orphan

I'm experiencing some separation anxiety

officially as of this evening
the VOD no longer lives next door

kinda sad
and very freeing!

and so it goes

more on the health front

the Diabetes is type 2 and confirmed
the drug (metformin) is in
contraindication with Crohn's Disease

the side effects are all the kind of issues
that I've fought tooth and nail to
get rid of since being diagnosed with Crohn's Disease
all those years ago
(nausea, diarrhea, intestinal bleeding,
sore joints, issues with tendons,
being tired all the time etc)

now they tell me that "maybe"
part of the eye issues
could be the Diabetes
part of the legs and feet issues
could be the Diabetes
part of the gut issues
could be the Diabetes

get the picture?

oh...it gets better

so besides the drugs being harsh
and "hating" each other
the diets for both diseases
are contra indicative
what I need to eat for the Diabetes
I can't eat for the Crohn's Disease
and what I need for the Crohn's Disease
I can't eat with Diabetes

fuck.me.gently.

I'm trying really hard to not let this
become a focus for depression
but I'm as frustrated as hell
at the moment!

I have another round of Dr
and specialist
appointments coming up
along with yet more trips to a dietitian
and the Diabetes Clinic

How the hell am I supposed
to hold down a full time job
with all this?

it just never seems to end

course the good news is that I'll
likely start to loose weight
from all the puking
jayzuz!

and truly

I feel really good for someone
that's as sick as I am!

I read this sign

on my way home from work
it said
"there are no strangers here....
just friends we've yet to meet"

nice sentiment eh?
all kinda warm and snugly
and airy fairy....

well.... it's bullshit!

if I've learned anything over the last couple of years
it's that friends don't grow on trees
acquaintances do though
and just because someone says they are your friend
doesn't mean that you can rely on them
to be in your corner when the chips are down

what constitutes a friend?

Someone of good moral standards...
Someone who knows the difference between
right and wrong
and strives to spend as much of their life on the right side
as humanly possible...instead of paying lip service
to the very idea...

Someone who understands
that there is no grey area
around lying
(and yes...not telling the whole truth
is still a lie...commonly called a sin of omission)
any more than there is around
stealing,
being disrespectful,
mean spirited
or cruel.

Someone who not only talks the talk
but walks the walk...full time.

Someone who makes a commitment to you
and then stands by it - even if it costs them

Someone who doesn't decide to make you
bear the brunt of the burden
when they make a mistake

Someone who does things for you
not to just make themselves look better
but just cos they want to make you happy

Someone who doesn't re-write history
to make themselves feel better instead of
stepping up and taking the heat when
they've caused it.

Someone who doesn't try to manipulate you
or those around you

Someone who doesn't think kindness is something
you put on toast only to be pulled out and served
when they'd best profit from it.

Someone who doesn't sneak in here
in a clandestine manner
thinking I'll never know
they still read my blog....

A friend, accepts you
and supports you
A friend is kind, and loving
respectful and caring
and laughs with you not at you.

Strangers are not friends
as a matter of fact
most acquaintances aren't either

Trust used to come easy to me
but I've learned that lesson too

and figuring all this out
makes life so much more
drama free.

Really.

the big move

is on...

the VOD is moving into
"independent living"

moving is traumatic
at any time
but at 80 it seems to be almost
the impossible task

this week she's going thru
17 years of beloved belongings
sorting what to take
and what to send to storage
(a ploy to avoid separation anxiety)
and what to throw away

for 8 of the 10 years
that I have lived
next door to her
I printed off every email
any family member sent
for her to read

I just walked into her bedroom
to find her sitting on the floor
reading all those 10 yr old emails
one by one
before deciding if she can throw them out

some of them mark momentous family occasions
but those aren't the one's she's keeping

the one she just read me goes like this:
Rodney Dangerfield says "we were so poor
when I was growing up
it's a damn good thing I was born a boy
er I'd have had nothin to play with!"

that's the kind of stuff she's keeping.

I'm from good stock eh?

