Stop the Violence

A local kid created this video in response to violence in his North End Winnipeg neighbourhood.

Let's give him some "views" to show our support.

Weird

After I came in from gardening, there was a message on my answering machine, entirely in French. I figured it wasn't for me, and deleted it. Out of curiosity, I checked my caller id just now, wondering where the phone call came from. The area code was 704, which google tells me is a NC phone number. From what I saw on the news, NC is getting walloped by hurricane Irene today.

I sure hope that wasn't someone calling family for help. Even if it was something like "I'm okay, mom", that's also a message that would be best to get through.

Whoever you are, I hope you're okay, and are able to reach whomever you were trying to call. (R: Did I use who/whom correctly there?)

Miscellany

When the doctor or nurse tells you that something they're about to spray in your mouth tastes foul, they *mean* it. The nurse described it as tasting like extremely rotten bananas. It was more like "OMGWTFBlechAwful!!!" with an aftertaste of bananas... and then a sensation like your throat is swelling up, and you are going to finally experience anaphylactic shock. (The fact that I have a mild allergy to bananas, and they had already put a plastic oxygen tube in my nostrils that smelled like plastic I'm allergic to didn't help.) However, the sensation is misleading, and I didn't die. Also, once I confirmed that I was, in fact, breathing just fine, all initial panic subsided. It was amusing that the spray to prevent you from gagging later does make you gag when being applied.

I was considerably less groggy from the woozy-juice than the other people I saw staggering out earlier. I even remember watching the monitor for parts of the procedure, but I do think I was sort of out of it. However, I was good, and did avoid operating machinery (including stoves) or signing legal documents. ;)

Unsurprisingly, shoving a pipe down ones throat and taking biopsies does indeed leave one with a bit of a sore throat. The doc didn't see anything (so I don't get any nifty pictures), but hopefully the biopsies will provide some answers as to why I sometimes have trouble swallowing.

In the news:

1. Recently I've heard on the radio that someone is (once again?) circulating a petition that Sesame Street allow Bert and Ernie to get married (to each other). Personally, although I can possibly imagine Bert as being gay, I always saw the two of them as brothers, and wondered where their parents were. (They didn't seem old enough to be living on their own, and they look so similar.) Sesame Street is saying they're just friends/roommates, and don't have sexual orientations. What's you're opinion? Gay, brothers, or friends?

2. One of the new Winnipeg Jets players committed suicide. (The death was reported as "sudden, no foul play suspected, and he suffered from depression".) Depression is a serious disease, not something to be ashamed of. If you have it, please get help. (You wouldn't expect someone with cancer to "just snap out of it", would you?) If you know someone with depression, please encourage them to get help.

3. Neti pots can KILL YOU!!!!! Well... maybe. *One* person who lives in the South, and used plain tap water got a funky brain-burrowing amoeba. I use distilled water, as recommended. Blowing your nose can kill you too, but that doesn't stop me. ;) (I'll save my worries for crossing the street, and similarly dangerous daily activities.)

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day! I love my country. It's not perfect, but it's my favourite place to live.

To those along the Souris River, or being swamped by Lake Manitoba, my thoughts are with you.

This climate change shit is scary... more people need to start doing more to slow it down & hopefully get things under control! I try to do what I can. (What are you doing?)

Why is it when DDT was killing birds, it got banned? How did the government get CFCs phased out, to try to save the ozone? What's different now, that our government is not being proactive when it comes to climate change? Does it not see the million tiny things pointing to something being wrong? Three million acres of Manitoba farmland went unseeded this year due to flooding. The entire state of Texas has been declared a natural disaster due to drought. Storms are more severe, and more often. Oceans are facing mass extinction.

When you're out celebrating today, please think of a way you can help keep this country (and the world) a great place to live.

Two small things I did recently:

1. I made a reusable shopping bag out of fabric that was rescued from the trash:

(It was formerly part of a camping item which was wearing out and no longer wanted.)

