Abortion

Today I saw Dr. David Eisenberg on Amanpour & Co. and he spoke about woman’s right to control her body in the most articulate way I have ever, ever heard. What an impressive and articulate man. The discussion was spurred by the increasing number of states who are passing onerous anti-abortion laws something that completely baffles me. Why are these laws being passed now after nearly 50 years since abortion has been legalized all over the western world? What primitive mentality has crept back into man’s brain so that he desires to go back to the cave where he can clout the woman on the head?

What baffles me even more are the women who are of the same anti Pro-Choice option. I do not understand their desire to push their own personal / Christian views on to another person.

And that last word is the crux of the whole discussion I believe. Women still have to fight to be recognized as a PERSON. We are not appendages of men, we are individuals who ought to have equal rights in every conceivable aspect of rights under the law.

I have never felt anything less than equal to my brothers, father or any other man and that is thanks to my father telling me at the tender age of 7 that I was equal in brains and ability to any boy (and future man). My potential and horizons were limitless and that is how I have always lived my life regardless of whether I actually achieved my ambitions or not. It will be a cold day in hell before any man can tell me no and get away with it. Not now, not ever.

I would like every woman on earth to have the same unshakeable belief in herself. You deserve it.

Gardening is Worth It

Some folks may ask if it is worthwhile to garden when it comes to the price of tomatoes. Well, yes, it is worth it if only for the therapeutic factor. However a strong second motivation is that you know how your vegetables and fruit are being grown with healthy nutrients and good water. I actually use a lot of rainwater on my plants once the barrel fills up with the spring rains and I believe it has a lot of benefits rather than the well water I use at other times of the year.  I use Miracle Gro on my plants as well although I am looking for alternatives.

Composting has not been a great success with me, in fact quite the reverse. I think it is mostly me not doing it correctly but I find it is a real challenge to keep the weeds out despite coverings. If the coverings are in the stuff doesn’t get enough moisture, if I leave it uncovered wild seeds tend to find their way into the stuff. So while it would be perfect for nourishing my plants I haven’t been able to do anything with my mess. I am thinking of going smaller with a small compost pot to see how that works out but thinking and action are not the same thing!

I am hopeful that this week will see a turnaround in the miserable weather we have been experiencing. I have just been out sitting on the lido deck and then I took a wander around the yard and the ground feels promising so I plan to finish drinking my water and then going out to do a little raking. I may even discover that the rhubarb is starting to come up. Wouldn’t that be nice?

Ageism - Are you Too Old?

It is very curious to hear someone tell you “you are too old”. First of all I thought it was against the law for a potential employer to use those words to an interviewee but even more amazing to me is that anyone would have the crass to say that to someone right to their face! Someone I know recently had that experience and I was absolutely incredulous. 
Here are some reasons why older people are amazing.

·         They have life experience as well as work experience that is varied. These people have lived and worked through an evolution of change not experienced since the industrial age began some 100 years ago.

·         They were raised in a time when work ethic was drilled into their heads which means they are punctual, work oriented, disciplined and loyal

·         They were also raised with values and principles which are lacking in many of the next generation

·         This is the generation that saw women enter, and stay, in the work force while raising a family

·         This is also the generation known as the “sandwich generation” where they are caring for their parents at the same time as they are caring for their adult children. They are keeping their families together.

Now some of these items may seem to be a negative but the fact is that they are towing a huge responsibility without complaining (much) and getting very little credit for it. Furthermore this is a generation that has inherited a lot of baggage from the previous generations and now they, along with their children, are the ones who are going to have to shoulder the responsibility to fix our planet in myriad ways. While many may have been ignorantly complicit in continuing pollution many also were the ones who quietly began recycling programs, reducing driving by taking buses, walking or bicycling, using reusable bags for groceries and other environmentally friendly initiatives.

Older people aren’t perfect but they sure are amazing and I for one have long been an advocate for hiring more mature people in the work place.

Pacing Myself

Actually I am not sure that “pacing myself” is an accurate description of how I pace my days. The truth is that I waste a lot of time playing solitaire on my iPad and watch way too much television even if it is “educational”. I have found that keeping myself organized and writing down what I have been doing on a given day makes me much more accountable to myself. At least I feel that I have accomplished some things during the day which makes me feel better about myself.

I realize that I am in a difficult situation with my illness but I don’t want it to be an excuse for being downright lazy since there are plenty of things that I am still capable of even if I do have to, quite literally, pace myself. As long as I can sit on a stool or chair I am able to do a lot of re-potting of my seedlings. I do have to stand and walk to do the watering but if I take it slow and steady I am able to do that without any problem at all.

I am extremely comfortable in my executive chair as I sit at my computer and write my blogs, go through my emails and even check my genealogy charts. Since sitting is very good for my condition (rather than lying down) it is a good place for me to be, here in the office. I just wish I had more exciting things to write about than my “journaling” but I know many of my followers aren’t so keen when I write my political rants and of course politics is so very interesting (and frustrating) these days.

