p.s.

Even though it is snowing, well it was this morning, I still feel cheated! It is nearly the end of January, we haven't got more than about a foot of snow on the ground, and the temperature is warm enough to go without gloves! Bah humbug! I want 6 feet of snow and -40 degree temperatures! That is a real Winter, none of this slushing about in the brown and black stuff that is piled up in the gutter pretending to be snow. But at least we got a sunny day today, it has been a long time since we saw much sun.

But LET IT SNOW!

Please.

Exquisite Loneliness

I was just sitting listening to Barbra Streisand singing something from her Guilty album, and it reminded me of when I first moved to the US. When I first moved I had only a CD player and a few CD's to listen to. When I say a few I mean about 20. I also had a few Patricia Cornwell books to read. So I spent all my evenings, and every weekend, reading and listening to music. As a result, certain CD's evoke memories from that time.

The Barbra CD's in particular evoke a strange feeling in me that I have been at a loss to describe. It is a feeling that I enjoyed very much, but isn't one that I would want to revisit. Today I realised what that feeling was. It was Exquisite Loneliness! It was the first time in my life that I had felt truly alone. That no one was watching me, or even interested in what I was doing. I felt anonymous, insignificant, and completely free. Unless you know what it is like to live your life in the shadow of overbearing parents, who know more people in the town that you live in, than you can ever hope to know, you have no idea how wonderful it was to be that much alone.

I would never want to revisit that time because it was very difficult for many reasons, not least K and I were separated, and struggling to build our embryonic partnership that had very shaky foundations. In addition I had many many life lessons yet to learn. But I wouldn't change a thing, and now when I listen to Guilty, and remember how I felt for those first few months in the US, I appreciate how far I have come. I appreciate the lessons I learned, and most of all I appreciate that I was able to make the move away from the UK. A move that meant that although I was lonely and alone, I was always moving on towards today.

Thursday morning blues

I really don't like Thursdays. I realised this several years ago when I was working for the b*tch from h*ll. I was walking in to work, I had to walk about a mile from the nearest bus stop to the lab, but that was ok it was through a park. It was a Thursday, about 11.30am, and I was completely exhausted. I needed to sleep in to catch up on my lack of sleep from having to get up early to get to work, but I couldn't sleep in because I had to go to work. Anyway, I am rambling, but that is when I realised that I don't like Thursdays. They are a non-day. You can't start anything in the lab on a Thursday because tomorrow is Friday and then it is the weekend! In the days when I worked 7 days a week I guess it didn't matter, but now I don't work weekends, so Thursdays suck. So I am sitting here, knowing I have to iron my shirt, and technically I should make my lunch, but I am not going to today. It is 8am and I should be in the shower already! but it is Thursday. So I am reading blogs and wondering what makes someone think that what they have to say is going to be remotely interesting to another person, then I think hmm I should write in my blog. But no one will be interested. So what they hey.

Now I am worrying about the icicles that are hanging off the gutter, I guess I should shovel my way around the side of the house to knock them down. Maybe on the weekend. K and Bunty are both still asleep, although Bunty has at least been outside for her morning toilet. She hasn't had any food yet, but she hasn't been nagging for it so I will leave that to K. Ok now I am realdy to get in the shower. Oh wait, I should iron my shirt first. I will just check the news in case something has happened since I checked 10 minutes ago............

Happy New Year

How is everyone enjoying the new year? I ave never really been one of those people who makes a big thing of the new year. When I was a kid I used to sit and watch the Old Greay Whistle Test on the BBC, they would play a selection of the best of the previous year. Then at midnight I would go to bed. My parents and sister would be out partying, but I just never saw the point. It is only another day. Bah humbug? Probably yes. I don't bother with resolutions either. They always get broken within days if not weeks. But the last couple of years I have tried to make a list of things that I wish to accomplish over the next 12 months. I don't write it down though. So this time I have decided, now that I have a blog, that I will write it down for posterity. And so that I can come back and check up on my progress. So here goes. By the end of 2006 I would like to have another grant (for my work), I would like to have finished decorating the house, we still have 3 rooms to go, sorry 4 if you count the porch, but that is nearly done. I would like to have got rid of all the make-do furniture that we have. We are down to a sofa and some shelving in the bedroom, so that shouldn't be too difficult to achieve. And I would like to have made a difference to at least one person's life. Hmm, now I look at my list it seems that this stuff is all pretty much what I *should* be doing, rather than something that I wouldn't achieve in a year anyway. Hmm. I will have to try to think of something else to do that is more significant.

