When did I get so old?

One day I was 23 and the next I am over 40! When did that happen? I feel old today, I guess that is why I am thinking about it. Most of the time I don't. Partly because I am so tired, I am exhausted if I am honest, but yet I can't sleep at night. I go to bed and can't get to sleep, then when I do fall asleep I wake up a few short hours later. Then I lie awake for about an hour or sometimes more, until I doze off again. But I don't seem to sleep for the 7 or 8 hours that I need. Unbroken sleep. So I am tired. I am also feeling physically tired, probably because I am not doing anything, just sitting here in front of the computer playing bejeweled, checking email and surfing the net. I don't get much if any exercise, other then running up and down the basement stairs to do laundry. But I can't afford the gym, and it is too cold to get exercise outside. But why do I wake up feeling exhausted? And why do I go to bed feeling like I have been run down by a truck every night? You know that, all-over-body tired feeling? I suppose I will get fit again once I can get to the gym, and for now will just have to get used to being too tired to be bothered to do anything. Until I get to go to work again, which fingers crossed will be soon.

Poor Belinda

Last night we were watching Belinda the bunny eat the food that we had put out for her, when we saw that she was having trouble maintaining her balance. I wondered if she had damaged her back legs, as she seemed to have trouble moving and appeared to be rolling over as she moved around. Then we wondered if she had broken her back, because she was having trouble even staying sitting to eat the food we had put out. When she was finished eating she wasn't even able to get up over the edge of the snow around the tree where she was eating, and eventually sort of slid and rolled her way down under the deck. Poor Belinda, we were decidedly worried. But of course, wild rabbits don't live long and she has been around for about 2 years now, making her elderly in the wild rabbit world. The other night K had startled her when putting out the food and Belinda had sort of jumped sideways landing on her side in the snow and then stayed there while K put out the food, and we wondered if she had twisted something, or perhaps dislocated her knee or something like that. But then today we saw her bounding off along the fence down the side of the garden, so we know that she is ok. She certainly looks in better condition than she did last night, which is a relief. I am thinking that she might have hurt herself, but is bgetting better now, and K thinks that she might have trapped one of her front legs when she tried to jump over the Frost fencing into the next door yard the other day when she was startled by one of us leaving the house. So poor old Belinda is in a bit of a bad way, but hopefully will get better soon. And yes we know that we are making her dependent on us for food, but that is ok, we will always feed her until she is with us no longer.

Libary Books

Why is it that when I find a book I want to read, the library near here doesn't have it on the shelf? I have to request it be brought in from another library. What is also interesting to me is that all the "intellectual" books are at the St. Boniface library, which is in the French Quarter. I am not saying I am surprised that the French quarter has the good books, more that other areas of town don't have academic books. There are several university campuses in town, and St. Boniface is only one of those, not even the largest! Then again I expect that the Universities all have their own libraries, and the books that intellectuals want to read are kept there. So I guess the French Quarter has the highest proportion of academics living there.

So I will request the book I Want to read, and then wait for it to come in. In the meantime I Will walk up to the library here and pick up the other three books that I recently requested. Which will at least mean we will have something to do on Sunday, other than read the back of the cornflakes packet.

Feeling useless

There isn't a more ueseless feeling than knowing that the one that you love is in deep deep pain and there is nothing you can do about it. In this instance there really is nothing that I can do, because I don't understand. I don't know what it is like to have kids, and so I don't know what it feels like when you feel that you are unable to help that child when they need help. So I just have to feel useless. It is not a new feeling for me, but it is one that I really don't enjoy. I hate confrontation, I hate the fear of an argument yet to be had, I fear the torment of uncertainty of security. I can blame that on my parents, because they treated me badly during my childhood. They argued, yelling and screaming at each other in the middle of the night, and then behaving as if nothing had happened the next day. I recall vividly the terror of waking up in the middle of the night hearing the yelling, and not knowing what had caused it. The yelling soon spilled over into the daytime too, and my father would yell and scream about something at the drop of a hat. It was so unpredictable, that even if you tried to predict the screaming, you would live in fear of it happening. To the extent that it eventually became easier to precipitate the anger outburst just to get it over with. So now I have a fear of confrontation, of being yelled at by someone, of having to deal with someone who is so upset that they can't even express themselves properly. Even if that upset is not anger but hurt, and emotional distress. I guess I am just selfish in that I can't cope with the emotional turmoil of the effects that a disturbed childhood have had on a young adult. Someone who doesn't accept that they have a problem and so won't get the professional help they so desperately need, but instead take it out on a defenceless parent. Someone who will suffer the pain three times as much because guilt for causing the distress in another is carried alongside the pain of not being able to help a child, as well as the pain of their own suffering during an abusive relationship. So what does a person sitting on the outside of this do? Give space, obviously wanted by the person who shut themselves in the bedroom without speaking, give time, and give love. But it is not easy.