2. I repaired a reusable bag for a friend, so that it can keep on chugging:


One thing I'm not happy about:

That seemingly sturdy bag my tooth-care items came in?

Is "degradable", which means that if I try to reuse it, it will fall apart on me. The product's web site makes it sound nice, but I don't trust so-called (bio)degradable plastics: see this, this, and this. Ever hear of "greenwashing"? :(

I'm not perfect either, but I do what I can.

Really?!

Vancouver! What the eff!?!! I hope every single rioter is found, charged, *fined*, made to do embarrassing sorts of community service, and publicly *shamed*!

To those brave souls who stood up to the rioters: Bravo! At least I can have *some* faith in humanity!

Rowdy Fans

Although the intersection was open by the time I passed through on my way home, there were some die-hards still on the curbs.

The rude drunk on the bus was obnoxious, but thankfully he got off after two stops when he discovered there were still people left at the corner.

Portage & Main

It was a bit interesting getting to work today, with the rabid hockey fans taking over Portage & Main. (They tried to get them to go to the Forks, but gave in and closed the intersection.)

You know, if you hear the radio reporters say "NHL" too many times, it starts to sound funny and unrecognizable.

I feel sorry for the Moose. Apparently they're getting shipped off to Newfoundland. (Which looks like a really pretty place to visit in summer, and I've been dreaming of having a painting vacation there, but I'm not sure I'd want to be on a hockey team being shipped there.)

?

The "Awesome Bar"? Tip to people naming things at Firefox: If something is awesome, you don't need to name it that. If you name it that, and it isn't, people will laugh. (People may laugh anyway.)

Another tip: your browser would be more awesome if it hadn't crashed three times since installing the update five minutes ago.

(Clicking "post" before it crashes again. Thanks, blogger, for remembering my post. *You* are awesome!)

Excitement

Good: Parcel delivered at my mom's. (She has a real mailbox, and is home more often.) Silk hankies and acid dyes, for making mittens like the Yarn Harlot's. :) Hankies and dye from Legacy Studio, in case you want your own supplies. (Link is directly to the page for 100g of plain hankies... they have smaller amounts, and pre-dyed hankies as well. BMFA got swamped with orders after the Yarn Harlot blogged hers, and so they took the mawatas down temporarily while they catch up.)

Good: A friend at the art club gave me a pretty necklace. :) It's a Chinese/Celtic knot carving made into a lovely pendant necklace. :)

Bad: Stupid people in block next door acting stupidly. At 11:00, I heard glass shatter, and so grabbed my phone and camera, slipped on sandals (in place of slippers), and ran outside to see if I could scare off whoever was causing damage. Turns out it wasn't someone smashing a car window (as I first thought), but the ex of a woman next door (this is the same family I saw using windows as doors, and having large groups of people drinking and doing drugs). By the time I got outside, the guy was in the car, trying to leave, and the woman was holding on to the open car door, trying to get him to talk. (He would start to drive with her hanging on.) When I saw that, I called 911. The broken glass was the full-door window to the block next door. (The owner is over now, putting plywood over the hole, so they don't freeze there tonight.)

Nooooooo!

Bloglines is shutting down! I'm going to have to find a new feed aggregator. :(

A Good News Story

I've been hearing so many horrible things in the news, that it was a relief to hear a good news story on The Bottom Line. (Thank you, David Suzuki, for giving hope along with the bad facts.)

Self-described 'radical' farmer Joel Salatin shares his ideas on how to revolutionize the global food system.

I googled the name, and came up with this website about his farm. Happy cows, happy chickens, etc, all being rotated around a small parcel of land in a way that makes use of nature. Cows eat perennial grasses. When the section they're eating gets mowed, they get moved onto the next section. Three days later, the chickens are sent in to eat the maggots that are living in the cow patties, before they can hatch into flies and cause a fly problem. The chickens scatter the cow patties, helping to fertilize the grasses. A couple of weeks later, the cows are back in that chunk of lush field, and the circle of life continues.

