Sunday, June 10, 2012

Canadian Voters

Canadian voters are stupid.

Okay, maybe that's a little harsh, but look here...

Once upon a time, we had the following political parties: the Progressive Conservatives, the Liberals, the NDP, the Reform Party, and the United Alternative. Now, the UA was nothing really to be concerned about. It was just kind of there.

Then the UA and the Reform Party joined forces and became the Alliance, headed up by Stockwell Day. No one in their right mind was going to vote to put Stockwell Day in charge in Ottawa. In the meantime, Brian Mulroney drove the PC's into the toilet and they found themselves down to 2 members; not enough to be a real party anymore, but they hung on by their fingernails. Eventually, they did make their way back to "official party status" but never had more than 20 seats...so they joined forces with the Alliance. Now...no one in their right mind would vote for the Alliance, Stockwell Day or no Stockwell Day.

What happened next is that Stephen Harper was elected leader of this misbegotten Frankenstein monster of a political party and they very cleverly dropped the "Alliance" name and kept "Conservative", although really, the Conservatives were well beyond being a minority. The end result of all this is that Canadian voters who have always voted for the Conservative Party and who would have murdered their grandmothers in their beds before voting for the Alliance, were now voting for the Alliance because it CALLED ITSELF the Conservative Party.

And now, since the last election, the maniac in charge of this messy party has had a majority government, which means the voices of Canadians in general can be ignored, scientists can be silenced, and anyone who disagrees with destroying the ecosystem, preserving our air and water and forests and so on and so forth because Stephen Harper can go ahead and push through any damn laws he wants. And we sit back and watch.

Down the road I foresee worse to come. I don't trust Justin Trudeau any more than I cared for his father, who was charming but horrible for the country. Justin is charming and facile with words, and I wish I had kept an article I read a couple of years ago about his views and policies...it caused me great concern. So I see him becoming leader of the Liberal Party and gaining his own majority government and causing even worse problems. We're stupid. We really are.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

The years fly by

I can't believe it's been about two years already since I posted here. I still like my good old OpenDiary where I've been writing for ten years or thereabouts, maybe longer. I like the community there.

My youngest daughter is now finished school, and I'm looking at possibly changing workplaces again in the near future. I'm going to have to do something soon, because I'm not making enough to live on, and that sucks. However, there are always part-time jobs to boost the monthly income, and all is not lost. It's finding something you can live with that's the fun part. I sent off an email to someone who was looking for someone to write a weekly column, but I haven't heard anything back from her, so I'm guessing that's a no-go. Oh well. It's for the best, I'm sure.

If you check out my other blogs, you'll see one of them has recent updates. They're my efforts for a writing challenge for the month of August. Please come over and have a look.

Friday, August 22, 2008

Cross Posting

There's lots to talk about and I might not get to it all today. Life is a funny thing and takes odd turns from time to time. The latest turn involves my PT Cruiser, which I really liked a lot, an unplowed highway after ten p.m., slow speed and wretched conditions.

I was on my way home from work on Saturday, March 15. It had been snowing for about 7 hours and I don't think the part of the highway I was on had been plowed in the past few hours. I was following the tracks in the snow, the way you do, and those of you who drive in snow know what I'm talking about. The speed limit there is 100 km (about 60 miles) an hour and I was doing 40 km (maybe 25 mi or so). The road was horrible--greasy and scary to drive on. I crossed the bridge at Bear River, went up the hill on the other side and headed around the curve near the top. There were headlights in my rearview mirror and they weren't in any rush, either. Not with the crap roads.

