Obama and Canada and the Elections

You really don't have to be able to read all the above text to get the idea. I would encourage you to go to This Magazine to be enlightened.
If you know me you will know that I have a great deal of respect for the Obama platform. I would feel a lot better if I thought that Sen. Obama would really renegotiate that joke a.k.a NAFTA but I fear that is not likely to happen. I live in hope. Ole Billy Clinton talked a lot but when it came down to it he reneged and just signed it. ..sigh..
Perhaps it is a sign of my age that I have taken more interest in the elections this time around. Or maybe it is because our lack luster mamby pamby election choices fade in comparison to the spark that is going on south of the border.
My observation of the Presidential Debate is that there was no clear winner, much to my disappointment. My dislike of McCain, the man, was reinforced. (His treatment of his wife in public is a matter of record. Mr Potty mouth.) My parents taught me that when someone speaks to you you have the decency to look at them when you reply. His obvious disdain in ignoring Sen. Obama sent up a red flag in my opinion. If you a regular reader here you will know of my take on "Why Would Anyone Want To Be President." I call it the "God complex." At the risk of offending just about everyone this is the way I see it as an outsider looking in.....
The American population regards the Office of the President with reverential god like awe..
Ergo, "johnny" wants to grow up and be president...
When he becomes president he acts as if he is answerable to no one.....
The general public throw their collective hands in the air and ask, "Who does he think he is, God?"
Ummm, duh
Back to Sen. McCain..attitude???? Fill in the blanks for yourself. I am old enough to have lived through the horror of the Vietnam war. I can not imagine, nor do I wish to, the hell that man lived through for five years. Unfortunately he has to have something else to offer the American people. Sorry buddy but your old and I am getting there. This of course brings me to..
Caribou Barbie...sigh..again. As the mother of four healthy children I can not comprehend how she has been able to manage a home for the children she has, and have a political career, now she has a wee boy who needs more stimulation and attention than the others if he is to achieve his full potential. Did you see her interview with Katie Couric? She didn't have an answer to the "bail out." She babbled about jobs and health care. She was unprepared for that interview. She could be, as the media says, " a seventy-two year old heartbeat" away from being president. She is unrepared for the "top job." Scares me.
Oh the joy of free speech. The beauty of getting out and voting gives everyone who does the right to speak out on what they think of the outcome. Unless you live in a bubble you know that what goes on south of the 49th has an effect on us. Our election will be campaigned, voted and I may add counted before the huffing and puffing is done in Americaland. I sometimes wonder what would happen if we had our election a week after the other one. Makes you think, eh?
Which brings me to the menu du jour:
Stephen Harper - mashed potatoes...boring... same old thing every day
Stephan Dion - creme brulee, Sorry Stephan but it says something when Gilles Duceppe, (The leader of the Bloc Quebecois ("vivre le Quebec libre") has a better command of English than the leader of the Liberal Party (hello Western Canada, can you relate to me?)
Jack Layton - BBQ steak (We are carnivores, we need fresh meat, even if the cholesterol will kill us)

Milestones & Boundary Markers

Today marks another milestone. Eighteen years since my life took a turn down a dark and scary road. A rather bumping road interspersed with joy and sorrow, light and dark and some "pastel" moments, but I was always moving forward. "Life is a highway." (I always liked that song.)
So today I acknowledge the passing of time. We learn to live and grow not to dwell in the past. Take the hurt out, dust it off and grieve for what could have been but, only for a little while.
Sit in the sun and savour the sweet memories. Gently put that compartment of my mind away and close the door.
We are not what life dishes out to us but the soup we make of it.

Follow Me......

Good morning regular readers of my profound thoughts,
I know you are out there. Please click on the link at the top of the right column and give me a cyber wave.

Speaking of Apples

I am such a geek.......

Yes, I eat an apple everyday and yes, these are the "stickers" from my imported apples. What can I say? It's my creative gene.....lol

I think there are 96 stickers on this work book

An apple a day keeps the ........

Yeah, well it didn't work for me.