Just another day

It is just another day in the long, seemingly interminable wait for immigration to do their job. It seems that we may have to wait another 6 months for the paperwork to come through, and I am wondering if I will be able to secure a proper job at the end of it. I mean how long will an employer wait? If only there was some way of knowing where we were in the queue. Like, we just issued a card to number 56789 and you are number 67890. Then at least we would know that we were getting closer. As it is we can only sit and wait watching the snow and feeding the bunny and squirrel.

Talking of which, Belinda, yes the bunny finally got a name, has finally cottoned on to the fact that we are leaving food out for her. We bought some pellets, so that Samantha wouldn't keep stealing her food, and last night she sat munching her way through them happily. Of course we haven't seen Samantha in days, but it has been snowing. I think for 3 days now we have had snow. Not continuously, but just sort of gently. I guess we should be grateful that it is only -15 out there today (celcius), over the weekend it was in the mid to late 30's below, with a windchill that made it impossible to go out. So -15 is positively balmy LOL! Oh well. But I am still enjoying the snow, contrary to popular opinion. Many of my friends thought that I would have cabin fever by now, but I still love to look out of the back window and enjoy the view.

I was reminded of how priviledged we are to live here. An elderly woman was talking about how the state should not dictate to us what we can and can't eat, and for some reason I was filled with the joy of living in Winnipeg. I love the place, I love our house and of course I love my lady. So we will continue to wait for immigration, because in the long run the wait will be worth it.

Almost a waste of life

A friend just emailed me to say that she was finally taking a vacation. I have known her for about 4 years now, and this will be the first time that she has taken a vacation away from DC where she lives, in all that time. She will be out of town for the inauguration. Which is something that most people I know who live in DC will be doing. I will just digress for a moment here to tell you what she said. Apparently they will be closing down DC for half a day before, the whole day of, and half a day after the inauguration itself. They will be maintaining massive security throughout that time, and anyone coming in to the District for the ceremony will be comprehensively searched. All at the expense of the District, which is apparently so poor that it can't currently even keep its own hospital open. I have no doubt that the people who live in DC will not get to hear about the protests that occur during that time, about the near riots, and riots that occur, and the extent of the objection of the populace to the inauguration of Dubbya once again. I know this because I lived in the District for the last inauguration, and we heard nothing of the riots, public dissent and protests that occurred in the town that day. I didn't know about it until K told me what she had seen on TV down in Florida. But then we didn't hear of the opressive tactics of the State Troopers as the prevented the African American population of Florida from voting. Anyway, back to my friend.

She asked me to be proud of her for finally taking a vacation. In my heart I can't help but be worried for her. She is older than me, still owes on her student loans, still lives in fear of her parents' disapproval, and still wonders when her knight in shining armour will come and save her from her dreary life. She sits alone in her life, thinking about what could be, not realising that her life is passing her by. That the longer she sits thinking about doing something, the less likely it is that she will ever get to do it. She and her sister have already planned their old age, they will live in a duplex together, close enough for regular contact without living together. In a woman in her early 40's who is intelligent, beautiful (when she lets herself be) and good fun to be around (when she lets herself be) I find this upsetting. That someone with her level of intelligence can let their life just pass them by in this way is distressing, and of great concern to me. Why don't I do something to help her? I tried. I was a close friend, physically and emotionally, for 3 years, in which time I tried to get her to come out of her self imposed isolation. It worked as long as I pushed her, but if I didn't push her she didn't bother to experience her life as she lived it.

