I forgot I had a blog....

ewwww I have a blog??? who knew?? i guess I did but have completely ignored it for ...um.... a long time....I suppose I have been busy....yes , traveling ...hanging out....taking photos.....vacuuming.....always vacuuming. I sometimes think i should just have an extension on my arm that is a vacuum since I spend a lot of my time vacuuming. Would make life so much easier. So the topic of vacuuming is very boring and because it is so boring and Ive already used up enough time mentioning and saying the word more than enough times I will talk about my recent trip to Ireland instead. In a nutshell, it was awesome! I loved it, thoroughly loved it! I don't think there was one bad experience the entire 5 weeks I was there! OH wait....I digress....there was one bad experience. The rental car I hired. Wasn't really the tin can on wheels I drove around in but the actual company itself.
Im not sure what kind of beast it is that runs this company however Im pretty sure its an ugly one! For example.....If I brought the car back and it was abnormally dirty I would be charged a minimum fee of 100 euro. So I phoned to asked what constituted abnormally dirty. I was told "oh dirty carpets , like a lot of muck and sand in the carpets" Um....there were no floor mats so when I asked why there were no floor mats I was told people didn't like them.....seriously?? Because people preferred to get muck and sand on the carpets and pay a 100 euro minimum cleaning fee??? oh.....for fecksake.....
Then there was the full gas tank return policy, leave with full return with full and unless it is balancing completely on or slightly above full than it isn't full and you lose your entire gas deposit of $138 cnd. If that isn't enough for you to sigh... Jazus Murphy ...than maybe the hour and a half long wait to get the car upon pick is.
It was bad enough the wait but then the whole charade around my hacked credit card and it being the card I made the reservation with and it not being a valid card any longer meant I lost my wicked online discount I worked so long and hard to secure!!! That was a fair bit of an argument I wasn't going to back down from since he wanted to charge me a super inflated rate for walk up!
Meh...in the end we got it sorted and got on the road, the road to Worlds End ! Kinsale! In 80mph wind gusts and the worst storm in 30 years. One month of not driving at all, then thrust into the drivers seat during with a manual transition opposite of what my brain is geared for and Storm Frank!!! OMG....the worst part was the constant bitching from my co-driver...who really should have been jet lagged enough to just shut up and fall asleep.....wishful thinking.... poor arse....he had to endure what he considered the worst driving ever. Had nothing to do with said wind gusts or the fact I was driving a tiny tin can , or the slow drivers driving in the slow lane driving uber slow , like 60km per hour and the fast drivers driving in the fast lane driving 160km per hour....the fun part was hitting the massive sheets of water on the highway and hydroplaning, hearing the engine whirrrring out of control until I caught traction again.
All in all it was quite the drive , by the time we made it past Cork and thought we were on the home stretch we were to find a felled tree blocking our way just before Riverstick.  This meant a round about back way through sideways rain and pitch black night on back roads mostly gravel roads over the Irish countryside. Our saving Grace was a wonderful Irish girl who offered to lead us to Riverstick the backway since we were completely lost and ended up in her driveway up to her property. Thankfully we made it through Riverstick as shortly after the river burst its banks and flooded the town out.
We made it! after all that we landed at Castlepark to find a kitty named Princess Leah and two very happy black labs , Peter and Harriet who had not only made a big mess of the house but had eaten a pound of butter and lord knows what else in the short absence of humans.
After all that, the shitty rental car company, the fallen trees, the hydroplaning tin can on wheels, the six divorces that occurred during the drive down, the pinched nerves in my neck and shoulders, the dark and gloomy night and screeching banshees, we were happy , happy to be in a warm safe place at Worlds End, happy to have the friendliest pub and the friendliest people right outside our door and happy to finally be able to sit down and say hello in Irish fashion, with a great big pint! :D Cheers Ireland!!!! you and your people have won my heart!!! (and most of my liver)

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

a painting by Elayne Robinson, my mudda....

“Love is an abstract noun, something nebulous. And yet love turns out to be the only part of us that is solid, as the world turns upside down and the screen goes black. We can't tell if it will survive us. But we can be sure that it's the last thing to go.”
― Martin Amis, The Second Plane: 14 Responses to September 11 

This is something that came to mind repeatedly when I  recently took in "The Tree of Life" which was screened at TIFF then brought to my neck of the woods (haha a pun involving a tree...) by the Allied Arts Council of Pincher Creek. This movie was so far from what I expected I really felt for a huge part of it I was lost in a forest. A weirdly strange albeit fascinating forest that for some was probably too much and for others the equivalent of a strong sedative.