However, having said that I came across the most interesting artcle. Have you heard of negative calorie foods? Now, this, even if it only has a shred of truth, is the best thing I have ever read. Some foods require more energy = calories to digest than they contain. Oh joy oh bliss, Can this be true? Apples are on the list. I knew the little buggars were good for something. There is only one negative calorie food and that is cardboard, 100% pure celulose. Cows can live off it but I am sad to say we "sapiens" can not. So in the interst of sharing I include the following list of foods that some claim to be negative calorie foods. Apples (of course), cranberries, grapefruit, oranges, pineapple, raspberries, tangerines and strawberries. Vegies: lettuce, onions, radishes, turnip, celery, spinach, asparagus, beets & broccoli, green cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, celery, cucumbers, green beans and zucchini. See everyone tells you to eat salads, now you know why!

Getting better

Yesterday I went back to work. I lasted 4 and a half hours and I couldn't sit there any longer. I came home, changed, lay down wrapped in my favourite quilt, flipped through a knitting magazine and went to sleep for 3 hours. Corinne called and I barely remember what we talked about.

Something about Chewbacca eating her mystery shawl project. No dog is "cute" enough to escape with his life if he does that. *shaking my head.

Today I actually made it until 2:30 when everything suddenly became to much to bear. My back ached along with my front and I knew enough was enough. Supper will be something easy tonight. I am not up to doing much.

This caricature..see above....reminds me of my Nana..lolol I think its the blue suit and pearls as much as the little mouth. Mind you Nana would NEVER take her teeth out. Scroll down a couple of posts and see Nana.

I am on row 109 of the Queen Anne Lace you will have to go over HERE to see a picture.

Corinne lent me some new books to read. I have started the "Darkfever" by Karen Marie Moning. It is very fae. Go look it up. My Uncle Josh was "fae." He was born with the "veil" over his face. Actually the amniotic sac but it was believed to be a sign. He was my mother's Uncle. An articulate wee man who kept a daily journal. I wonder what happened to them? They would make marvelous reading. I remember my Aunti Kate saying that she read them after he passed away and it was like having him in the room.....sigh

He died when I was expecting Corinne. That was in 1970. He and Aunti Kate eloped. I used to have a beautiful sepia picture of the two of them taken at someone else's wedding. She passed it of as her wedding picture. She was the favoured younger daughter. I think it was around WWI. What a family scandal!!! Pretty tame by today's standards.

Corinne Davies is in cyber space

Well, I am thrilled to direct you to this web site http://www.corinnedavies.com/.

Her grand mother will be as excited as I am. One problem, she won't let us read anything she writes.

(whispering)"She thinks we are too old"

My mother, for sure, Me, no way. If I try to defend myself she will start waving her hands and crying TMI*

* (too much information).

Resting....

Aren't these flowers beautiful? I just can't help feeling brighter when I look at them.
My concentration is the pits so I haven't knit very much. One of the Dr's at the hospital said that every decade we cross makes recovery that much longer. I told him to bite his tongue.
It is a sure sign of advancing age when the doctor looks about 14 years old, ok... ok... 16 tops.

I am napping twice a day like a baby but the pain is better. I missed going to the Knitter's Fair on Saturday. Very disappointed about that. It only happens once a year. Then again look at all the money I saved? I will have to start knitting up my stash anyway. No political comments today, too tired. I did update the bogs and web sites I read..see sidebar, "What did you say." There are some very funny articulate people out there.

What do I have in common with a highly paid athlete?

Well, it is not my athletic ability.
We both can get a cat scan in less than 12 hours....
and in Canada that also means FREE of charge.

I just had to go to the hospital, by ambulance, in the middle of the night, with a BP of 85/50, to get mine. The paramedics were so wonderful, I was terrified I was having a heart attack.

If you want to be entertained in your agony go to the London University Hospital emerg on a Sat night. To the right of me I had a British import student. They found him "legless" (translation below) stretched out on the common with his bank card on his chest. To the left of me I had a little Canadian boy away from home for the first time, he couldn't understand why he didn't have any shoes....He had puked in them and the nurse had sealed them up in plastic and kindly requested that he take them with him when he left. I saw him scurry past the end of my bed clutching the hind end of his gown with one hand and the IV pole with the other.

Talk about Greys Anatomy reality......I was in a teaching hospital with more residents and interns than I could count. More young men had their hands on my body than I have EVER had in my life.
I am sorry I let them down ....it turned out to be a rotten appendix....for all the wonderful care I received I could have at least had something exotic to brighten their learning experience.