I would love for her to be brave and just pick up and move away somewhere without any plans. To perhaps go to San Francisco for a couple of months, to experience how life can be lived when it is enjoyed by the person living it. But I know she never will. As long as I have known her she has been talking about getting a new job, and yet she is still there, in the same job, with unbelievable pressure and stress, and I know now that she will never leave it until she is forced to. In the meantime I will tell her that I am pleased that she has finally used the air ticket that she bought last summer, and will take time off work. That I hope that she has a good time, that she rests, recuperates, and that she goes back to the District with a renewed approach to life. But I know that she won't, that within days of being back at work she will be just as stressed and just as reclusive as she was before she went away.

I would say that hers is almost a wasted life, except that she has two wonderful nieces, whom she loves dearly and whom love her to death. For them her life is not a waste. But sadly for her it is.

Brad and Jen

I have to say that I was really quite upset that Brad and Jen had split. Not because I know them personally, but because I had thought that they made a lovely couple, and he seemed to love her and she him. But of course, when it is presented on a platter there isn't a man in the world who will try a sample. If the rumours are true then Brad did more than sample, and I find that very disappointing. Why would a man feel the need to sleep with a slut like Angelina when he has a wife like Jennifer waiting for him to come home?

If anyone can explain to me why men have to cheat on their wives like this I would love to know. It seems that no matter how devoted the man is to a woman, and no matter how devoted she is to him, he still feels the need to have sex with someone else when it is offered for the taking.

I have heard about that book "He's just not in to you", I haven't read it, but I have read that some men feel that it unfairly paints them all with the same brush. I was wondering if that was true. Until I heard about Brad and Jen! And now I am afraid I have to assume that all men are the same. My step-daughter is struggling to understand men, she is 20 and trying to find a man with whom she can have a caring relationship, but all they want is sex. When she says no it is too soon, they ignore her and treat her like cat shit on their shoe. Yes she is intelligent, beautiful, and well cultured. What is wrong with men?

Isn't it time we changed society to make unfaithful men a thing of the past? How can we do this? By changing the way that men who screw around are treated. Change society's thinking so that men who screw around are as reviled as women who screw around. See how they deal with being called a slut, a whore, and banished to the sidelines of society because of their sexual urges. Hmm, a bit like they way that society treats homosexuals!

But of course the men would still think it was great for some stud to have spread his seed around 1000 women, so even if slutty men were banished to an island, someone would still think they were gods. In the meantime women have to put up with second best. Not even second best really, they have to put up with men the way they are.

There is of course an alternative explanation for Brad and Jen, that he wanted kids and she didn't. Well here is an idea Brad, how about *you* quit working and stay home to look after the kids while Jen goes on with her movie career? How about you adopt? There must be a million kids needing to be adopted, so adopt one, let Jen carry on working the way men do, and perhaps you can resolve the issues that have wrecked your life together. Either way I side with Jen on this one.

Asking Questions

At some point you have to ask a question. No matter what you are doing, where you are going, or who you are, you have to ask a question. It is the way that you ask the question that matters. Take the other day for example. I was asked the question "what do you know about that?". Well the way it was asked was "that the hell do *you* know about that?". So of course my hackles went straight up, and I replied in a very hostile way. The questioner looked surprised, and then backed down saying "do you need any help?". What he had meant was "do you need me to answer any questions?". But that isn't what he said, and so he lost me, lost my sale, and probably lost me to the store, until such time as I forget that it was that store that I was insulted in, and go back there again. Retrospectively I feel a little sorry for the guy, he was only doing what he was told to do. That being to engage me in conversation about the product, in this case digital cameras, that I was interested in. Had he asked me if I needed help I would have told him that I already own a digicam and was only browsing while I waited for my partner to finish looking at whatever it was that she was looking at. So here is my question for the day. Who thought that an aggressively worded question was the way to open the discussion witha customer over a product that they are interested in? The answer will never be known, but I am willing to be that it was probably an American, someone who had never actually sold anything, let alone worked on a shop floor, let alone dealt with customers. Probably a young, late 20's early 30's, man who had gone straight from college to a lower management position without needing to work his way there by being good at his job. I might be biased, ok I admit that I am biased. I am where I am because I worked damned hard to get here, yet there are children working in positions of influence in society, who got the jobs that they are in simply by passing a few exams. But I digress. Back to my original point. Everyday you have to ask questions. So next time you are about to open your mouth and exercise your vocal cords, think a little bit about how you phrase the question, and then the tone or voice, and intimation that you put into the words, before you vocalise them. Then think about where I am. Passed so many exams that I know hold the highest educational award that is possible on this planet. Yet I am still waiting to hear whether or not I can live in this country, with my partner of 6 years. While I wait I am wasting time surfing the net looking for news articles to interest me, I build furniture, and I watch the squirrel eating the peanuts that I put out for her every morning. Now, ask yourself these questions. Is this a waste of education? Is there something else that I can be doing? Is there something else that I can do to make things move along a little faster? Are there questions that I *should* have asked?