It was one of those films where you just really get blindsided and in this case I welcomed the unpredictability and essence of escape into a surreal reality of what the director  may or may not have been trying to depict! Hmmm I realize that is a little ambiguous however in my own defense so was this movie! To me it was something so amazing because of it's simplicity and the way that simplicity was deconstructed to four elements of spiritual growth: Love,Hate,Faith,Acceptance.

He did this through a total breakdown in usual structure of film storylines. The beginning was the end and the end the beginning with so much breathtaking cinematography in between that it alone kept my significant other from running out of the theater screaming "That`s the last God damned arsty fartsy movie you're ever dragging me too!!"

The religious rhetoric of the movie was increasingly important to the fractured dialogue as the director Terrence Malick, took us down a road that seemed intent on the "fact" that Love ,God , Faith, Hope is Nebulous. Something indistinct and vague. Dark , cryptic,mysterious and obscure.

When all else falls away, when the thin line between love and hate is crossed, when we realize that in the end the only thing that ever really meant anything at all was love. When we grasp this  I think it is then easy to grasp what Malick was trying to say.  There was just the few scenes with prehistoric animals I didn't really get...Although there is basically the beginning of the universe in one part of the film and so maybe the formation of life from tiny flickering amoebas is supposed to be represented by the progression to a giant herbivore laying wounded on a beach???? Also another scene of a small herbivore laying buy a stream when a big meat eater comes along and steps on his little head but then has second thoughts about eating him and wanders off down the stream...???? A dinosaur with a conscience? who knew?

Although the many of the scenes were breath taking it was a long film and for some a bit lengthy to sit through especially when they could not figure out what exactly it was that was going on? I know the woman behind me was requesting a debriefing when the credits started to run.

All in all , arsty fartsy , it was facinating and beautifully shot!! I would see it again ...not right away and as my friend Joni said..."can we get a cup of coffee first?"

I give it 4 stunning nebula's out of 5! go see it, take an arsty farsty friend they will appreciate it! Maybe get a cup of coffee first!

Unresolved Issues

Okay...so it goes like this, you say " So you ate all the granola, all the strawberries but you pick out all the blueberries and set them to the side?"

they say " I don't like blueberries" you say " Who doesn't like blueberries?" they say " I don't like blueberries, I have unresolved issues...." Unresolved issues? with blueberries? who has unresolved issues with blueberries? What , were hit in the face with a blueberry pie when you were a kid??? what, what? Seriously...if you're gonna have issues why not have some real issues! Like uh...well hmmm , lets say beards! I have issues with beards!! Why? well, they are scratchy when you kiss, unless you have your own beard I suppose...they look..like , well Kenny Rodgers or Santa Clause or worse case scenario your weird uncle who should be in the institution but instead you keep him busy out at the wood shed splitting logs all day. So ya...if you're gonna have an issue why not make it a gooder! Beards...what else? so now that all the bearded people hate me what else can we throw into the mix? Cats? ya...a lot of people have unresolved issues with cats. How many times have you brought a guy home in your single days and had him say "Oh Im allergic to cats!!" righhhhht ya sure you are. Then eventually it becomes one of his unresolved issues because he was molested by a cat when he was a toddler.  Well, I can tell ya,  just being freshly landed from a flight from Toronto, I  have a few unresolved issues of my own! I recant that "freshly landed" comment, anything but.....it was a friggin sardine can to say the least with my cloistral window seat in row 29 where I could hear the unresolved issues with the broken toilets.Honestly at one point I think I saw my life flash before my eyes as I heard the most daunting noise I have ever heard an airplane toilet make! I thought for certain with a suction sound that perforating, that we would all surely be sucked out the lavatory and spit out all across this great land of ours in bits.  That flight really sucked!!! Not only was it completely overpriced but I could have flown to somewhere hot and sunny for the same amount of the cost for a flight to somewhere within our own country. The cost was worth it though as i got to see a lot of old friends and had a fantastic time with fantastic weather! Really unbelievably unexpected weather full of sunshine and days of long walks and drinks on patios! I actually went out to T.O. to attend a girlfriends 50th birthday which was such a good time my liver is still considering pressing charges for its unresolved issues with what I put it through. It just so happened that I ended up staying right in my old neighborhood on Queen street west, right by the Trinity Bellwoods Park. It was strange to be back at the scene of so many fashion crimes from the 80's! My friends that I met in London England are pals of my guy and he knew them from Edmonton many years ago. I thought it was interesting that they ended up in Toronto living basically across the street from my old flat! Come on, Toronto is not a small town! Anyhoo, it was bringing up so many memories of decades ago when i lived there and at that time I had issues, they, at that point had not yet developed or matured to the stage of becoming unresolved. One for sure was my hair! It could never be big enough or long enough. 