Now, I will have to pay for the ambulance ....but ......the blood tests, X-rays, Cat Scans, the IV's ( I had 5) assorted drugs including morphine, the superior nursing care, room and board for 2 days on the 8th floor, ( the bed was high tech and sooo comfortable) attendance from assorted different doctors, the surgeon to remove the lousey appendix, the anethesiologist to make sure I was unaware......for all of that I will pay NOTHING, I do not have health insurance
I live in Canada where health care is free!
*legless: pissed to the gills

I've been tagged.....

Peaeful Moments

I've been tagged by Corinne to share 3's about me. Instead of just sticking in answers I really thought about some of the questions. Life gets so busy and one day flows into the next. It doesn't hurt to stop and have a little evaluation.

Three jobs I have had in my life:
1)Posting clerk at London Life Insurance Company at the dawn of time...we had to use straight pens and bottled ink!
2)Owned my own wool shop..... the best and worst time of my life
3)Hostess at the "Turf Club" at the Fort Erie race track...very classy job

Three shows that I watch:
1) Digging for the truth
2) Criminal minds
3) CSI

Three people who e-mail me regularly:
1) Carl
2) Connie
3) Julia

Three of my favorite foods:
1) Curry
2) fresh bread & butter
3) Laura Secord ice Cream

Three places I'd rather be right now:
1) on a piazza in Rome
2) on a hillside overlooking Loch Ness
3) shopping at Colinette Yarns in Wales

Three things I am looking forward to this year:
1) reaching & maintaining my healthy weight
2) holiday on the Mayan Riviera
3) having a family dinner at Thanksgiving

Three places I have been:
1) Inverness, Scotland
2) Pompeii, Italy
3) Oaxaca, Mexico

Three things I would do if I won 100 million dollars in the lotto:
1) Buy my children a house and pay off their bills.
2) Retire to Vancouver Island for the summer
3) Travel in the winter

Three things that make me happy:
1) being with Carl
2) being debt free
3) sitting under the tree on a summer day knitting and listening to an audio book

Three things that annoy me:
1) drivers making a left turn
2) hypocritical so called Christians
3) taxes

Three favorite movies:
1) Gosford Park
2) The Lake House
3) Jane Eyre

Three places I want to go before I split the planet:
1) India
2) Spain
3) Egypt

Three things I want to do before I split the planet:
1) Knit up my stash
2) Retire to west coast
3) Write a book

Three things I'm thankful for.
1) My health
2) Meeting Carl
3) My job

Three People I'm Thankful for:
1) My parents
2) Research Scientists
3) Peace makers

I discovered that I am a contented person.

Oh god, not MORE politics?

I don't know about you but I am heartily sick of American politics.

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse now we are going to have an election in Canada. however, we will have the campaign over with in 6 weeks the election in one day and the Americans will still be hurtling insults back and forth. It is a wonder anyone bothers to vote down there. They must be sick to death of it all.

Don't you just love the picture of Mc Cain nuzzling Bush's neck? that brings on a gag reflex in me. I am an Obama fan. I just don't think he can win. He is articulate, intelligent, knowledgeable and dignified. Somehow I just don't think the "good old boys" of American politics are ready for the "Change" that an Obama government would bring. Pity, really, the US is no longer the force in the world it once was. The war in Afganistan bankrupted the USSR. How much longer will the American people be willing to pour money and lives into a war they can't win? We thought VietNam was bad, it was nothing compared to this mess. It was wrong from day one. It would have been a lot cheaper if the CIA had just bumped off Sadam and his cronies and had done with it. Greed thy name is OIL.


So for the next 6 weeks we will have to endure insipid ads for the pathetic offering we have to pick from.

Conservative Stephen Harper: present Prime Minister, nothing exciting happening there.




Stephane Dion: (Liberal) Ooo lets have another tax. We will call this a green tax. Oh gee why not? As if we aren't being taxed to death already.








Jack Layton, Leader of the NDP. Reminds me of a little terrier chews on everybodys ankles but doesn't amount to much.

My choice for a write in???

David Suzuki, Canadian, Environmentalist, Author, Scientist and all around great guy! I just know he could clean up Parliament Hill!