Unfit to Rule

The greatest country in the world is set to be under the control of a new president on November 10th.  The fact that the only two choices to rule this great country are completely unfit to do so is frightening.

We assume, falsely, that the final contestants in the bid for election are the cream of the crop.  Heaven help us all if Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two best people in the United States to lead them.  The whole election process has become a joke and, if we didn't know it before, politicians are mainly assholes who cheated and robbed their way into power.

Remember the story about the emperor with no clothes and how he was able to convince the people not to believe their own eyes?  Well, it's happening again.

Now, we here in Canada are not immune to also believing in a naked emperor.  We have a flower child ruling our country.  Is he the best we could have chosen?  Hell, no, but he was thrust upon us by a corrupt political system and a corrupt news media.  Our fault lies in the fact that we, the people, are sheep.

Craft Show With Kim

It's interesting to see what people are attracted to and will buy.  I had about a dozen gorgeous (in my mind) necklaces that no-one wanted except Aeron and I gave her one for free.  But some of the newer pendants and bracelets I'd chosen to sell were very nicely accepted by buyers.  It gives me an idea bout what to purchase again for sale.  I made about $100 profit.

Kim had finally gotten interested in selling something herself after just helping me out for years.  She chose 2 different styles of silverplate rings which she was wise enough to also purchase ring boxes to show them off.  She probably made all of her outlay money back with the dozen she sold and she still has quite a few left for the next craft show at Sackville on November 11th so that will be pure profit for her.  

We do this for fun but it's nice to make a few bucks while we're having fun.  There have been times that we didn't sell enough to pay for the table rental and that's not fun.  I don't count in our time because we use it to chat with each other and the customers.  There are dealers who consider this a real job so they can't just enjoy the day because their financial health depends on good sales at each event.

We've never had more than a couple of venues each year but for the past few years it's been only one per year.  This year it will be two but next year we're back to one.  We are not working ourselves to death and this can remain a fun hobby that hopefully makes us a few dollars at the end of the day.

They're Still Calling

Statistics Canada is still after my input (at 76) for their Labor Survey.  They called 3 times yesterday, last call at 9 P.M., and I think the count might be up around 300 calls since last May.  I have caller I.D. and I've now memorized the private numbers they call from so I just ignore them.  It's slightly irritating but what bothers me most is how tenacious they are with hounding a senior citizen.  It smacks of dictatorship and not what I think of in Canada.

Just think how much money it has cost the tax payers for the salaries to pay people to harass just one senior citizen this way.  I've contacted my member of parliament who didn't reply.  Hmmm!  

Now, I leave for Florida in a month and I'm curious to know if I'll still be receiving these calls when I get back home.  Maybe they'll call forever!  Maybe the RCMP will be called in to track me to Florida and obtain my phone number there.  OMG!  I must be very important if the government needs me this much!  It's funny but it also makes me wonder just how free we are in Canada.

Statistics Canada Is Still After Me

I can't believe Statistics Canada is still after me to participate in the Labor Survey!  According to my figures, after hundreds of calls from them since May, it must have cost tax payers thousands of dollars for them to harass an old lady into giving them personal information over the damn phone!  Someone should be looking into Statistics Canada because of the terrible waste of money spent trying to get this 76 year old lady to complete what amounts to a 6 month questionnaire on the labor market!

The last message left gave me the hours that someone could be contacted at Statistics Canada's offices.  Would you believe that there are people working there 7 days a week and into the late hours of the evenings just waiting for me to call and tell them about my work life (I haven't had one in 20 years)??

We all know that much of our tax dollars are wasted by an inefficient government but this is verging on the ridiculous.  

Oh yes, this 76 year old lady is still threatened with fine or jail if I continue to refuse to answer their survey questions. 

Canada, home of the free!

Jo Passed Away

If you learn anything as you age it's that life is not always fair and the most wonderful people don't always get the best deals out of life.  The hardest thing to understand is when children get sick or die...if there is some power that can save them, why wasn't that done?

