Living vs. Dying

Now that is a title that is going to give one pause. The fact is that once I really started to think about what the meaning of “early palliative care therapy” meant I started to shudder and feel frightened. What, me, frightened?

I have been living with this cancer for two years and despite being positive on a daily basis as well as telling myself and my friends that I am still being realistic about my diagnosis I have not thought very much about actually dying. In the early days, when I was so extremely sick and actually at death’s door I did think about it and was prepared to go but now I find that two years of living has made me feel very attached to LIFE. It is a considerable wrench to pull myself away from longevity and stare death in the face (which I have not done yet, to be honest).

Therefore I am going into this palliative care discussion with some trepidation.

Screech, stop the bus, hold on, er, excuse me . . . .

Here’s the rub; it took a whole month for the palliative care person to actual contact me and her lame excuse was that she had been ill. Okay, well I let that pass (although I had spoken with someone at the Foothills, when they called me for a  “follow up” that it had not happened and I expressed myself in no uncertain – but polite – terms) and listened to her plan for the next discussion. That discussion, as I understood it, was to have occurred last Thursday. Not a call, not a message, nada. My reaction the first time is similar to what my reaction is this week – and that is to respond to the phone call with “sorry but you are too late, she’s fucking dead”.

Yeah, sometimes I can be a total bitch.

Real Politics

Getting down to brass tacks on politics so let us start with this question, “have you ever seen a corporation stroll into a voting booth?”  I would be surprised if anyone answered yes. Yet how often do you hear politicians laying on the gravy for corporate “incentives” or “tax cuts”? Every time they do that they are also eroding the individual’s pay cheque. If corporations get tax breaks the government has to make up that deficit somehow and the first place they look is adding it on to the individual tax payer either in an actual income tax increase or some other levy.

The UCP candidate is promising to eliminate the carbon tax (which is 5% in Alberta and all revenue goes back into Energy Efficiency initiatives not regular revenue). At the same time he wants to bring back health care premiums of $98 / month which is roughly $1,200 a year. The carbon tax impacts the average person at no more than $500 / year and each person gets a rebate of $300 per year. That is just one of the ways in which the UCP will end up slamming the individual with higher taxes.

I have taken an informal poll of my family and friends asking them “in what way has the NDP affected your income ADVERSELY in the last 4 years?” and not a one has been able to come up with an example. Business owners will be quick to bring up the minimum wage increase (again this is something that the UCP will decrease) and my response to that is that living in Canada business owners ought to be able to rely on good Canadian workers who are given a decent LIVING wage and not a wage that keeps them in abject poverty. We are not a third world country and if you cannot sustain your business by paying your employees a decent wage you should not be in business. End of.

My comments may be unpalatable to many people (business owner or not) but I stick to my opinion on this because “this is 2019” and we SHOULD be a civilized society.

Real Life

We are having both provincial and federal elections this year. The provincial one has been ramped up for a few weeks now and I am already (no surprise to anyone) cheesed off with the bias of media. It is beyond enough when so-called journalists wrinkle their nose when they speak about the NDP or Rachel Notley (so much so that I really want to slap their face). That is just the beginning; then we have the silence and shutout of the NDP while they give free airspace to that flipping (and I am being super polite and restrained here) lying asshole who shall remain nameless (no free airspace for him).

Yes, I get caught up in my politics, no question. I have always been passionate and engaged in politics, a true family legacy. When my brothers come around the roof almost rises with the raised voices and an outsider may actually believe that we are arguing and fighting while all the time we are virtually agreeing with each other. We are enjoying ourselves to the max. I recall once having a rip-roaring discussion with the husband of a friend (and actually I consider the husband a friend also J ), we were not agreeing with each other but we were having a really good time arguing. Marie came out thinking that I was being beleaguered and I grinned at her and said “Pshaw Marie, you never met my dad, Paul is an amateur beside him!” and then turned back to continue our “discussion”. Ah, good times!

To be continued . . .

Grace and Gratitude

Thus begins 21 days of meditation, finding grace through gratitude. Often I feel that it takes me several days of meditation to get the true thread of the theme of each meditation. “All good things bring gratitude” is self-evident, one would assume yet how often do we receive things, say thank you and then forget about it. The feeling of gratitude barely touches us. Is that because we are so rushed to get on with the next thing or is it because we don’t actually feel gratitude?

It is a staggering sensation to have to wonder about our emotional centre, to wonder if we are somehow depraved in that regard! This is one of the reasons why I am truly grateful that Oprah and Deepak offer free 21 day meditations approximately 3 or 4 times a year. Currently we are working on Grace through Gratitude but in the past we have touched on Belief, Light, Fulfillment, Peace, Hope, Desire and Energy. And those are only the ones that I took notes on!

Some kernels of wisdom from the past “begin to harness the power of belief to heal the past and bring forward a future of wholeness and fulfillment”, “once we believe in ourselves we can believe in wonder and spontaneous delight”, “I am in harmony with myself” and “I am never stuck when I live in the present”.

And this last is really how one should live their life – in the Now.