Remember the Duirwaigh

I've adored this since I first found it at Duirwaigh Studios

http://www.duirwaigh.com/

Memory Lane

After Michael died
I had this album on steady loop
till I wore the grooves outta it
and had to buy another one

I was so sure that I was a waste
and I've often thought
that Paul Williams music
and lyrics kept me alive

I discovered it again recently
on You Tube
and here I am 30 odd years later
I'm surprise to say
that I still remember every word

I'm not listening to it often
cos I find I get transported back
to those same dark desperate feelings
that I experienced
just after Michael died

still and all
it is like finding an old friend



Roll on thunder, shine on lightning
The days are long and the nights are frightenin'
Nothing matters anyway,
And that's the hell of it.
Winter comes and the winds blew colder
While some grew wiser, you just grew older
And you never listened anyway,
And that's the hell of it.
Good for nothing, bad in bed
Nobody likes you and you're better off dead
Goodbye, we've all come to say goodbye (goodbye)
Goodbye (goodbye)
Born defeated, died in vain
Super-destructive, you were hooked on pain
Though your music lingers on
All of us are glad you're gone
If I could live my life half as worthlessly as you
I'm convinced that I'd wind up burning too.
Love yourself as you loved no other
Be no man's fool and be no man's brother
We're all born to die alone, you know, that's the hell of it.
Life's a game where they're bound to beat you
And time's a trick it can turn to cheat you
And we only waste it anyway,
And that's the hell of it.
Good for nothing, bad in bed
Nobody liked you and you're better off dead
Goodbye, we've all come to say goodbye (goodbye)
Goodbye (goodbye)
Born defeated, died in vain
Super-destructive, you were hooked on pain
And though your music lingers on
All of us are glad you're gone

"Ashes to Ashes

Dust to Dust..."

my grandma used to say: "Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust...there's someone comin or goin under your bed so you'd best get in there and vacuum!"

Funny ashes memories have been swirling around in my head the last couple of days as a direct result of a conversation I had with my boss on Friday night. (and the retelling of these stories with Kim this morning over brunch)

My boss' father is passing away. He's doing so with all the dignity that his ex-wife and daughter can provide for him and in his moments of lucidity they have had those deep meaningful conversations that seem to happen prior to death ...but likely should have happened all their lives (but I digress)

In our conversation after work on Friday she mentioned that they'd had a conversation about cremation and that was the way that he wanted to be "handled" after his death. Speaking of this prompted her to tell me a story about her uncle who came to Canada from the UK during the war for a visit and passed away while here. The Canadian branch of the family had the uncle cremated and sent the uncle's ashes back to the UK for burial.

As they were sending the package along with a letter during a time when the UK was rationing they also sent some staples like flour and sugar and coffee along as well. Two unfortunate things happened during the transport of that box to the UK. The first being that the letter was somehow separated from the box and arrived several weeks after the package. And sadly both the package of flour and the package of ashes broke open mingling the two. When the package arrived at it's UK destination the recipients weren't aware that the uncle's remains were included in that package and as flour wasn't bleached in those days and it all looked the same - so they celebrated by baking a cake.

It was only weeks later when the letter arrived that the cake baker was heard to say - "I wondered what was wrong with that flour...I couldn't get that cake to rise at all!"

When I was a child my family moved fairly often from community to community to facilitate my fadder's career as an Ontario Provincial Police Officer. The first and most traumatic of those moves for me, was from Perth On, where I'd spent the first 9 years of my life and my bother and blister were born, to Kenora On...one of the most westerly communities in Ontario.

Not only was I traumatized by the move (no matter how often the VOD insisted that it was "an adventure") but when we arrived in Kenora the government house that we were to move into wasn't finished so our stuff went into storage and we spent what was to be 3 mths, but quickly turned into 6 and then 9 mths in a rented, furnished home of an elderly scion of the community who had gone away for the winter.

This house was diametrically the opposite to what a young woman of 9 was interested in. It was dark, and antique and filled to the brim with things we shouldn't or couldn't touch as the VOD was desperate to leave the house in some semblance of condition when we moved out and while she had her hands full with me, she also had 2 toddlers running about and getting into everything as toddlers will.

I began to act out. I hated the neighbourhood, the school, the people just everything and so began my career as a hellion. My fadder's position in the OPP at the time was that of Traffic Safety Coordinator for all of NWOn (which is a fairly big yet fairly sparsely populated chunk of Canada) and as a result he was gone lots so it fell to the VOD to "control me". Which brings me to my second ashes story.

During/after one particularly diabolical spate betwixt us the VOD (in an act of pure desperation) sent myself, a dust cloth and the vacuum cleaner into the large, dark, formal and formidable dining room with the admonition that I was not to make a peep or come out until every square inch of that room was spotless. And she'd know if I'd not done it because she had a white glove!

So in I went, muttering and dusting and muttering and vacuuming and just plain muttering about the horrible lack of fairness in my life etc etc etc.