Jo was a senior lady so she did have the opportunity to live a full life with a devoted husband, children, and grandchildren.  The great loss is that she brought light wherever she went.  Everyone loved her because it was a joy to be in the company of such a kind and gentle lady.  I believe people like Jo inspire the rest of us to be better people, too.  

Well, she's gone now and out of her misery after suffering from lung cancer for the past 6+ months.  There's no good reason why she had to leave us so soon but maybe her loved ones would feel it was too soon if she was 100.  There is no question that Jo's presence in a day made it a better one.

I wasn't one of Jo's best friends but I considered her a good friend and one I admired.  She had a spot in my life where I hold good people near.  I hope she's awakened on the other side happy and healthy once again.

Assisted Dying

It's in the news again and apparently the kinks won't be straightened out before 2017 in Canada.  I am very grateful at this point in my life that assisted dying will soon be legal and facilitated in Ontario!  We seniors have 2 immense fears about dying...that we will die in pain and helpless, and that we will have lost our mental capacities.  Other than those two things, most of us have our personal beliefs of the hereafter and those should help us leave in peace.

Someone posted a horrible photo on Facebook of a lady in a nursing home who has been in a vegetative state for 6 years but whose wishes before this happened are not being honored.  She left a living will stating she did not want to be artificially preserved when all quality of life was gone.  I feel the same way and now I'm worried that this terrible ending could happen to me.  The administrators of her nursing home refuse to allow her assisted dying and I have to admit that scares me a lot.

I don't believe medical personnel should be forced to be part of her assisted dying but I firmly believe that the nursing home should allow agreeable medical people to come in to comply with her wishes.  Why, when a human being has been in a vegetative state or in terminal agony, should they be force fed and hydrated against their direct instructions?

Assisted dying is nothing new and has been done by doctors and family secretly for many years.  It's time it comes into the open and we stop being hogtied by the church and the establishment that demands we live by their rules and not by what the majority of the people want.  If I'm in pain when I'm on my deathbed, give me any and all drugs, even heroin, to take the pain away.  If I'm in a vegetative state, ease me out and onward and don't leave me to rot uselessly and helplessly while being force fed by people who won't respect my wishes.

I believe in an afterlife but, even if none exists, no-one should be forced to stay alive when they're terminal and in excruciating pain.  Anyone who is in a terminally vegetative state should be allowed to pass in peace and not kept breathing for years because the medical staff doesn't believe in assisted dying.  The beliefs of the medical staff should never supersede the wishes of the dying patient.

There, I said it right.  The wishes of the dying patient should always be honored and assisted dying should always be made available by agreeable medical personnel.  

Steroid Shot Wore Off

I'm not sure when I got the steroid shot for my arm but the good effects only lasted a few weeks.  It was so nice to be almost pain free for that short while and I had hoped it would last forever.  It wore off gradually and now I'm back to sleepless nights and a steady ache in that darned arm.  I'm even finding that I can't do my Swedish weaving for as long as I used to be able.  Maybe when I'm at the park clubhouse in Florida and can lay the fabric on a table it will take the pressure off my arm.  I sure hope so because I'll be working on my absolutely final afghan, one for Nick and Bev.  After it's finished, I'll only make table runners or place mats because it's just too difficult for me to work on 2 1/2 yds. of fabric.

I get the next steroid shot on November 2nd and, again, I'm hoping it will last at least all winter until I get home in the spring when I can get shot #3.  I'm not sure how many I'm allowed.

I've taken my almost pain free body for granted, not realizing how quickly my good luck could change.  I have very little arthritis and assumed I could live out my days with very little body pain.  Not so.  Now I'm not supposed to lift heavy items but my impatient nature makes that impossible.  When I want something done, I want it done now even if I'm taking chances with my elderly muscles.

Yesterday I moved my make-up table (a sofa table size) from the spare bedroom to my bedroom.  I'm struggling with finding a winter home for the balcony furniture that won't make my apartment look crowded and trashy so at least one chair and the table has to go in the spare bedroom.  I kind of like the make-up table in my own bedroom, though, but it means I have to get rid of a footstool.  It's too heavy for me to take down to the back door so I'll wait until one of my family members is here to do it for me.  I don't know how seniors without family manage on their own.  I'm needing mine more and more.