As I came around the curve, I felt my car pull a little to the left, which happens when you're driving in snow ruts. I didn't care for it, but then it came back under control for a few seconds, then pulled to the left again and took off on a diagonal across the four lanes of highway. Mind you, I wasn't going very fast and there was no oncoming traffic, but I hate that out-of-control sliding. The back end swung right and then left and I tried to steer into the skid, which brought the back end farther left, turning my car first parallel to the ditch and then angling away. I felt the rear wheel on the driver's side drop, and I thought, "Okay, I'm going to end up with my ass in the ditch. Fine." By now, the momentum had mostly bled off and the car was almost stopped. But it wasn't quite done yet. With the rear corner in the fairly deep ditch, the front end decided maybe it was best to just lie down, so my Cruiser very gently (or so it seemed to me) toppled over onto the driver's side and made a small bid to continue onto its roof. The end result was my car in the ditch basically resting its driver's side on the bank of the ditch, and the corner of roof and side on the bottom. As it went over, all I could think was, "Gee, I hope the folks behind me call 9-1-1."

When it stopped, I took off my seatbelt, shut off the car and tried to figure out which was was "up". I've never been in an overturned car before and it's very disorienting. I wrestled myself out from behind the wheel, stood up with my feet in the corner formed by the door and the roof, up to the middle of my shins in water, and looked at the passenger door above me, thinking that it was going to be a challenge to get out of the darn car. When I opened the door, a woman from work was in the ditch, and asking if I was okay. I told her I was fine, passed my backpack that I drag back and forth to work to her, and she tossed it across the car to one of her friends. A man had also stopped and he climbed the bottom of the car to the top corner and they helped hold the door open and gave me a hand to climb out. I had to use the headrest for a foothold, I jumped down into water that was about knee-deep and then S, the woman from work, and I climbed up onto the shoulder of the road.

One of her friends was on a cell-phone, talking to the emergency dispatch, and they waited with me until the ambulance came and the paramedics chased them away. The only thing I was mildly concerned about was that, while we were waiting, and my boots and socks were soaked and I was standing in 6 inches of snow, my feet got really toasty warm, and I remember thinking, "That can't be good." They're fine, though. I think I surprised the paramedics, because when they asked where I was hurt, I said, "I'm really not" and they looked at me as if they thought I'd lost my mind. So they bundled me into the ambulance, checked out my left side because my arm was a little sore, took my blook pressure, which was 130 (he didn't check the lower number), pulse was fine. The RCMP officer who had arrived first, assured me it was clear the accident was not my fault and not to worry, and I ended up getting a ride home from the tow truck driver.

The end result of my "injuries" was bruise on my left hip from the seatbelt when the car rolled and the belt locked. The car was a write-off from the salty, silty ditch water getting into the computer and electrical systems. The actual physical damage was minor. But apparently I got an awesome deal on my Cruiser when I bought it in December. I paid $9200 for it, including tax. I have a $1000 deductible on my insurance policy and even with that taken off, they sent me a cheque for $11,373.50, and I found a 2004 Chevy Aveo with 80,000 km for $7700. Net gain, all around. So I'm waiting for my Aveo to come to me and the dealer to pick up a cheque and take away the aircraft carrier he lent me to drive (it's a Ford Taurus station wagon, about the size of the state of Rhode Island). I'll be glad to have a car of my own again. I've been driving loaners and test vehicles for the past two weeks.

The other new stuff can wait for another entry.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Still Lost in Time

It boggles my mind how quickly time flies by. I really should just bookmark the blogs I want to update regularly and get off my butt and do so. I do have random thoughts come up from time to time that I think about sharing and then I forget because the kids are on the computer or whatever. I might just opt for getting another computer just for me, once some of the bills are caught up, and they ARE getting caught up, which is a wonderful feeling.

2007 has been an odd year so far. January started with my ex-husband critically ill and he passed away on the 4th of that month. I was surprised at the depth of feeling I still had. We parted company in 1998 and I thought I had long since lost all feeling, but the grief was still there. He was only 53 and it seemed unfair to my kids to lose their dad so young, but so it goes.

February was one of my busiest Februarys, workwise, ever. And then March began with the critical illness of our oldest cat, who died on the 5th in my youngest daughter's arms. Then, a week later, the circulator for the radiators died and so my house was without heat in the coldest week of the year. Fortunately, I have electric heaters and a fireplace in the living room, so although some pipes froze, nothing burst, and I had the sense to drain the radiators so they wouldn't burst. Sometimes, you get lucky.