I want to get a dog, it isn't fair that I can't have a dog. But we can't afford one. I would really like to have a little friendly dog running around the house, cuddling up on the sofa, barking at the neighbours. But we will have to wait. We have to wait for everything and it is getting very tedious. Recently I bought a pill box, one of those weekly things with a slot for every day, because I had been forgetting to take my meds. It is very good, I never forget, but it is like a reminder of passing time! It is like that bottle of marbles that did the rounds. Where some idiot worked out that if he lived to be 84 he had about 1000 more Saturdays left, so he bought 1000 marbles and put them in a jar, then every Saturday he took one out, to remind him of how little time he had left! Talk about depressing! I mean sure, when there are still 998 marbles in the jar, but what about when it is less than half full? It would depress the hell out of me, and the stress of wondering when I was going to die would probably do me in! Well sure enough the guy lives longer than 84 and when his jar of marbles ran out he started putting them back in again, and the jar was filling up nicely, in the story I heard anyway. But honestly, what a dumb thing to do eh? But here I am, with my little pill box, ticking off the days in much the same way. Today is Wednesday, so the box is half empty again, another reminder of another empty week. Still waiting to hear from Immigration, still waiting to know whether K and I will be able to continue living together in our nice little home, in this beautiful city. Or if we will have to relocate to the YUK, live in a one room bedsit hell hole, working in a pub to put food on the table and hating every minute while we wait for our appeal to be heard in Canada. We wouldn't be able to have a dog there for sure! Mind you if we did have a dog we would get welfare for it in the YUK, that would be one thing, hmmmm now there's an idea!

New books and old TV.

Here we are, in the New Year. Well nothing feels different to me, nothing *is* different! Even the TV is reruns! I have never seen such a load of old socks scheduled for a Saturday night since my teenage years in the UK, when the most exciting thing on was Seaside Special with Little and Large! So I read a book. It was by an author who is new to me, Kathy Reichs. I have to say that I really enjoyed the book. She is a very intelligent author, she creates wonderful imagery with her well constructed sentences. I would love to be able to write as well as she does. The books are about a forensic anthropologist who divides her time between Charlotte in South Carolina, and Montreal in Quebec. This was the second in her series of books, Death du Jour. Very good. If you like Particia Cornwell you will love Kathy Reichs. Infact if you haven't finished reading the PC series, you shouldn't read KR, because you will not want to go back to PC afterwards. Her main character, Temperance Brennan, makes Kay Scarpetta look like a self indulgent spoiled princess!