About half way through the clean-a-thon I had a discussion with myself about whether or not I could get away with not actually dusting inside any of the 3 massive, filled to the brim, china cabinets in the room but decided in the end that I'd best be cleaning them as well, as after all...the VOD did have that white glove.

Dusting the first 2 cabinets went by with virtually no concern, save for chipping one china teacup, but I turned it around facing the other direction and was fairly certain that the VOD would never notice. The 3rd cabinet however proved to be a different story.

The "stuff" in the third cabinet was different in that it was "collectibles" as opposed to actual eating paraphernalia and upon examination I was disgusted to find that it housed a whole shelf of little ginger jar type collectibles full of what looked like dirt.

I was disgusted because in my 9 yr old, oh so hard done by mind, I was sure that that this was likely a test set out by the tyrannical VOD to prove that I never did as I was told. So just to prove to her that I was smarter than she, I knocked the "dirt" out of every single one of those little jars and cleaned them thoroughly, and then just to prove my point, I re-vacuumed the room thereby completely removing any sign of the dirt in the first place.

Some hour to an hour and a half after she'd sent me in to the dinning room and round about the time that I was just finishing up the 2nd vacuuming of the room, the VOD came in and relented as to how she may have been a little too hard on me and that I could stand down and go out to play as she'd finish the dining room.

I was so pleased at this turn of the tides that I announced she wouldn't have to do anything as I'd thoroughly done it all myself...further I explained that I'd even been so thorough as to clean all the dirt outta all them little jars just to prove "I was on to her" I pronounced, ever so smugly.

The VOD gawped like a fish. "Wh...what little jars?" she asked nervously, her eye's darting around the room to land on the curio cabinet full of collectibles. "Yup - them one's" I announced. 'that whole middle shelf there!"

The VOD was aghast...I'd knocked out, dusted, and vacuumed up the remains of our landlady's whole family!

My third ashes story involves the VOD and the blister....who when informed that the VOD wishes to be cremated announced that she would be "taking the VOD's ashes and depositing a half teaspoon of her into every pepper shaker in every Royal Canadian Legion in Canada." Being as my parents met and married in the Canadian Navy she was quite sure that everyone would find that acceptable. The VOD, in an effort to not hurt the blister's feelings has as yet not told the blister that it isn't so I'm unsure as to what will really happen when the time comes!

My fourth and final ashes story happened years later as an adult.

The VOD's only sister lost her husband about 30 years ago. At the time she couldn't afford to come all the way to Merritt BC for the funeral but she and her sister stayed in touch via the phone and letters so the VOD knew that Billy had been cremated and Auntie El (who's a joker like the VOD) would put the "urn" of Billy's ashes in his favorite chair to watch Monday night football (just like nothing had changed).

18 years ago (a year before the VOD moved to the Island, and 8 years before I did) she and I went on a driving tour and did all of western Canada. When we arrived in Merritt of course Auntie El would have nothing but that we'd stay at her house. I'd balked as the whole family were serious smokers (and hell will freeze over before they open a door or a window) but in the end it was arranged that the VOD would stay in the spare room and I'd sleep in the rec room in the basement (where they thought for some reason that the smoke wouldn't bother me)

I had a crappy night and as a result was up early the following day. As Auntie El was a late sleeper, I, ever so quietly, snuck out of the house and made it to the local Tim Horton's and got coffee and bagels for the VOD and myself. I snuck back in and headed to the VOD's bed in the spare room. In those days the VOD was not yet wearing hearing aids so she really truly couldn't hear you unless she could see you. Upon my entry to the room she began to fumble around on the bookshelf headboard of the bed looking for her glasses. Once, twice, three times before she found them and got them on she banged her arthritic fingers on a wooden box on the shelf in the middle of the headboard. She muttered "what the hell is that?" whilst perching the glasses on her nose.

I leaned forward and read the brass plaque. I was uncle Billy. I howled and again the VOD was aghast and for the rest of her life Auntie El liked to tell people that "her sister had slept with her husband....she waited till he was dead, of course, but sleep with him she did!"

ok...I'm pissed again

wtf is wrong with people?

I have been reading a blogger for a year er two
over at Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper

I read her cos she's witty
she's enthusiastic
she's funny
and has a love for life
and for her family...

in good times and bad.