In the meantime I will go back to the wallpaper books that we have borrowed, and try to decide whether to go for red monkey wall paper, or green ferns, or cream monkey wall paper. Big decisions!

Be happy.

Bunty Speaks

Hi all, Bunty here. My people are sitting watching the box in the corner of the room. I have had a great day. First off I got breakfast without having to beg too much, which is a good thing because all that begging is tiresome. Then, and this was the best, I found a bag of treats on the floor. I don't think my people knew it was there because they didn't stop me from eating all the treats out of it! So I got to eat 5 Bonio's and 6 Good Boys, and one of those weird star shaped things that tastes really good. Then I got a new toy, which was all hairy, but I managed to pull all the hair off it. It is now bald, but it still makes a weird growly noise when I pick it up. I suspect that if I manage to pull its tail off it will stop making that noise. That is my current challenge and I am working on it in between sleeps. The people ate lots of food, they ate all day long actually, which I found rather annoying because that is what I would like to do but they won't let me! Anyway, I did get a rather lovely dinner of turkey and sweet potatoes, it came out of a can so I know it was cooked, and I didn't have to scrape the meat off the bones like the people did.

Anyway, I am going to sit by the door and hope they notice that I want to go for a walk. Then I will chew some more hair off the growly toy and then go to sleep. It is all go I tell you!

Signed, Bunty.

Old friends and gall bladders

Isn't is weird how sometimes you can think, hmm I haven't heard from so-and-so recently, and then an email from them pops into your inbox? Well just such a thing happened today. I got an email from an old friend of mine from back in the YUK. She and I used to be good friends, but for some reason we lost touch, I think it was mainly because she decided that I was too weird. But then about two months ago she emailed me to say that she didn't know why we lost touch, but that she wanted to get in touch again. Today she emailed me a long catch-up on her life. It was nice to read that she is ok.

On another cheery note, an old friend of mine from back in 1982 is coming to stay for a couple of days. He and I were at college together, he is an engineer and does some secret work for the government now. Last time I saw him we were in our early 20's and he had just got engaged to his now wife. They have two great kids, and are still happy together which is really nice. And I have to say, pretty unusual LOL! I am not sure what we will talk about though, mostly reminising probably.

K won't be able to join us as we galavant around town though, she had her gall bladder removed on Thursday, and is recuperating in bed. She is a really bad patient too, always needing things and complaining of being bored. Then last night, when everything was going well, she decided to get up without my assistance and hurt one of her incisions, so now she is in pain. And won't take medication because she doesn't like to ARGH! I hope she is able to get up and about by Monday, then she can come along with Andy and I as we go places. He leaves on Tuesday.

Weirdly enough my horoscope for today said "A friend you haven't seen for a while makes a reappearance. "

Spooky.

What's this? A new post?

I knew that would happen. I got out of the habit of posting. Now I am busy, working (yipee it all came through) and spending time with my family. Bunty is still great fun, she has the boudoir coming today, so she will be all princess like and proud by the time I get home. K has surgery scheduled for her gall bladder, next week, so that will be a worry, and in the meantime it is -22 degrees and I forgot to plug the block heater in last night. SO I will do it on my way to the bus, and hope that it is ok for this afternoon when I take the car to get its federal inspection done. Which is a joke. I had to get a "child restraint kit", had to be ordered from Toyota Canada. I picked it up yesterday, cost me 8 bucks and is a metal thing about the size of a business card, that is supposed to be bolted to the back shelf of your car. I tell you, it wouldn't hold down most kids *I* know! Good thing is it doesn't need to be installed, just there in the car. So it is off to Crappy Tire to get the inspection done, then we can finally register and insure the car, and all will be well in Snowy Peg.

