking about capital punishment AFTER THE FACT?

Many people, many times, have spoken about what ought to be done but as I have said before “you can’t fix stupid”. One can point out the action of New Zealand immediately after their first and only mass killing (passing a law banning the sale of assault rifles). One can point to Europe’s stance on gun ownership but does any of that make a dent in the collective heads of Americans? Apparently not.

I am sorry America but I am not mourning with you. I am berating you for being so damn ignorant.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

A Miraculous Journey

The 21 day meditation of Deepak & Oprah which is now in week 3 is all about the Miracle that is You. For a while during the meditations I felt that it was a bit too much of the same, that there was nothing new to be told, that I knew it all, in effect. How wrong I was!

As I let my mind start accepting again the wisdom of the ages, opening myself up to the inner message of ME I began to appreciate that there can never be too much repetition when it comes to knowing ourselves and appreciating our uniqueness in the universe. At the same time I also learn that we are all connected, over and over again.

Some part of me instinctively seems to know how to connect to people while another part keeps me in reserve. There is always more to learn in letting down that barrier and accepting that the barrier is not a good thing but blocks the path to accepting others for who they are. There should be no judgment, no irritation but only acceptance that they are as divine as myself.

I say that in all humbleness, not with ego. Yes, I am getting there – slowly but surely.

Namaste.

Staying Calm

Now I will make you laugh by telling you that I wrote the last two blogs after I had done my Oprah/Deepak meditation. The current 21 day theme is Miraculous Relationships and as always we are supposed to find our inner self which is “pure joy and love”. Irony to write that our premier is an asshole and that I am spitting mad?

But I wrote it out of pure love, my dear readers, pure love for my fellow man and the civilization that I envision for us. Do not be like Jon Snow who flipped out on Daenerys in the finale as she explained her vision of a whole world of peace and freedom.

It is possible to have a country that not only aspires to high values and social justice but achieves these things. Our political system allows corporations to have too much influence over politicians by the amount of contributions they are able to make to campaigns thus putting the government and politicians under extreme obligation. Case in point, SNC Lavalin and our current prime minister. No country is perfect but some work harder at it than others. I would like Canada to walk the talk and not just be a pretty face attempting to fool the world into believing the heart is there. Trudeau has thrown too many good people under the bus when political interests took precedence over principle.  I will never get over it.

Why I am Concerned

Many years ago I would have discussions with my boss about what the state of the project was in and if there was a particular area that I had concerns about I would say “I am worried . . . “.  Dave would correct me and say “don’t say worried, say concerned”. It was his job to worry! 

Yesterday I wrote a heartfelt blog about the things that concern me. To be more specific, I am concerned that individuals focus on what is good for them and ignore the rest of the “debris” around them. Those who continue to advocate the oil sands and put out Facebook and Instagram messages denying that there are concerns really annoy me (to say the least). On the other hand, those environmentalists who bash the oil sands unequivocally also irritate me. What I would like to see is a balance wherein folks can continue to work in the oil sands BUT at the same time I would like to see more vocal indications from the companies that they are also working towards developing more sustainable energy avenues. As well, I would like to get a semi-annual statement from the industry on how many new trees are being planted as part of recovery plans for the area and what other recovery initiatives are being done.

That is just an example of a hot button issue here in Alberta.

I am afraid I cannot speak of our current premier with anything like civility as I think he is a F’ing asshole who is simply working at self-aggrandizement. Not one single act of his has in any way been motivated to help the PEOPLE of this province. He has catered to business, first, last and always. Have you seen a company go to the polling booth? He has reduced corporate taxes, he has revoked Labour Standards laws (reducing minimum wage, taking away overtime pay, lowering minimum age for workers – hey, let’s bring back child labour). He has revoked Workers’ Compensation for farm workers because why should farmers have to insure their employees to the same level as other businesses? Once again a Conservative government is trying to break unions because why should a nurse, teacher, civil servant, police officer, fireman or EMS worker have to have the same benefits as lying, cheating, thieving politicians who can’t keep their dicks in their pants?

Next time you vote you should do your homework and see if you actual ARE better off with a conservative rather than a “socialist” government. And for crying out loud DO NOT embarrass yourself by making the same mistake as a flipping American who equates socialism with communism. Elementary history lesson in high school should have taught you that and if that isn’t good enough check out a Scandinavian country and contrast it with China. 

Yes, I get spitting mad sometimes but you know what – it does get the old juices flowing!

Look Away

If you are uncomfortable talking, listening or thinking about politics – look away.

If you feel you are not directly impacted by shutting down Gay-Straight alliances – look away.

If you think climate change is not affecting your life – look away.

If you think that “sticks and stones don’t break any bones” – look away.

If you think that what happens elsewhere does not affect you – look away.

If you think a moral compass is not important in those who govern – look away.

If your child isn’t bullied and you don’t need to be concerned about Johnny next door – look away.

If the only thing that matters is your own cosy life – look away.

That’s what the German population did in the 1920’s and surprise, surprise, the world could not long look away, but only after millions of people (Jews, gypsies, homosexuals, political dissidents) were exterminated. Every single citizen’s actions and voice matters no matter how uncomfortable you may feel. A citizen should be informed about every aspect of daily life, not just YOUR life, but of those all around you; in your home, your community, your province, country and the world. Perhaps we cannot always see that what we are doing makes a difference, but being silent, or looking away, is not a good response.

I’m just saying.