I also re-organized my jewelry for sale.  Kim and I have two venues this year, one on Oct. 29th and one on Nov. 12th.  Hopefully I'll be able to get rid of some of this stuff!

Today I'll spend a little time taking off old price stickers from my necklaces because I need to mark them down to sell faster.  I got a little greedy and now need to face reality.

Life is still darned good!

Please Forgive Me

I think I'm being funny but I might be plain annoying.  That's a hard pill to swallow but I'm thinking it might be true.

There is so much sense in just keeping your mouth shut when you actually have nothing to say that is productive and I've been ignoring that fact.  My mouth seems to work even without clear conscious pre-thought and that is annoying.

And so, I will make more of a conscious effort to shut up and not think my chatter is funny and contributing to the conversation.  I doubt I've ever had that filter but it's time I developed it.

I also think that my belief in speaking up when necessary has failed to make the distinction between speaking when necessary and speaking just to hear my own voice.

No-one has told me this but it's something I've sort of figured out for myself by playing back in my mind what I've said.  I will do better from now on, I hope.

The Election

I've done well to keep my big mouth shut on Facebook about the election.  The reason is that many of my American friends, all very decent and wonderful people, love Donald Trump and I don't want to insult them.  I think they are terribly misguided and my heart hurts for them but I do understand that they don't have much of a choice for their new president.  It's either the traitor Hilary or the maniac Donald and that is very sad.

It doesn't seem to matter what horrendous things come out of Trump's mouth, he still holds enough support of the people to possibly win the election and that astounds me.  What I don't know about Hilary Clinton and what my friends seem to know means he's still a better choice for them.

This is the first American election I've witnessed where even the party members are turning on their candidate.  Maybe this happened before but it's very apparent this time.  I'm thinking that no matter who wins this election, they will be hogtied by their own people and the economy in the United States will stagnate until 4 years from now when they elect a new president...hopefully a decent one they can respect.

I've finally made up my mind about our own Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.  Nope, he's not the man his father was but more like his whimsical mother.  This is not good for our country.  Of course, I didn't vote so I'm supposed to keep my mouth shut and not complain.  That won't happen.

Dying...Our Wishes

It's not easy for your children to ask you what your wishes are for when you die.  I remember Cindy being so careful with how she approached me about mine...she was very fearful of scaring me, I think.

I've always been upfront and honest with my children because I know the responsibility of what to do with me when that time comes will fall right on their shoulders.  Discussing it doesn't scare me.  Ignoring it does.

Dennis and I decided many years ago that we wanted to be cremated.  I'll add that the thought of being put under the ground horrifies me much more than being cremated does.  The body left behind is only a shell and of no importance once there is no life in it.

But, before death we might become unable to take care of ourselves and I've notified my children that my wish is to be put into a nice nursing home where they should visit me often.  I definitely don't want them wasting their own precious lives nursing me in their home.  I remember telling them to remember this if and when I become senile and say something different.

When my friend went into hospice the other day, it got me thinking I'd omitted making my wishes known about my final days.  I told my girls that I would be comfortable with being in a hospice at that time.

It's not easy talking about death but it's foolish to pretend it isn't going to happen.  Make your wishes known and then carry on living.  I did and I am.

Losses

Looking back to when I was a child and then a young girl, I never thought of my friends dying.  It was a concept that had no place in my life because it just never happened.  Only the old die, right?  And even that came as a shock and frightened me with it's permanency.  Death is forever and there's no going back and stopping it from happening.

Then came young adulthood and that's really when death impacted me because that's when I lost my grandmother and grandfather.  Once more that shock of permanent loss and how it was difficult to comprehend that the people who had been a huge part of my life were no longer there and never would be again.  Death was making itself noticed now.

In my middle years death hit a few times more, taking away family, friends, or acquaintances.  Too much death, too much pain, too much loss to be ignored.