Happy jumbling.

What is normal anyway?

Everyone assumes that their lives are normal. You assume that they way you were brought up was normal, whilst you are living your childhood anyway. I agree that some people come to the realisation at some point, that their childhood wasn't normal. But I digress briefly. Today K and I will attend a wedding. I will be wearing a cream suit with a red shirt and a red sequined cowboy hat. K will be wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit with a red camsole, no hat. So she commented that she wished she had some red shoes, and I agreed, that red shoes would go well with my outfit too. I then went on to say that my father had some red sequined stiletto heels that I could have worn with my outfit. What is wrong with that? She laughed and left the room. Well? That for me was normal! My father was an actor, and from time to time dragged up for music hall performances. So he owned dresses, wigs and stillies! And one pair of those stillies were red sequined. Normal. It got me thinking about normality, and I realise that my upbringing was anything but normal, but I wonder what normal is. Because there are things that I remember doing that I look back on now and thing how awful that was to have to do, like stealing food from the cupboard because I was hungry and too scared to ask for food. My sister and I got really good at taking small enough pieces of stuff that no one would notice some gone. And then when we were older (early teens) we could just blame my father, who by then was losing his mind, the fact that my mother hated him and was happy to blame him for anything was an added bonus. But that is terrible, to have to steal food! We also lived in fear of my mother's anger. It seemed to me that she was permanently in a bad mood, probably brought on by my father's increasingly antisocial behaviour, but not a great atmosphere when you are a kid. But it was normal, and you adapt and learn to avoid confrontation. But I get back to the shoes. There must be thousands of kids out there who know about their fathers stash of ladies clothes, who think that all dads dress up in ladies clothes when no one else is about, who think that it is normal.

I still don't have any red sequined stillies to wear with my red sequined cowboy hat. But I will enjoy the wedding anyway. I hope.

Later

p.s.

Just thought I should add, my step daughter has just landed a really amazing job! She will be working for one of the largest Marketing Companies in the world, and she is really buzzed as you can imagine. K is on the phone to her now talking it through, she is really jazzed.

Now Bunty has come in again, no doubt she will nag some more about going out.

Hotter than DC, bread baking

So here I am, sitting at my computer, at 8.32pm, and it is 41 degrees!!!! When I lived in DC it wasn't this hot, to my recollection anyway. We don't have A/C which is probably part of the reason. But that aside, my bread worked today as per normal!! So there you go, all those people who say you can't bake bread when it is hot outside ner ner ner ner ner. The only thing, and if anyone has any ideas about this I would love to hear them, the dough I make makes fabulous rolls, but the loaves are always too dry and a little dusty. Now according to a web site that I went to that was all about bread, that is because I let the dough rise for too long. I could buy that except that the loaves and the rolls rise for the same amount of time. I also, on the batch before this last one, put the loaf in the oven before the rolls, so that it didn't rise for as long. Yet it was still dry. It isn't inedible, it is just that it falls apart when you eat your sandwiches. So like I say, it you have any ideas on that, I would love to hear them.

Now Bunty is scratching at the door trying to get me to take her for a walk. Which I will do of course, whilst K is washing the dishes, but I am not ready to go yet. Give it another 20 minutes or so. Hopefully it will have cooled down somewhat by then.

Yeah dream on.

Shocking and sad news from the UK.

................................
BBC NEWS
................................
TOP STORIES

* Man shot dead by police on Tube *
A man is shot dead by armed officers at Stockwell station in south London, as police hunt four would-be bombers.
Full story:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/-/1/hi/uk/4706787.stm

I am deeply saddened by this story. While I appreciate that the Police have to do whatever they can to maintain the safety of the public, the news that they have shot someone to death is like a punch in the stomach. I suppose I always felt that the British Police would do whatever they could to avoid using fire arms to apprehend someone. Now it seems that line has been crossed. I really hope that the country doesn't plummet in a downward spiral where the public are afraid of the police the way so many people are in the US.