I really enjoyed the Scarpetta books, up until Point of Origin. I think that was the book when I started to think 'oh for god's sake'. The stories were getting more ridiculous, and the criminals were getting really silly. Mind you I have read them all, I am waiting for Trace to become available at the library as I will no longer spend the money on the books, but I will still read it. K hasn't read a PC book since Black Notice. I get the feeling that PC wants to kill off KS in the same way that Agatha Christie wanted to kill off Poirot. I also get the impression that PC wants the Scarpetta character to go off in a different direction, but that the publishers won't let her. But I do hate the way that PC has stereotyped her characters to the point of stupidity. In the last book, Blow Fly, she had Lucy the lesbian lusting after every single woman she clapped eyes on! It was crazy, and PC should know better. Mind you that book was totally ridiculous, to bring back a character that was killed off for the good of the world in an earlier book, for no apparent reason, was absolutely the most ridiculous thing ever, and to think that her readers would believe that Pete was able to keep a secret from Kay for 6 years was even more ludicrous! I also got the feeling that the book either hadn't been written by PC, or that she had written it as part of the Judy Hammer series, and then had to change it into a Scarpetta book because her publisher told her to. The style was so very different from her former Scarpetta books. I have heard that PC is now so full of her own self importance that she might not even care what her readers think. That would be a great tragedy. An author should never assume that her readers are less intelligent than s/he is. It is a great insult. PC has been making that mistake for a few books now, getting more and more obvious since PoO. Of course all this is just my opinion, and if you have read PC and like her stuff, and disagree with what I have to say, then I would love to hear from you! No one will write to me, I realise that.

But go out and get a Kathy Reichs, read it with a good cup of tea and a big bag of chips, and you will have a great evening! Better than watching reruns of Sue Thomas FBEye.

What next? And other things.

What next? I ask. What next indeed. Today it is snowing, we had about 2 feet of snow over night and the backdoor is blocked, fortunately the front door is openable, if we need to go out, but I doubt that we will. K is not working today, so we will spend the day together, something we haven't done in a while it seems. It is nice when you find someone that you can be with in silence, no words are necessary, but then again you can talk about anything that comes to mind. I am sure that today we will cover numerous topics, including her ex, her cousins, her daughter, her mother, my mother, my neice, my BIL, the snow. But it is all good. Just being together is the most important part of it all, and being snowed in makes it just that much better, no one will drop in, and there is no reason to go out. Well except I should shovel off the deck, but that can wait till it stops snowing. My car is completely buried too LOL! Just as well we won't be driving that for a few more months eh?

So what is next? Well I guess more waiting. Waiting for Immigration to reach my part of the priority pile. I had to laugh last night when they were saying that they would expedite the immigration for those people from Asia who suffered in the tsunami. At the end of the report, having said that they were going to expedite the immigration applications, they then said that people would be able to move here in a year! Which is probably about right. I wonder if I have to wait another 6 months before I hear anything? I hope not, I really do hope not. I think it is about time that the Canadian government made a decision about what they want here, because having reduced the requirements for immigration in an attempt at inducing more people to want to come here, they are now so backed up that it is taking some people 2 or 3 years to get their paperwork! Which is ridiculous! Why aren't the government taking on more officials to deal with the extra applications that they themselves have caused? Oh yes come to Canada, it is even easier to immmigrate here now! You only need to score 67 points on our eligibility scale to come in! Instead of the previous 75! Of course it will take 5 years before you can come in! It is quicker to get a green card in the States! So we will continue to wait. For as long as it takes. To live on the edge of poverty, K can't earn enough to pay our bills, so we have to live off savings, in the meantime there is nothing that I can do to earn money, so I have to sit at home, not spending, which isn't difficult, and wait. Perhaps I could learn to twiddle my thumbs.

Dogs in the Snow

Yesterday we drove MIL back home, we didn't stop long as the roads were pretty slippery, and there was frozen fog making visibility not great. On the way back, we were only about 50km along when we spotted a dog sitting at the side of the road. In the middle of nowhere! No houses anywhere in sight, no cars stopped, nothing. So we stopped, and opened the car door, when the dog promptly leapt in! Then we realised that there was another dog sitting off in the snow. Both dogs got into the car and we decided to head off towards civilization. The dogs were very well behaved, they sat calmly and quietly on the back seat as we drove along. We went about 15km till we came to a police station. Both dogs were well fed, well cared for, they clearly had their teeth cleaned regularly, and were well behaved. Neither dog was covered in snow, considering it was -20 degrees out, they weren't even that cold. It was pretty obvious that they hadn't had to walk far because their feet and legs weren't covered in snow or ice, and we wondered if they had been dumped off! Anyway, the police were able to trace the owners because one of the dogs had a tattoo in her ear. The policeman commented that he knew the owners and that they were "good people", but I have to ask the question how did the dogs get there? Why were they there? And what the hell were the owners doing letting the dogs run out to the highway (transcanada) in -20 degree weather?