As old age settled upon me, death became a too common visitor.  I questioned every loss with wondering why them and why not me.  You know, every single person in one's life who passes away takes a piece of your existence with them.  I described it once as being whittled away and that pretty much says it all.  Part of your life on earth was connected to them and, once they're gone, something tangible goes with them.

I heard today that my friend, Jo, has gone into hospice care and we all know what that means.  Her time on earth is just about over and, in her case, she'll leave behind a whole lot of people who love her.  I will always see her as a tall, statuesque lady who was the epitome of kindness and gentleness.  She was always so much fun, too, but it is the kind soul that I'll think of most often.  Jo was a church-goer so I hope her religious beliefs have helped her adjust to leaving.  My belief is that she'll awaken on the other side, wherever that is, and be happy and healthy while she waits for the rest of us to join her.

I hate loss.  We all hate loss.  Old age often brings more of it than we can handle.

Bless you, Jo. Pass softly and gently to that other side and I hope it's as wonderful there as I've always imagined. 

More N.S. Photos

More N.S. Photos

More N.S. Photos

Nova Scotia..Sept. 26 to Oct. 4/2016

Faye and I left Hamilton on September 26/2016 on Westjet...I can't say enough about how well we were taken care of by the staff on Westjet.  I hadn't flown in many years so I wasn't very savvy about the procedures of flying but we were greeted immediately by staff who led us through the process.  Frequent flyers have no idea how intimidating it is for us novices when we enter an airport.  Apparently Westjet does know and has made sure we're led with kindness and politeness despite our lack of knowledge.

I met a lady on the plane and we yakked for the 2 hour flight...I think we're going to have lunch together when we get back to Hamilton.  LOL!

It was so wonderful to see Sylvia waiting for us at the baggage claim...Mickey waited in the car with Lucy, their puppy.  It was like we'd only seen each other a few days before.  That's real friendship!

We retrieved our luggage quickly and went out to the car where we met Lucy for the first time.  She's the sweetest little 8 month old puppy that is the light of Mickey and Sylvia's lives.  It was a long drive to their home (maybe 3 hours) because of an accident on the highway, but finally we pulled up into their driveway and saw their lovely neat and tidy home.  Once inside, we got the tour and then sat down to a tasty turkey soup dinner made by Mickey.

We yakked for hours and might have played Skip-bo but I'm not sure.  We did play most evenings for an hour or two and I love this new game!

Their family room and spare bedroom is in the basement and it is huge!!  It's the full size of the upstairs and, of course, neat and clean as can be!  Faye slept on the sofa bed and I settled into the huge bedroom just off the family room.

It was rainy the next day but Mickey took us to Margretsville and Port George where I bought my Nova Scotia souvenir (print of Port George).  Marilee arrived around 2:30 so we had another round of hugs...I hadn't seen Marilee since last winter.

Mickey and Sylvia had made us an excellent turkey dinner...I love my turkey!  That night Marilee slept with Faye and they both weren't happy with my snoring!

Marilee and Faye left early Wednesday morning for their own tour of relatives in New Brunswick.  Sylvia's friend, Patricia, visited for a few hours in the afternoon and Mickey went to the doctor for tests.

On Thursday, Sylvia and I drove into Middleton where we had lunch with her friends June, Shirley, and Janet...really nice ladies!  The restaurant was an old renovated movie theatre and the food was excellent!  June is an artist and was nice enough to have us back to her house for a glass of wine and a tour of her home studio.  She's very good!

After dinner we played Skip-bo and then Sylvia and I went down to the family room for a couple of hours of T.V.  Sylvia and Mickey are both early to bed and early to rise so she went off to bed about 9:30.  I seemed to be staying on my Ontario time and went to bed about 11 P.M. which would be 10 P.M. in Hamilton.  Just a note:  I had 2 nights of intense leg cramps which I get only occasionally.  They are simply awful and I was glad I only got them the two nights.