Dragonflies vs mosiquitos

I took the Buntster for a walk yesterday, it was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, and there was a nice cooling breeze. I coated myself with deet before leaving the house to be sure, but I still expected to be attacked by mozzies as soon as I walked out of the house. I was not disappointed. Anyway, Bunty and I went up to Churchill park, the river has burst its banks there, and last time we were there large areas of the park were under water. Well yesterday the river had receeded probably by about 3 feet. So although there were still lots of large areas of water on the grass, there were also large areas of muddy grass. To be quite honest, the park stank of rotting vegetation, but Bunty didn't seem to mind.

I let her off the leash (illegal in Winnipeg I know, but I thought what the hell, everyone else lets their dog off the leash) and she headed off into the bushes. Well of course she picks up the trail of a bunny and off she went, disregarding my whistling and calling, until eventually she lost track of the rabbit. I wasn't too worried, except she was right by the river, and I was worried she might fall in. The current is very swift with the extra water, and I was worried she might get washed away. She didn't and we soon settled in to a routine of her running head and then running back to where I was.

By the time we got past the bridge to the larger areas of grass Bunty was having a whale of a time. And I was being bombarded by dragonflies! Thousands of them. It reminded me of last summer in Maryland when the cicadas came out (the ones that come out every 17 years), and there were so many of them that they swarmed around and you had to wave them away from your face. I had to wave the dragonflies away from my face. But sadly there were still not enough to keep the mozzie population down to a tolerable level. I was attacked by mozzies constantly, unless I was in the direct sun. It is a great shame, but the Province has now ordered the city to fog the entire metropolitan area. This means that the dragonflies and fireflies, and probably a lot of the small song birds, will also be killed off. As much as I admire the attempts of the city to treat the mozzie plague with biological predators, clearly it didn't work this time around. I wonder how much the rain, that we have had so much of, had to do with that.

So even though there are thousands upon thousands of dragonflies flying around the area, they are still not a match for the mozzies.

Meanwhile, Bunty got to run, play in the grass, and splash through the water left behind by the over flowing river. Suffice it to say that she still wanted to go out for a walk last night.

Update to Bloody Hell

So the plumber has been. A very nice man called Kurt. Cleaned up after himself very nicely, and was very careful whilst he was here. He was here for over 4 hours!!! But he has fixed the loo. We now have a nice new stack in the basement. He replaced the old steel one with a nice plastic one, so that will fix the problem once and for all. He also replaced the wax seal on the toilet because the last jerk didn't bother, and the loo was leaking water down into the basement ever since! So 750 bucks later, we have a fixed toilet. Except for the flush lever and ball cock. I have to replace those myself. I will think about that later in the week. But I am glad that we went with a plumber that charged by the job and not the hour, and also one that provided us with a guarantee that the work done would solve the problem!

He even wore little booties when in the house!

Bloody Hell

The plumber is here again. A different man, from a different company this time. He actually had a good explanation for the toilet being blocked on an intermittent basis. He thinks that when the roofers did their job they accidentally dropped a piece of shingle down the flue and it is now acting as a sort of valve, flipping around with the water flow, which is why the loo blocks up from time to time and is fixed by augering. Bloody hell!!! I feel like contacting our solicitor and having her sue the roofers!!! I have to talk to him about finding out if that is the case and seeing how to fix it because we can't afford to pay out 200 bucks a month to have someone come out and auger the lav.

Bloody hell!!!