Now the weather is warmer, and work is slow this week, but maybe it's to give me a chance to get some other things done. As I said to one of my clients, if all I ever have to worry about is whether or not I can pay the bills and repairs and such, I've got the best life of anyone in the world.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

How Quickly Time Passes

Someone just gave me a nudge and let me know it's been forever and a day since I had an entry here. Well, it's time to get off my butt and try coming in regularly. I'm doing NoJoMo on Opendiary, which involves doing a journal entry a day. I'm thinking it may be too much to try that here, but I could always copy and paste my entries from there to here, but that seems like cheating to me.

I have a new book out from eXtasy Books. It's a hot and steamy fantasy novel about a brave and handsome hero and a remarkable shape-shifting female who can be woman or wolf as her mood takes her. It's a tie in to a bigger work which I may actually put together before I die of old age. I'll be sure to add the links later. I'm too tired right now to search them down and copy and paste. It's Saturday, after all, and I'm trying to have a day off.

Mind you, this day off has involved getting up at 6 a.m. to take my son to work, putting the church bulletin together, picking up my youngest daughter from her friend's house, then picking up my oldest daughter to take her to work, since it's a holiday today and the bus isn't running, stopping for coffee and gas, then dropping the youngest off at her dad's place, coming home, making a call about information for the bulletin, finishing the bulletin and going to the rectory to get it printed up for three parishes, coming home again and then going out to pick my son up from work, throwing 100 pieces of firewood down the cellar stairs, putting another 50 on the porch to go down tomorrow and getting some writing done on my horror novel. It's now 3:30 in the afternoon, and I still have to pick up my daughter from work and drop her at home. AND I may have to let the guest priest into the rectory so he can do the services tomorrow since our priest is away in Poland on vacation.

I've had more restful days than this.

Friday, October 14, 2005

WTF? To My Friends from OD

I imagine any of you wandering in here from my website are as distressed as I am to see that OD seems to have gone to its reward. The WHOIS says its registration ran out October 8, 2005 and that it is currently pending renewal or death (okay, it doesn't say "death" per se, but that's what it boils down to). I hope it comes back. I like OD. I've kept Torin's journal there for a long time and it would be sad to lose our happy little community. There are diarists there that I don't know how to go about contacting if OD is gone forever, and to lose some of them would be a great blow to my online enjoyment, and in some cases, to my personal life.

TEO, if you're here, please drop me an email so I can find you. Harley, I have your email. And Sunshine Wolf's and Tuppence and I think I have Fully Caffeinated's somewhere as well. I don't have Me Explorer's any more since it was in my OD mail which cleaned itself out some months ago. Nor do I have any way to find MsNoSign, gel, Willow and Jule and all the others who are on my faves list over there. I do hope you all wander in through my site and let me know how to find you online again. Come to Blogspot, or go to LiveJournal (I'm there, too) and let's try to start another community, if OD is well and truly gone. Glad I downloaded all my story entries long ago.

With a sigh...

Thursday, October 06, 2005

October Update

Well, things are coming along nicely. I got the contract for one article, signed it and sent it back, and finished a second article for an online 'zine for busy women and I've been making some money with an online gig that I can do whenever it strikes my fancy. I've started work on the companion to the erotic novel and am still sending out queries to agents and publishers for the Bailey Sullivan book, which has sold another copy or two at Lulu.com. It doesn't hurt to earn a few dollars while you're shopping a book around.

I actually had the erotic one up at Lulu as well until it was picked up by eXtasy Books. Once I signed the contract with them, I removed Torin and Sunshine from my Lulu storefront. I'm also going to be adding the cover to my storefront at Cafepress.com and will post the link here when it's ready to roll.

My son has started working this week, which is a good thing. I so approve of young people working and contributing to the household.