I read her cos she's got a good heart
and a hard head
and like me
she comes from the school of hard knocks

while I read her
so do thousands of others
and as a result
she's become slightly famous
in the blogsphere

and in becoming slightly famous
she's also become the envy
of a lot of people
that have a desperation
to be seen in the spotlight
but not the tools
to do so

well over a year ago
she suffered a break down of sorts
and ended up in the hospital
and part of her process for healing
was to vent on line

she bled
she wept
she raved
and she confessed
she called herself names
she compared herself to every evil
and base instinct known to mankind
in an effort to purge it all
and somehow find happiness again

her readership soared
people lavished her with praise
and support
they raved
and rallied behind her when the odd person
would comment in a negative fashion

every time she said that she was going
to stop writing
people begged her to continue to write
likely because her writing
made them feel better about themselves

Over the past little while
the tides have turned
and the next flavor of the month
has become a genre of bloggers
who make their fame
out of smacking down
or putting down
or ridiculing the subject matter
of people like Cyrstal
at Boobs, Injuries and Dr. Pepper

they're like pack animals
and take down the old,
the infirm
or the people they are just plain jealous of
some people just jump on a band wagon when they see one
not because they know what's going on
but because being judgmental
makes them feel better
about their own inefficacious little lives....

they are hard, bitter, miserly,
narcissistic and sanctimonious
(and to coin a phrase) they are Christians of convenience

They begged her for more
and then hold her up for examination
and ridicule
if she doesn't meet their pious viewpoint...

Crystal, you and the Mr need only answer to yourselves,
your family and
whatever the hell it is that you call god

all the rest is window dressing
and truly has no bearing
on who and what you are...
only you can effect change upon yourself...

they all deserve each other...
and the rest of us will continue to read you
when we need/want to

cos truly....
with the good -
comes the bad...
that's called friendship
and speaks volumes
to the differences between
friends and acquaintances.

take heart dear woman....
for every one of them that's flapping their lips
there is one of us that knows the true perils of real life...
and don't hold you accountable for our glass houses.

11/11

In Flanders Fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Peace!

November 5, 2009

The Peace Globe Gallery

To find peace one must be at peace with themselves
To find peace there should be no conflict that can involves violence
To find peace there should always be a solution to solve a problem
To find peace there should always be kindness
To find peace one must desire peace
To have peace in the world one must strive hard in order to achieve peace
With peace there should be no more violence, anger, hatred, war, families torn apart, and anguish
With peace there will be unity, families are together, love is in the air, happiness is all around the world, and in our hearts as well
~Jeffrey Liminsang

lock the door

for 10 years
every night
at bedtime
I've done a round
of my home
turning off the tv
the lights
checking to make sure
the stove is off...

and every night
for 10 years
I've checked to make sure
that my apartment door
is unlocked

so the VOD
can get in
in the middle of the night
if she needs to

tonight
the bother
took the first load
of her gear
to her new place

and I realized
that she's lived
in that apartment
for 17 years
and while there's gonna be
a serious change for her
in moving to the new one,
there's also gonna be
some adjustments
for me

lock the door
dammit.

Stay Tuned

strange goin's on

there's some strange goin's on
goin on around me at the moment

I have mixed feelings

first
I saw the heart specialist
he said my heart was in "surprisingly good shape
considering what it's been through"
the chest pains are chest wall spasms
and while painful
ya can't die from em

good to know....
I get an H1N1 shot tomorrow
and I see a Urologist on the 12th
and then I should be all topped up
for the next year er so
Dr. wise....
*sigh*

second...the VOD is moving
after 10 years of being in my very pocket
by the end of the month
she will be firmly ensconced
in an apartment in an independent living complex
5 minutes from me
a complex that goes
from indepenent to assited living
when needs be....

talk about mixed emotions!
I'm trying not to be giddy
and to not say what I need to say
to the bother
before he gets her moved
cos once I'm done with him
I'm pretty sure
he won't be around for a while
nor talking to me :)
and one more crack about how he's had to
come all the way here to "fix" everything
I've not done in the last 9 years
may just get him a shot in the head
~I'm just sayin....

and then there's the fadder
who's been bemoaning for a couple of years
that he wants a dog
finds an Airedale Terrier (his fav breed) rescue
goes all the way to the point of having them
come to inspect his home

and then decides he better not

?

other than that
things are surprisingly calm
in the rest of my life right now
(well...calm for me that is)

and I kinda find that strange too
I guess I've been living in a state of
high stress and anxiety for so long
I miss it when it's gone

here's hopin it's gone for a long time!