As good as it gets

I took Bunty for a walk yesterday. She has been whining a lot the last few days and someone suggested that I exercise her more :( Anyway, we walked up to Safeway (I had to buy Deet) and then back along the river. In total about 4 miles. I let her off the leash in the park by the river (shhh) so that she could run a little, and she did. She had a whale of a time. The river has burst its banks along the park that we were in, so there was lots of shallow "lakes" for her to paddle in and drink. At one point I thought she might got for a swim, but she got up to her chest and then when her bum got wet she decided not to go any further. But I digress. It was quite amazing walking along. Even walking along the streets to the river from Safeway. Because there was no one else around. No one even in their back garden. The only people I saw were roofers. And there were several lots of roofers at work. It was truly beautiful. The sky was blue, the trees fluorescing with energy, and the birds seranading us as we strolled along. Then in the park, being dive bombed by the dragon flies as we walked in the dappled shade of the large trees, to be near the water, in the silence of nature, was so relaxing. I know Bunty enjoyed her walk, and her run, and enjoyed being able to sniff at something for longer than I wanted to stand still for. This is what we should all be living for. The chance to just be at one with the planet, to enjoy the natural sounds of wild life going about their daily business. Last night, on our evening perambulations, Bunty and I saw a pair of pelicans on the river! I have only seen Pelicans (outside the zoo) in the Mediterranean, so I was awestruck by the sight of them, gliding over the water, landing and then being swept back downstream by the strong current. An awesome sight.


Our back garden is full of birds and dragon flies too, but because we live on a busy street, there is always the sound of other people driving by on their way to do something irrelevant to me. And then when there is a moment of peace, the fire engines blast their sirens to alert the traffic of their intentions to turn onto the Avenue. Oh and I forgot the trains! As if to remind me one is now blowing its horn as it approaches the junction. But even all that man made noise doesn't stop me from enjoying my garden. I spent several hours reading a George Baxt novel (The Bette Davis Murders) in the sun yesterday. Bliss. I might retire to the garden to sit beneath my blue floral umbrella, and read Agatha Raisin and the Murderous Marriage. Then again, I might just sit and enjoy the sounds of nature, the sight of the river rushing past at full speed at the bottom of the garden, and the blue skies above.

This is about as good as it gets.

Poor Bunty

We discovered the other night, when Bunty woke us up whimpering and skittering around in the bedroom, that she is scared of thunder. Well I kind of knew this already but it didn't surface as a reason for her fear at 2am!! That night she ended up sleeping on her new doggie bed, curled up in the corner of our bedroom. Well it thundered again today. It is still raining actually, at 6.03pm. Poor Bunty tried to hide from the thunder, and after trying to get her to settle on her pillow under the chair next to my computer she settled for being curled up on my feet under the table. Until the loudest thunder clap yet. At which point she tried to get on my lap. Now Bunty is not a lap dog. For a start she weighs in at over 25kg. That added to the fact that she hates being on our laps, she goes as stiff as a very stiff thing when you pick her up to put her on your lap and escapes as soon as she can, made it quite surprising when she tried to climb in my lap. But as she was clearly very scared, she was shaking and her ears were tight back against her head, made me realise that this was an exceptional circumstance. So I cuddled her for about 10 minutes, until she decided that the danger was over, but decided that she would still rather be safe than sorry and returned to her position under the table.

Poor little doggie. She hasn't been out for a pee all day. You see that is another issue we have with our little princess. She doesn't like to get wet, not because she will melt in the rain or anything, but she is concerned that her tiara will not survive a soaking. So to my knowledge she hasn't been out at all today, unless K let her out first thing this morning. I didn't get up until the thunder began after 9am, by which time K had been gone for half an hour at least. Now she is sleeping quietly on the doggie bed beside the desk having eaten a tin of Little Ceasar duck flavoured dinner.

So all is well with the world.