Now I am having all these struggles with time management, trying not to let myself lose the quality of that time and I know that while my illness may serve as an excuse I do wonder if I would be better at this if I was healthy. I hope so since I certainly feel that I was very good at squeezing a lot of things into my day before my diagnosis. So here’s a question for my readers, do you analyze your time? Is it well spent with socializing, engaging your brain and exercising both your body and mind? I really hope so. While you should always cut yourself some slack when you aren’t feeling great it is important to be able to differentiate between feeling low and being lazy. I think one of the best ways of figuring it out is whether or not you are capable of giving yourself a push to take a walk around the block.

Now wouldn’t it be great if this infernal weather would take a permanent turn towards decent summertime weather???????????????

Disasters in the Kitchen

I don’t do a lot of cooking since my mother moved in some 6 years ago but once upon a time I was pretty handy around the kitchen. Lately when I have had to be the chef I have had varied success even when it comes to my baking. I’ve lost my groove. Last night I put a frozen “chicken wellington” in the oven, following the instructions and was terribly disappointed with the result. First of all it was burnt but worse yet the inside was as dry as cement. It was ghastly and I am appalled that I have 3 more of those suckers to cook. I’ve decided to lower the heat, reduce the cooking time and also wrap it in tinfoil when next I venture on making one of them. And hey, that was a pre-made meal!

I have never been very good at frying any kind of meat and Mom isn’t very good at it either so we usually get John to fry a steak (not that we have that often as Mom and I are not very fond of steak either). When it comes to chicken I prefer to grill them which usually turns out well. The only meat I actually do really well is roasting a chicken or roast beef. I also make a very good salmon.

I am starting to sound an awful lot like my mother; I have little appetite for big meals and even less for meat. I’m what you might call a picaterian!

Henrietta-Penguina

When hens get egg bound (that means an eggs has become stuck going through her system) they will begin to waddle and also they will tilt so that they walk more like a penguin than a hen. In the past I had tried to save them by bathing them in Epsom salts but I never saved a single one. Then I had a year or two where my hens were doing well and didn’t have the problem but now I have had 6 or 7 hens die one after another due to this egg bound problem.

I got on the computer again to see if there was anything new that might make a difference and I found a video where the lady bathed the hen for several days but in conjunction with that she gave the hen crushed calcium pills on the food. Suddenly I realized that my hens were lacking calcium so John went out to buy oyster shells (something that I used to have on hand but hadn’t been using in recent years). I have one little Penguina who is being kept apart while I nurse her with the new formula. She is really quite adorable, she peeps all the time as though she is trying to tell me what her situation is. She is pretty docile and doesn’t fight with me so I am feeling hopeful that maybe, just maybe, this time I may save a dear little Henrietta!

I will keep you posted.

Discontent

I pondered on what to use for the title of this blog because I don’t want red flags waving inappropriately as I talk about things like white supremacy, racism, gun violence and other civil unrest. News programs “discuss” this regularly and the solution, “they” seem to believe, starts with awareness. Awareness? Are you kidding me; I think we all are aware that children are being shot in schools, synagogues, mosques and churches have all been assaulted. I think we are all AWARE.

Yes, I get a little incensed at the shallowness of analysis but that doesn’t mean that I have the answer. Or rather, I didn’t feel that I had an answer (as my last blog noted). But I began to recall a conversation I had with a fellow NDP’er back in 1993 when I was a candidate and the lightbulb turned on for me, again. When it comes to people’s discontent we have to look at the true source of that discontent and the answer – whether they realize it or not – is poverty. Poverty can take many forms, it isn’t just a case of a person being homeless or starving. It can be a case of under-employment, of working several jobs and still not having enough money to pay the rent and buy food. It can be a middle class person who has a decent job but still cannot afford to send their children to college. It can be college graduates who are loaded down with debt and they also are under-employed despite that expensive education. It can be feeling insecure about how long you may have your job and then when “refugees” come into the country you fear that you will lose your job to cheap labour.

Business and government need to address the employment gap in a new way which includes fair wages, benefits and good hours. There are huge opportunities to build jobs while tackling some of the major issues of our day such as renewable energy (to combat climate change) and infrastructure to protect vulnerable areas from flooding. Another huge issue is how to deal with the incredible amount of garbage that results from packaging. I was absolutely staggered a few years ago when I learned that Canada had been “exporting” garbage to China, the Philippines and other areas for decades! Recently I learned that it wasn’t just garbage but our recycling was also being exported. What is the point of everyone recycling when we are creating an even larger footprint but shipping this stuff overseas (and let’s not kid ourselves, all that plastic in the ocean is NOT coming from tourists throwing straws overboard but dumping of said garbage)?

Another little factoid that should rile people up is how much taxpayer dollars is used for various types of research as well as developing infrastructure only to then have the benefits turned over to private corporations who reap billions of dollars (and don’t pay taxes, just to add insult to injury).

There are a lot of areas that need fixing but first of all we need to be AWARE.

Did I just say that?