Of course this time of year there are bound to be any number of dogs and cats abandoned, mainly due to being bought at Christmas without the purchaser realising how much time and effort a pet takes. Just another drain on the already overstretched public servants that make up the police and pet rescue places.

Random Thoughts

I just phoned the car hire company to let them know that we will be keeping the car for another couple of days, we will be taking MIL back tomorrow, so will return the car Thursday, and there was no reply! I expect that they are not open today, which is weird considering I was supposed to take the car back today, and haven't paid for it yet! But that is up to them. So I left a message after the beeps, if that was an answer phone, and if it wasn't then that is not my problem. But it is a little weird that they don't have a proper answerphone, or that they are closed on that day. There was no mention of it when I took the car out!

Anyway, today we are going to head into town to a Dim Sum restaurant in China Town, to see what it is like. If it doesn't work out we will go to the Forks for lunch. We will go to the Forks anyway, because MIL loves it there. It is a very nice place I have to admit. It reminds me of Covent Garden in London, except it is indoors, and much cleaner. But the idea is still there. Apparently we will be heading up the tower so that MIL can look out at the snow covered scenery. She loves the snow. I think that she was secretly hoping to be snowed in here, but we haven't had that much snow. Anyway, we will take her there today, and hopefully she will have a good time. She doesn't want to be a pain in the bum (she says) but doesn't realise that she isn't being a pain, we enjoy doing stuff like that too. Last night we went to the Winter Wonderland Lights, out at the Red River Exhibition Park. She was on the verge of saying that she didn't want to go, but I said I wanted to go, so we went. She had a good time. It was a very beautiful display too, much better than the one I went to in Maryland 2 years ago. The light displays were more solid looking, and less bent into shape looking. They had a lot of new ones too, which was nice as MIL and K had been last year. But I suspect that you wouldn't get bored of seeing the lights even if they were the same every year. The car ahead of us was taking pictures of the lights, but they had the flash on! So I expect that their pics will come out looking like the lights aren't on! LOL talk about dumb.

Samantha came by today, but didn't ask for food, she has been stealing the food that we put out for the bunny, and just now the HUGEST crow/raven came by and took some of the bread that is out there. So the animals are happy too. Joy to the world.

All Done

That's it for another year. The presents unwrapped, cooed over, and put away. The turkey eaten, demolished actually, and the last of the Christmas desserts sitting in the fridge waiting to be finished off. Now we are in that anticlimactic period between Christmas and New Year, when there isn't really anything to do but sit around. Well that is not strictly true, we will be taking my MIL to look at the lights tonight. There is a huge display of lights, arranged in pretty scenes, on the outskirts of town, so we will drive out there tonight. I hope that it will not be too long a day for her, she is getting slower with time. But it will be a nice evening none the less.

We were planning on having New Year with our neighbour, she invited herself over (LOL), but now has made other plans, so I am not sure what we will do. I am not a big an of New Year, I always thought it was overblown. As a kid I would sit home and watch TV on my own, as my parents were out partying, and my sister was out partying. That was fine by me. Sometimes I would even go to bed before midnight. I remember for many years watching the end of year Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC. It was always a peaceful way to spend the evening as I recall. No pomp and circumstance, no false hopes to be shattered. I guess that was it more than anything else, the knowledge that you hoped things would be different, and they never were. Nothing changes on the 1st January, except the year! I have tried to make resolutions, but they are always forgotten by the 2nd, so what is the point? The only resolution I remember making was when I was 20 and resolved to give up smoking, it lasted a week. I think that was when I stopped making them. But that doesn't mean that people shouldn't look forward to the New Year, there is always the hope that it will bring about change. Not on a global scale of course, but even on a small, personal scale, change may come about if you want it to. And if everyone in the world resolved to stop disagreeing with other people, perhaps global change would occur. But then again, it is so unlikely as to not even be worth thinking about.