Nature Has Us Beat

I have been observing my cats lately and must say that the boys (who are 15 years old) are becoming more verbal and also crankier. Thumper in particular meows all day long, telling tales about how mean Cherie is and how selfish Kitsy is. Really?  And at night they snuggle up together at the foot of my bed and are good buddies again!

It amazes me how bees have this whole, perfect community of existence. No fighting with each other, all just cooperating to keep their mighty queen alive and producing.

And The Girls, well, they can peck at each other the odd time but basically the go out roaming in the grass looking for seeds and bugs and just frolicking like little kids. They are curious about everything and when they hear our voices chatting on the pergola deck they wandering around and twist their necks to look up at us and peep “what’s up, eh?”

Then there are all the little grey birds that swoop down in the chicken coop, picking up seeds and food and pretending that they aren’t thieves. Oh no, not they! Meanwhile the magpies brazenly make their presence known and are not ashamed to admit to their own level of thievery! Bold as brass, they are!

Nature functions, always true to themselves.

Be Kind

Can you believe that my last words were “be kind” and then what happens in the world? A mass shooting in Christchurch, New Zealand and another attack in the Netherlands? Not to mention the insanity spewing from Individual One.

We are living in a crazy time and a crazy world. To be honest I have no words to express my feelings on this.

Today I had to long conversations with my two best friends, Ninette and Silvia. Life is chaos sometimes but thank God we have each other to talk to and commiserate with. Not to mention all my other good friends and I literally go down on my knees in gratitude that I have the absolute best mother and siblings (and sweet sister-in-law) in the whole world. My nieces and nephews, and the great nephews are such a blessing and a joy to me, I cannot tell you.

When I talk to my friends they always say “it could be worse (for them), look what you are going through” but I always feel embarrassed by that – I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me because I don’t feel sorry for myself. Life has handed me a terrible card but that is the way it is. I am just so grateful that I have a resilient, stoic mind and a heritage of strong people in my DNA. I do not take credit for myself, it seems to be a natural thing and as I say, I am just so very blessed with the support and love that I receive every day from family and friends.

I wish I could use my blood and my psyche to cure the sick people in the world of their mental illness that includes such hate for innocent people. I cannot understand it. But hating these criminals is not the way to cure them as I saw on an interview early this morning. This person was cured of his own hate by the love shown to him by one of those he sought to harm. Thirty years later he is still working on helping others out of their hate.

I guess we always need to look at the people around us and encourage them to talk to us and let their loneliness be abated with kindness and thoughtfulness.

Now I am rambling. Suffice to say – my cup runneth over!

Doing Good

"We shall pass this way on Earth but once, if there is any kindness we can show, or good act we can do, let us do it now, for we will never pass this way again."

Stephen Grellet

In my attempt to avoid politics for the next week, at least in my writings, I thought I would start off by pondering how we measure kindness without becoming condescending or consciously becoming a do-gooder for egoistic reasons. I was listening to an interview of the author of “Don’t Label Me” (Irshad Manji) which I thought was very fascinating because it really delved deeply into one’s need to listen to other people without an agenda. It struck me that quite often even though we may be listening with empathy there is a secret agenda to somehow influence or change that person in one way or other. Mea culpa. One doesn’t always intentionally have this agenda but frequently it will creep in during the conversation.

I don’t know that I have more to say on this - just be kind, as Ellen says.

Tax Time Agony

Here I am drowning in a welter of tax receipts and wishing that this was all over and done with. I know I am not alone in dreading the filing of taxes but there is little comfort in it when you are trying to sort out all the different receipts that can help reduce the income side of the table. As organized as I try to be with my taxes it is still a lot of work once we come to the crunch!

But enough about bemoaning that. Let’s talk about what happens to the tax dollars we pay. Isn’t it lovely that Trudeau can give away our tax payments to the needy pharmaceutical company that just got something like $100 million yesterday? Let’s not forget the millions he has given to other corporate welfare recipients over the past few weeks – we are talking about over $3 billion dollars in the last few months handed over to various corporations. This really does not sit well with me – if companies cannot make it on their own dime why should tax payers bail them out? It isn’t as though more jobs were made, or the ones “in peril” would be saved. Witness Trudeau’s unfeeling attitude towards the Sears employees – he doesn’t give a flying F*&% about them.

 

I just get so boiling mad at all the hypocrisy we endure on a daily basis with our government. And I get furious with the media that boosts up notorious assholes like Jason Kenney and at the same time befouling those few honest politicians like Rachel Notley, Jane Philpott or Jody Wilson-Raybould. Already you can sense the tide is turning on these latter two women. It will be interesting to hear what those 11 names will testify – if they are called as witness by the Justice Dept. I rather doubt it will be happening. I smell cover-up big time.

Ah well, what can we do about it except vote for something new.

Integrity - where art thou?

I will tell you where it isn’t – in our Prime Minister and the Liberal party. I lost respect for him last year when he threw the Sears employees under the bus by saying “we will not address bankruptcy laws” and therefore allowing the management to get millions of dollars in bonuses while the workers lost their paycheques. That clearly showed where his interests lay – with corporations and no people.