On The Main Ingredient, an interview with someone developing a way to grow veggies and fish in the same tank... in a "back yard" sort of way.

Happy thoughts!

Sh!t

Gah! I waited 25 minutes downtown for a connection (normal wait is about 10 minutes), and then the construction traffic was worse than usual! I arrived 37 minutes late. :( I talked to my boss, and I'll be staying late for the next few days. *sigh* (So much for getting to pottery faster today!)

Grump.

I talked to Mrs C while waiting for the first bus today. Turns out that the chase the other day started in the back lane, and hit three residents' cars and a tree before speeding away. :P

Wheee

I just witnessed part of a car chase. I heard a bunch of squeals and pops, rather like when someone rear-ends someone else at the intersection near me... but several in a row... then an SUV sped off. Two cop cars sped *right* after it (I suspect they had been waiting for the vehicle, which did a u-turn when it saw them), then an unmarked car with lights flashing, then another cop car. I heard another set of sirens while typing this up.

Looking out my kitchen window, I couldn't tell if anything else had been damaged during the "squeal and pop" phase.

I hope they catch the idiot(s).

Update: Looks like it was a stolen car, just as I expected... and the "pops" were probably between the stolen car and a police car. Brief news article.

Disgusting

To the so-called "Black Block Protesters": You disgust me. I disagree with many things the current government is doing, but what you are doing is not protest. It is not Canadian. It is illegal, violent, destructive, criminal... disgusting. What are the issues you are trying to bring attention to? I have no idea. In fact, I think you don't have any. You're just a bunch of immature vandals who get their jollies by causing destruction. This is not a video game. Grow up.

Miscellany

Yesterday's bike ride: 15.5 km.

Neighbours: I got a visit from one of my neighbours this morning (the rather nutty Mrs C). First she asked if I had seen J, the lady across the hall with all the problems. She wanted to know if J had paid me back, because she heard that J had finally received her child tax support back-payments. I said no, but I wasn't really worried about it. (I hadn't really expected to be paid when I did the babysitting, I did it to help out a neighbour in need. And I earn more than she does.) I think Mrs C was hoping I'd get on J's case to pay the both of us back. Sorry, crazy lady; if you want your money, you'll have to take it up with J... and given that I heard that Mrs C's daughter stole stuff from J (earrings, $50), I suspect that will be a tough battle.

Neighbourhood: You know that window sign I posted about this morning? Well, it was gone by this evening. Signs keep going up and then coming down. I wonder if there's multiple people living there, and they all have different opinions on the signs? Or if the person living there is just a paranoid nutjob? (He's installed all sorts of security cameras... maybe he didn't like my taking a picture?)

Deja-Vu-Land

Oh, look, it's 1979 all over again: That was Then, This is Then (The Rachel Maddow Show). Top kill, top hat, junk shot... it's all there. Heck, there's even an Alaskan pipeline burst. (Why aren't we hearing about that on the news? Is there a reason why oil spilling in pristine wilderness isn't "news"? Perhaps because it's "business as usual"?) Apparently the only thing that's changed is that now we're drilling in deeper places, with no better technology to stop spills.

Why, oh why, won't the Harper government stop the drilling in the arctic? I shudder at the thought of what will happen when (not "if", "when") a blow-out happens there.

I saw a program ("H2Oil") the other night on TV, about the Alberta tar sands.

It feels like the world is going to hell in a hand-basket.

Some People Walk Dogs...

...Today I walked my caretaker.

He had a stroke last fall, and found out (while being treated for the stroke) that he has high blood pressure and diabetes. Among other things, he was told to get a certain amount of exercise. However, since the stroke came on while he was out for a walk, he's been rather scared to go far from the apartment, since he wouldn't be able to phone for help then. Instead, he's been walking the apartment hallway.