Toxic People and Black Eyed Peas

I have just had lunch with some people whom K and I had decided we didn't want to waste any more of our life with. Ok back up a little, why was I having lunch with people I didn't want to spend time with? Because one of them is the neice of my MIL (K's cousin in other words) and her partner. My MIL is staying with us at the moment and wanted to see her neice, fair enough (I am a fairy, my name is Nuff, Fairy Nuff!) and K was working today so couldn't do lunch, therefore I drove MIL to the lunch and joined them. So there I was, sitting there with two people I would prefer not to spend time with because they are toxic. Why are they toxic? Because they are judgemental, critical, elitist, snobs. Everything that they do is the best, everything they have is the best, everyone they know is someone important. Every time we tell them what we are doing they look down their noses and put us down, or the activity we are doing, the items we are buying, or whatever. Invariably after interacting with this couple, even if only over the phone, or by chance whilst out walking the dog, we end up analysing the event, sometimes for 4 or 5 hours afterwards! We realised we were just spending too much time and energy justifying our existence related to their set of rules. The final straw was two weekends ago at Pride. We had invited them along, because we had thought that they might want to go and celebrate with the rest of the community in the Peg. But oooh noooo, they had to combine the outing with seeing the Bears on Broadway. Ok what is wrong with that? Nothing, nothing at all. Except they were using the bears as a cover for being in town, on Broadway, that afternoon. We finally managed to drag them into the Pride fair, which was only small, two tents worth of crafts people and information booths. Well by the time we had finished going around one tent, not only were they finished, but they had found somewhere to sit down and were just finishing off some hot dogs. Clearly they hadn't even stopped to look at any of the stuff. Well ok, whatever. But then it became clear that they didn't want people to know that they were there for Pride! They seemed to be embarassed to be there, almost afraid to be seen there! Well fair enough, I remember what it was like the first time I went to Pride. You do feel a little conspicuous, as if everyone is looking at you. By the time you leave though you realise that the people there have better things to think about than who you are and why you are there! So we walked along Broadway to look at the bears. Ok I should add here that one of them, let's call her Heph (short for Hephalump) is now walking with a stick, because she has bad knees (probably because she weighs 350 pounds), but not only does she not need the stick (she demonstrated her lack of need for it by running across the grass to snag a seat after we had got fries), but she seems to use it to garner attention. Broadway is quite long, and we walked from one end to the other. By the time we got back to the car she, Heph, was clearly in a real snit. The other one, let's call her MG (short for Misery Guts) doesn't seem to even be taking any notice of her own life let alone anyone elses, and so missed this mood change completely. But I realised that Heph was in a total snit, which probably wan't helped by K telling her (not in so many words) that she had no idea about art. Ok, we spent a total of 3 hours in their company that day. We then spent about 8 hours (yes EIGHT hours) talking about them, what a bitch Heph is, and how stupid MG is! We finally realised that this happened everytime we spent time with them, and that they were indeed toxic people. So we made a decision to cut them out of our lives. We will not ignore them when/if we see them, but we will not deliberately include them in our lives.

So what does that have to do with having lunch with them today? Well the mere fact that they were talking about how they had the need to get toxic people out of their lives! I thought it rather ironic based on the toxicity of their friendship, that they would have this need! So as we are driving away from the restuarant, MIL and I begin to discuss the lunch and realise that neither of us enjoyed the interaction, that MG was just as negative and depressing as ever, and Heph was just as snobbish and elitist as ever. I started the day on a high note, I went to a Toastmasters Meeting and really enjoyed myself, and then in the short space of 1 hour they destroyed all that and left me with a feeling of negativity and blackness! I will have to treat myself to some chocolate to overcome the feeling.

Where do the black eyed peas fit in? Well yesterday I was in the mall and walked into the CD store. Sometimes I just have to buy new music, I can't help it, it is a compulsion that I can't always resist. A track was playing that totally captivated me. The last time that happened it was Lisa Stansfield singing "They can't take that away from me" from the Larry Adler's CD Glory of Gershwin. I bought that album and love it totally. So I asked one of the assistants who was playing, it sounded like a cross between Sting and the KLF. Turned out to be the Black Eyed Peas! I have never conciously heard any of their music, so after listening to a little more of the song and really enjoying it, I went to ask another assistant about the BEP. She said they were sort of folk reggae, well I like that kind of music. Ok yes I like most kinds of music. So I bought the album, Monkey Business. It is their latest. I also bought an earlier CD of theirs, and a 9-inch Nails CD for K. But I have only listened to Monkey Business so far. It is incredibly, amazingly brilliant! I love it when I discover a new group that I didn't know of before. So I am sitting here listening to a fabulous CD, calming down after my toxic luncheon, getting ready to take MIL back home tonight so that K and I have some time alone together.