After the testimony of Jody Wilson-Raybould I would be amazed if anyone actually doubted her side of the story. I watched several hours of her being tested and I found it despicable how the Liberals tried to intimidate her and besmirch her. I was pleased to hear (and of course realized that there was a political agenda to the comment) that the female Conservative who questioned her said she “completely believed her”. I was annoyed that the two rows of bottom headlines on CBC obliterated the names of the MPs speaking. The only person I recognized was Nathan Cullen but I don’t know if he actually got to question her (as I said while I watched about 2 hours I did not watch the whole thing; I have it taped so can watch more today).

Jody Wilson-Raybould came across as someone with an incredibly high degree of integrity (which has been much touted over these past few months) as well as extremely intelligent. I got that sense that her staff were very loyal to her and respected her. She is not someone you can bully and our Prime Minister has learned that to his detriment. Trudeau did not come out of this smelling like a rose but rather a skunk. I have absolutely no doubt that he attempted to have the Attorney General interfere in the SNC Lavalin affair and when he didn’t get what he wanted he pushed her out of the AG position and tried to put in someone who would do his bidding.

This reeks on so many levels but the bottom line proves once again that the Liberal and Conservative parties owe corporations big time for their political donations and it is perhaps time that an evaluation be made as to how much money a corporation can spend in donations to political parties. I am thankful that the NDP is completely funded by personal donations only; they have long ago severed any ties with unions so don’t go there with me.

Integrity – thy name is Jody Wilson-Raybould – a new heroine for the people!

 

https://globalnews.ca/news/5007305/analysis-trudeau-brand-jody-wilson-raybould-testimony/

https://globalnews.ca/news/5006450/jody-wilson-raybould-testimony-transcript/

 

What is Happiness?

So what does happiness mean to you? Do you get a warm glow inside when you think of something pleasant and is that happiness? Do you laugh out loud and think “I am happy”? Is happiness a state of mind or a feeling? Is it both?

You’ve likely heard the saying “happiness is a puppy”, sweet and simple, however here is one doctor’s definition of happiness:

“What's your definition of happiness? Research in the field of positive psychology and happiness often define a happy person as someone who experiences frequent positive emotions, such as joy, interest, and pride, and infrequent (though not absent) negative emotions, such as sadness, anxiety and anger (Lyubomirsky et al., 2005). Happiness has also been said to relate to life satisfaction, appreciation of life, moments of pleasure, but overall it has to do with the positive experience of emotions.”

I can say that I have frequent positive emotions and for the most part I only get angry when I listen to lying politicians or those who believe the lying politicians! Oh, and when they start a stupid story line on my soap opera!

Happiness is living in a country where we can have free expression (unless you happen to be the Attorney General . . . but that’s a story for tomorrow). In Alberta we are blessed with clear skies so that we reportedly have more sunshine days than any other province. And sunshine, well that is true happiness!

Winter Reprieve

We have been promised a reprieve of this bitterly cold weather. Not only am I grateful but so are my Henriettas. I am really worried as to whether my bees will survive this hideous cold snap. We wrapped them up in the winter tarps but I really am worried and it appears that I am not the only one since I saw a little “headline” scrolling on one of the news channels.

Which puts me in mind of something else I want to call a “pet peeve”. Is it only me or do you find yourself increasingly annoyed that the news changes has not one but two lines of scrolling news while they “talk” (babble would be more like it) of a third item? And on the morning news (all 3 channels) they have an additional sidebar that scrolls the weather and inside that (yes there is more to cause adult ADHD syndrome – or worse, cause a person to go insane) they have a flipping commercial!

I will be so glad when I can get out into the garden and not be forced into watching so much television, the majority of which is news!

Cars are not Toys

I feel like I have to air a pet peeve. I cannot stand all these car commercials where they make out like the car is a toy to be driven in idiotic ways. One last year had the “owners” watching their cars twirling around in the mud and they were looking as though they were in a corral and making exchange about how cute they looked. Well, cars are not horses or puppies, they are a lethal machine that, if not respected, can kill people. Currently they are running two ads that I loathe; the one is about the woman who can drive her vehicle through thick and thin to get a stupid cup of coffee and the other one is about a blind man who is going to lead the car to some secret path. Yeah, like that is real and responsible.

I have a lot of respect for a vehicle, so much so that I have chosen NOT to drive anymore because I am so concerned about possibly killing a pedestrian because my cognitive ability and my reflexes may not be up to par. This was my decision and not something that the police or medical professional asked me to do – and done solely as a concern to my fellow human beings. God forbid that I should somehow injure someone. I cannot tell you how grateful I am that my brother has supported my decision and is willing to be my chauffeur.

I am not saying this to make myself out as some sort of hero but only to make people aware that cars are to be respected, not played with. It’s a terrible comment on our society that I even have to bring up this topic to ADULTS.

Sitting in the place I am in now, knowing that my days may be numbered, I find it very hard to understand how others want to live life in a state of extreme “excitement”. And no, I am not going to feel sorry for you if you end up dead or paralyzed because I have behaved like a moron.

And that’s all I’ve got to say about that . . . .