Now, if this was a real sized apartment, this wouldn't be too bad. But it's a tiny apartment block... and so the length of the hallway is two stairways less than the length of my apartment. He uses a deck of cards to keep track of how many times he's paced back and forth. (Each time he moves a card from on step to the lower one.) I feel bad for him.

Tonight, after putting a load in the dryer (~58 minutes), I saw that he was doing his pacing. Rather than going upstairs and washing dishes so that I could cook dinner, I decided to take him for a walk around the block instead. After circling twice, I asked if he wanted to go again, or if he had enough. He decided that was enough for today.

Usually when I see him pacing, I'm busy with lots of other stuff. I think I'll try to make time for him more often, though. (It's not really exercise for me, because he doesn't walk very fast.) I'm thinking I should also introduce him to the 96-year-old gentleman in the neighbourhood who still walks daily, but has been getting more and more frail looking... the two of them could act as security for each other. They only live half a block away from each other, and if they made arrangements by phone (and called afterwards), they'd even have some security for that half block that one of them is alone.

While out and about on our walk today, I introduced him to my dad's dog, Nicky. He noticed the chives beside the sidewalk that were blooming. I think he recognized that they were related to onions, and remarked that they looked nice. I said I planned to put some in the apartment garden, and said that they were edible. I picked one for him to try. Then I said that even the flowers were edible, and picked one of those for him too. He said he planned to put it in his potato salad. I picked one for myself, and ate it on the spot. I hadn't eaten one of the flowers before... they're quite good. I thought they were supposed to be stronger tasting than the leaves, but it seemed milder to me.

In other news, weather conditions have not been favourable for gardening yet again. (The ground is sopping wet.)

Today I washed the shower walls and tub (that took quite a while, since it's still draining slowly... the landlord is going to have his plumber friend in), did laundry, washed dishes, cooked shrimp pasta for dinner, made hummus for lunches, and baked bread. I also sat and talked to the new neighbour for a bit (I'm trying to get his dog used to me, so it doesn't bark whenever I go to my mom's), and called my grandma.

I meant to bake banana muffins for the neighbourhood barbecue tomorrow, but it got too late to start them tonight. I should be able to manage that before it starts. I also want to try the "grandma's chocolate cobbler" recipe I saw on Pioneer Woman Cooks (a Tasty Kitchen recipe). I'm not sure how much cocoa I have, and I know I don't have milk... but I do have skim milk powder, and that might work just as well. If it looks like I have time, I'll check what ingredients I have. ;)

Weather

This is why I decided not to do any gardening this weekend.

The sun did start to peek out late on Sunday... just in time for the weekend to be over. :P

Cool News

Cool news from my cousin:

hi friends!

sorry to bother all of you again, but i wanted to thank you for voting in the first round, and ask you to vote again for my video in the finals. voting takes place right now until the 15th at:
http://roots.rcinet.ca/vote/index.php?categorie=2

the three videos in the last row are the ones to vote for, mine is the last one. roger sinha's is also very good.

you may have noticed a formatting error in the video, which i hadn't seen yet when i sent out the last email. the top and bottom of the frames are cut off, so some heads are missing. frustrating because i am such a stickler for perfect cropping, but so it goes.

*another very exciting piece of news is that cbc called this morning and is contemplating sending 'life stories' to further film festivals in canada or latin america. i just need to subtitle it in spanish. anyone know spanish?

take care and thanks so much for your time and feedback that you've sent me. it is much appreciated:)

...so if you voted before, please vote again!

Hee!

Awesomely funny article about knitting and quilting truckers! I wonder if they know about Ravelry?

In other news, I got my new glasses today... and one of the lenses has a big flaw right in the middle. They're ordering in a new lens for me. The prescription change is pretty small, but I'm still all cross-eyed trying to get used to the new glasses. Even switching between two pairs at the same prescription give me trouble. Maybe I won't try prescription sunglasses... (I had thought of trying a pair from a discount place... not the pricey place I got my regular glasses.)