So on that cheerful note, with a warm glow in my heart, I wish you all a peaceful week while you wait for the celebrations that are upcoming this weekend. Whatever you decide to do, I hope you stay safe and warm. And of course happy.

Merry Christmas

It is finally the big day. We are in the middle of the round of phone calls, my mother in law is still sleeping, and there is a beautiful blue sky, bright sun, and glistening snow outside the house to cheer us up. What a wonderful time of year. No matter what your religion or origin, if you live in the West you will be bombarded by Christmas. Which of course is just another of the Pagan holidays incorporated into the Christian Calendar by the Romans as they made non-believers follow their doctrines. But let's not dwell upon the past, let's look to the future. Because Christmas, Winter Solstice, Hannukah, whatever you celebrate at this time of year, is a forward looking celebration. People wish for good things to happen, for peace to reign on earth, and for the poor and needy people of this world to get a solution to their problems. Of course it will never happen as long as there is money. People who have lots of it want more, and people who have none, need more. But I digress. My MIL is up and about, I am about to emtpy the dryer of the laundry, then it will be present opening time! K is desperate to open her presents, and I am intrigued to know what is wrapped inside the glittery paper bedecked with ribbons and bows.

So no matter what you are celebrating this year, give of yourself freely, think of others before you think of yourself, and open your hearts and minds to the opinions and beliefs of others.

Sleeping like a baby

My mother in law is sleeping. This might not seem strange, being as it is 2.30pm and she is 87, but when you put it into context it is. She didn't get out of bed until 11am this morning! When she did finally appear K had gone to work, and I was about to go out for the Christmas sprouts. I guess as you get older you revert to your old sleeping habits, ie those of a small child, sleeping at every available opportunity, even when you don't really need to sleep. It is ok, I am making cookies for the mailman, finishing off the florentines that K made yesterday (coating them in chocolate), and doing a few odds and ends around the house getting ready for Christmas.

Oh, here is my vent for the day! I had to go and get air put into the tires on this dumb rental car that I have. One of the tires was all but flat! I know that it was a cheap car, but honestly. And I have the feeling that the transmission is about to die on it too. I put my foot down at the tire place and nothing happened. Now admittedly the parking lot was covered in snow and ice, but I think that the wheels should have at least spun around some! Maybe they did, and "The Christmas Shoes" was playing so loudly that I didn't hear the wheel spin. That bloody song will be the death of me I swear. I think I have mentioned it before. Oh and I remembered the name of that band that plays those god-awful Christmas tunes on the cheap radio stations, Manheim Steamroller! ARGH! That I can do with out! And Kenny G!!!! So now I have to go and retune the radio, get on with the cookies, and then check out if my MIL wants a cup of tea.

Later

Have a safe journey

Yesterday my mother in law travelled a short 220 km on a greyhound bus to join us for the festivities. Ordinarily I would have rented a car and driven over to pick her up, but she insisted that she would be ok on the bus. Well the bus must have been on its last legs, that or the heater had died and the driver had tried some imaginative plumbing to fix the problem, because she said that the fumes from the engine were blowing into the bus through the heating vent. The stench of diesel eventually, and inevitably, made her sick, fortunately (if you can use that word) she was only a short distance from her destination, and so didn't have to sit on the bus much longer, but at her age this was a very distressing thing to happen. I have often sat on buses where the fumes from the exhaust seem to be blowing directly into the passenger compartment, and I have never understood why that would be. You would think that the bus companies would want to make sure that their passengers were comfortable, more specifically that they didn't get sick! But I guess profits override all other concerns. She is ok, she was fine by the time she got to the house, ate a huge dinner and went to bed to read her book, so no long lasting damage was done. Other than to her pride, and I suspect to her dignity. I think she is realising that she is getting older and is no longer able to do the things that she used to be able to do easily. We are wondering if she is eating properly too, so we will look into meals on wheels, and getting a maid to come in and clean the house for her every so often. It is a fact of life that we grow old, and it seems increasingly more common for families to post old people in homes, but in this instance it would be the worst thing to happen, because my mother in law is very independent, and she likes her own space. As long as she is able to, we want her to stay in her apartment building, where all the old ladies have lived for years, they have known each other for 30 years, and look out for each other. Hopefully my papers will come through in the not too distant future and we will be able to drive over to see her once a month or so. So if you are into that sort of thing, could you pray for us? Put in a good word with the man upstairs. Thanks.