At times like this I realise that there is no better place than where I am right now.

Winnipeg - The bad bus driver capital of the free world

I can't believe how many bad bus drivers there are on the roads in Winnipeg. I don't just mean ones who drive too fast, or turn corners on two wheels, but those who drive dangerously. Several times this last week I have been on the bus when they have pulled away from a bus stop, after an elderly person has got on the bus, without caring whether that elderly person has grasped a hand rail even! Let alone given them the chance to sit down safely. One time a lady actually fell into the lap of a man sitting behind the driver because the bus veered around a parked car immediately after setting off. Then there was the driver who was going so fast down Taylor, and hit a pot hole, that the lady sitting next to me was bounced out of the seat and almost fell to the floor! I thought the bus was going to break in half. The driver then proceeded to shake his head, as if someone else was at fault! He also went round the corner onto Pembina on two wheels, and very nearly rear ended a small car just around the corner that was stopped for the lights. Now I know that they are struggling for drivers in the city, they are always advertsing for new drivers, but do we as tax and fare paying passengers have to put up with their dangerous driving?

Further to that, there seems to be an increase of miserable SOB's driving the buses too. Last week I got on the 29 to go in to work and the usual driver was absent. Never mind, I still greeted the driver with a friendly smile and a "good morning". He didn't even acknowledge me, he wasn't even looking in my direction. So when I got off I wished him a jolly day saying "*d0* enjoy your afternoon". Well this week he was driving the bus again, so when I got on I said "Morning Harry." He turned to look at me. Clearly his name isn't Harry, but I thought someone as happy as that simply *has* to be called Harry! LOL Needless to say he didn't acknowledge me again. I did see our usual driver on a different route the other day, so I am wondering if he was promoted, I will have to ask, hopefully I will see someone other than Harry to ask.

Then again, I got on the 95 on Friday and the driver was about as friendly as can be, so I guess it is just unlucky to get a bad driver.

Happy to be living away from this!

There is a kid (13 years old) in Florida who has been told by the courts that she is too young to make the decision to have an abortion! She is in care in the State, and the Child Protective Services Department went to court to prevent her from having the abortion. ACLU is on the case, but I have to ask the question, how did this child end up pregnant? I mean I know what she did, but how come she wasn't better educated about pregnancy, and where were the CPS when she was running around getting into trouble? The story is available on the BBC at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4500245.stm Now I realise that it might be a sweeping over generalisation to say that kids in care aren't really cared for, but we read more and more about how kids in care are not properly looked after. And it was the Florida CPS that "lost" that girl a few years ago. I am also reminded of a case in California (I think it was) where a 14 year old girl got pregnant and her parents refused her consent to have an abortion, then just a few months after the baby was born the girl was arrested for child endangerment, because the baby was found cold and hungry in a crib on its own. The parents had left that 15 year old to deal with the baby on her own after having made her have the child! Her life is ruined because of their narrow mindedness. That will probably happen to this kid in Florida too, if she even allowed to keep the baby! And isn't that worse? Turning her into some kind of incubator for another couple. She isn't emotionally mature enough to make the decision to have an abortion and yet she is emotionally mature enough to have a baby, and care for it? Give me a break. And that doesn't even take into account the physical dangers of her having a baby at such a young age. This kid will be scarred for life as a result of the stupidity of Florida state law. The Governor should intervene! Oh wait, he is a Bush, NO CHANCE! I will be interested to see if he even has comments on this, after his disastorous meddling in the Terry Shaivo case. I am just glad that I am living away from that place now. A state where they make a law and then just when everyone has settled into a new way of thinking, they retract the law. Look at the gay couples being allowed to adopt children as one example! They pass a law saying that gay couples can adopt, and then a few years later retract the law. So making all those gay couples who adopted kids in the meantime, criminals! I guess they didn't prosecute the couples, we would have heard about it, Rosie is after all a resident in Florida, but this is just one demonstration about how screwed up the whole issue of human rights is in the USA, especially in red states like Florida.