On Friday, Mickey drove us into Bridgewater where we had lunch and then made a too quick trip through Lunenburg.  I was completely overwhelmed with the absolute beauty of the houses in Lunenburg...more character than I've ever seen anywhere!  We then drove to Mahone Bay where they were celebrating the Scarecrow Festival.  Many houses were sporting wildly dressed scarecrows on their front lawns...really interesting!

On Saturday, Mickey had a golf tournament and dinner so he was gone all day.  Sylvia and I sat on the deck and drank wine and waited for her new kitchen table and chairs to arrive!  It matched her kitchen cupboards perfectly.  By the way, I'd alread seen photos of her kitchen and had noted her cupboards were exactly the same style and shade of the ones in my house.  We all went to church in the evening and I met many more friendly Nova Scotians.  I could happily live in Nova Scotia forever if only the rest of my family would move there with me.

On Sunday, it was rainy again so Sylvia and I went into Kingston to do a little bit of shopping.  We went into a huge Dollarama and I found a little timer for my apartment (note: this reminded me to look at it because I'm doing laundry and I'd forgotten to start it.  Damn!!).  I spend a lot of time on the computer and often forget about the laundry.

I took Mickey and Sylvia out for dinner as a thank you for being such wonderful hosts.  We went to a Chinese buffet that was excellent!  Mickey joined our Skip-bo game in the evening and beat us terribly!

On Monday, we all went to Digby where we met a lady who had a dog just like Lucy but not nearly as cute.  She was an interesting lady who seemed to be employed as a stewardess, health nutritionist, exercise trainer, etc.  I'm not sure if she was telling the truth but she was interesting to listen to.  After we went home, Sylvia and I took a drive into town to Guy's Frenchy, a sort of second hand clothing but some was new.  I only found an interesting looking little child size"Cubs" team shirt I thought I might sell on Ebay.  Sylvia cooked a lovely dinner for us and then we all played Skip-bo again.  I'm addicted!  Then it was time to pack to go home...sad to leave my friend but I had become homesick and was ready to go home.

On Tuesday, we left home a little early because Mickey wanted me to see the "Pumpkin People" in Kentville.  Straw figures dressed in clothing and having pumpkins for heads were all over the town.  Really cute!!  We got to the airport about 1 P.M. and said our goodbyes with loads of hugs but no tears, thank heavens.  I was easy put through Westjet's system with the help of a very friendly and nice employee.  I really have to write to Westjet and tell them just how much I appreciated the treatment I received from their employees.

I then walked up to where the airport restaurants were and immediately found Faye and Marilee!  I wasn't even sure where to find them but just knew they'd be in one of the restaurants...Tim Hortons, it was!  We had a light lunch and then got in the long, long line through security.  I was randomly chosen to be searched but was given the option of the scanner or some kind of wand scanner.  I chose the wand.  Once through security, Faye and I yakked and people watched until we boarded 20 minutes late at about 5:30.  Poor Marilee's plane wouldn't leave until around 9 P.M. but she'd had to return her rental car at 1 P.M. so that's why we were at the airport early.

The flight was great and we arrived in Hamilton at about 7 P.M. (2 hour flight).  We were starved so went to the Village restaurant for chicken marsala which we ate half of and took the rest home for Wednesday's dinner.  Faye stayed over at my place because it had gotten pretty dark and she was tired.  We had a gin and tonic and I, for one, slept like a baby all night!  Faye woke up with a wicked cold that she'd caught from Marilee and headed home first thing in the morning so I wouldn't catch it, too.

And so ended my lovely trip to Nova Scotia where I finally saw and experienced enough to make me feel as though I was actually there.  I'd only ever driven through it many years ago with Dennis, Faye, and Gary.  I'm happily ensconced in my quiet little apartment but will be picked up by Kim after work and taken to the senior center where I'll register for the craft show and then go to Cindy's for dominoes.  My family means everything in the world to me and I love them dearly!

On a sad note, Mickey is having some health problems that we're hoping are not as bad as they look.  He'll have a catscan today and Sylvia will let me know the outcome.