If you are travelling to be with your family this year, please take care, arrive in good shape. And have a good time with the people you are with, because you don't know how much longer it will last.

Research before you buy

In this day and age, with the internet they way it is, there really is no excuse for not doing research on something before you invest money in it. Several times recently I have visited web sites that have virtual tours on them, this is a nice idea, expecially for home sales, or people who are proud of their houses, work place whatever. Today I went to a web site for a store that sells essential oils. We have purchased oils from them in the past. They have one of these virtual tours of their store, restaurant and health and beauty salon on the top floor of their building. Just out of interest I went to the home page of the company that does these virtual tours, I am guessing that they provide the hardware to create the tour, and then host it on their server, and on the front page they proclaim how proud they are to be supporters of the local hunting and shooting club here in Winnipeg! Not only that, if you click on the link to find out more about the company, you get to read an essay on how the CEO of the company loves hunting and killing things, and indeed was only 12 years old when he killed his first whitetail! Now I understand that people enjoy the (so called) sport of hunting, I myself come from a family of country bred people for whom hunting was a sport, a necessity in some instances to keep the rabbit population down, and I am not saying that I think it is an abhorance that should be banned from the face of the earth, I realise that in certain cicumstances hunting is the best way to keep down the population of animals that have become a pest in the local environment. What I object to is this so called healthy, peace loving, gentle and spiritual group who call themselves apothecrists are appearing to condone the unnecessary sport of klling deer in Manitoba! I know that deer aren't a pest here, because unlike in Maryland, where deer were omnipresent ( even have antler marks on my car to prove it), I do not see deer on the sides of the roads in town! The only animal that might be considered a pest in Winnipeg is the squirrel, because there are so many of them! Even if hunting is a sport that people should be left to enjoy (yeah ok) a group of healthy, peace loving people should not be happy about being linked to a group that so clearly admires the ability to kill a defenseless animal using a high technology rifle. Clearly the apothecary did not bother to look into the background of the company they hired, or more likely the web design company that designed their web site hired. Which brings me to my initial point, that with the internet the way it is today there is no excuse for researching before purchasing! Especially when you are tryig to present your services and products to the world!

Or am I alone in this thought? Do people use the internet to its fullest extent? Do people care enough to worry about what someone else represents, and how using their services might affect their public face? I am beginning to wonder.

Why?

Why is my ex boss such a moron? Why are *all* my ex bosses morons? Is it me? I am now the boss, and I am wondering if my people will think I am as stupid as I have thought my bosses have been. It is a worry! This last boss has been on my case about writing up a paper of the work that I completed while working for him. Well I didn't have all the information, I was waiting to get data from another group, now he has decided that the guy who preceeded me, there were 2 years between us, and I should combine our data to produce one paper, instead of two separate ones. Well fine, ok, whatever. But then he has the nerve to send me the outline of this paper. He has to be joking! There isn't a journal in the world that will print a paper with 10 figures!!!!!! He tells me that my figures are the first 4, ok great, but then at least two of the other 6 figures will include my data, will he be expecting me to generate those figures too? He also wrote to say that I was expected to write up my section of the paper, and get it to him as soon as possible. Well excuse me, but I still don't have the data from the other group, they were supposed to get it to me in September, here it is in December already and I am still waiting, and whenever I contact them about it they say, oh yes, the tech is away, she will get it done when she gets back! So here I sit waiting. While my brain dead ex boss thinks that I am procrastinating and not getting on with the work that he is expecting me to do! I dont know, maybe I am being unreasonable, but I just don't get where his head is at.

P.S.

I forgot to say that Inglis have generously offered to replace the defective grill/roasting pan! Mind you we have to mail it to their offices in Mississauga, and they will send another by return. So it will still end up costing us money. Well not necessarily, I will email the woman and tell her that we find her company very generous, and hope that they will be refunding up the cost of postage. Watch this space for further developments.