I just hope that when the ball drops, they don't all try to immigrate to Canada.

Terri Schiavo

For some time now this case has bothered me. It bothered my in several ways. Mainly because it is my belief that Terri was treated in a way that should be considered inhumane. Imagine the scenario, a woman is discovered locked in a room, shackled to the bed, starving and thirsty, her husband has deprived her of food and water for 13 days. What do you think would happen to the husband? Of course he would be locked up in prison for all kinds of different offenses, not least abuse! What happens when that room is a hospital bed and the husband is the doctor? Nothing. Nothing! Ok, that is one scenario. Look at it another way, a dog is discovered, starving and thirsty. The owner is prosecuted! Another way? Ok, a dog is injured in an accident and is to all intents and purposes dead although it can still move its eyes and whimper. Does the vet recommend that the owner put the dog on life support? No of course not! The vet kindly suggests it would be the best thing to put the poor dog out of its misery. So when it happens to a person, do the doctors suggest that the person be put out of their misery? Oh no! That wouldn't be fair! Let the poor person live on, struggling to communicate their wish to die for fifteen years! Fifteen years!!!! How *dare* her parents over rule the agreement that Terri made with her faithful and loving husband? And why the hell did the PTB allow for this case to drag on so long? If it wasn't bad enough that this was going on, for it then to become National News, International News, turns it in to some kind of freak show for the world to stare at. It horrifies me that something like this happened. Scares me that if I was in an accident which resulted in a persistent vegetative state that the agreement that I have made with my partner could be over ruled by my mother. Well I know that wouldn't happen, but in theory it could!

Then today I read a brilliant article by a BBC correspondant who lives in the US, that has given me hope that something good has come out of this horrendous case.

The URL is http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4415595.stm

This is one of the paragraphs from that article "They were emotionally blackmailed but refused to budge, were told that their deepest held religious beliefs should push them in one direction, but thought for themselves and thought differently." The article goes on to say "If you can convince the courts that you are legally in the right, then no politician, even the president himself in his pyjamas and on his high horse, can stop you.
Michael Schiavo, Terri Schiavo's much vilified husband, did convince the courts.
He believed that his wife would want to die and they agreed.
It is a lesson the Republican party, which has allowed itself to become very closely allied with the religious right, will reflect on in the months ahead.
Already moderate Republicans are talking openly of re-capturing their party from the social conservatives.
It is possible at least that the high watermark of social conservatism has been reached. Its limit set by the will of a silent liberal majority.
The founding fathers must be watching from their heavenly perches and wondering at the power of the constitution they created. "

I sincerely hope that America learns from this lesson and that the religious zealots of that country have a looser grip. There is too much integration of church and state, it is one of the reasons I left America. If you do not believe in God you are still expected to pledge your allegiance to him, and that God can be any God I realise, but what if you are like me, a Pagan who believes not in a single deity, but in the ruling of nature over all things? No matter how fervently religious you are, you have no right to force your beliefs on me, and yet American's don't seem to even realise that that is what is happening to them. Now with this Terri Schaivo case, perhaps they are beginning to wake up to the fact that GWB is intent on making everything run to his own rule book, and that book is the Bible, interpreted by him (someone who can't even pronounce nuclear).

As an endnote, dying of thirst is one of the worst ways to die, drinking water is one of the major instinct for humans, and to deprive someone of water until they die is cruelty in its worst form. It is one of the reasons why the water torture is the most effective form of torture. Terri Schiavo should have been allowed to die a painless and dignified death once the decision was made that she wanted to die.