Then when i went to work on Yonge Street I was forced to cut my hair into something not quite so "headbangerish" and a little more professional! The nerve, seriously...so I got all the split ends severed and within weeks let a guy from Korea shave the sides of my head so I had a form of a fauxhawk that even to this day I think was probably a mistake...oh well...it was only hair, it grew back...One issue that Im going to resolve right now however is that it is gorgeous out! October 21st and 20 degrees out, full on sun and not a cloud to be seen anywhere! I must stop this blogging and go enjoy what is sure to be some of the last brilliant weather of the season! This issue , for now, i declare resolved!!

Camouflage, Camouflage, Camouflage or...It's Hunting Season! Or Vegetarians beware , don't go hiking in the woods you may get shot at!

Ahhhhhh a fresh dusting of snow on the mountain,
leaves slowly turning color, a crispness in the air that urges you to go ahead and take a deep breath! It is considerably one of my most favorite times of the year! Er...not the hunting season but the fact that it denotes fall is on its way. I just love it when all the fall colors are in full bloom! A bit of a oxymoron I know but you know what i mean? All those beautiful hues of red,orange,green, yellow oh and of course the florescent orange of hunters caps,vests or jackets. The amount of camouflage people are donning in this town has lead me to believe if an unknowing tourist were to drop by they would possibly be mistaken for landing in downtown Baghdad. Okay , Okay ....The Crowsnest Pass is not nearly that nasty (sorry Baghdadians but I think you  know what i mean) it's just that much camouflage really feels like war is in the air!!!   

Ah some of them truly do resemble poor ole Elmer Fudd. I have patiently stood by and watched my beloved buy article after article of camouflage items. Hats, gloves, shoes, boots, toques, thermal shirts, undershirts, long johns, hoodies, jackets, snow pants, vests, binoculars, range finders ( an innocuous piece of equipment used for something to do with hunting....) uh...what else, oh yes, gps, lighter and...hm am i forgetting anything?   Oh ya, his camouflage cell phone cover! how could we forget that. What really gets fun is when they spray doe urine or moose urine or elk urine all over them selves !! : ) yaaaaaa isn't that special. It really is special.... Especially if someone is practicing sustainable hunting. this I can agree with. The animal has lived a good life, free from pain or torture or being force fed. Free of being confined with thousands of other animals wallowing knee deep in feces and urine. As long as someone is doing it with good intent and plans on consuming the wild meat I have little issue. A good fair hunt with some sportsmanship , hear hear! I myself am more of a gatherer. I go to the grocery store, gather nicely packages things and hopefully fresh produce, flash frozen if need be and for the most part i don't feel any need to put on anything camouflage, unless it's in fashion like that cute little fur lined blazer I bought a while back, hmmm I wonder where that is? I may need to dig it out , strictly for fashion of course!

Nature !!! (from the safety of the vehicle)

I love being surrounded by nature looking at the mountains getting up on top of them to climb around believing Im on the top of the world!! It is breathtaking to drive down the highway, come around the curve on a mountain side to see a vista spread before you that makes you gasp for air! well that and trying not to veer off the road over a cliff or into oncoming traffic, that leaves me a little breathless as well. It is moments like this however that I live for. Just to appreciate the beauty of majestic views. Something that truly makes you believe in a higher power that is the here and now, living in this moment. Lately it has been hunting season around here. This is a bit of a frenzy and a lot of men are getting all pumped up with testosterone and cladding themselves from head to toe in camouflage clothing. My man came out of the bedroom the other morning thinking he was pretty styling on the "Trendy Hunter" front , ready to do a photo spread for the cover and all I could think was , really....this is what you choose to do on a day off? Well okay, fine , being  the good sport that I am, I decided I should join him to take part in something that interests him as well to get out and view some of the surrounding beauty without having to get my feet wet. I was sporting a kakhi pant/coat ensemble with powder blue hiking boots and grey toque with complimenting gloves and scarf, uh excuse me , he isn't the only one allowed to go for the cover shot! I  have to admit it was good day! We spent 7 hours driving through the wilderness looking for animals! For me it was an opportunity to see back country that was just so unspoiled that it gave me faith in mankind not destroying everything. We did see a lot of animals as well. Nothing got killed and for me that was a bonus! Im not sure how I would have reacted if bear had been shot and loaded in the back of the truck. Probably not too happy. I love bears and I love to see them but usually only from the safety of the vehicle. I could sit and watch for hours if I have heavy steel and glass between myself and said bear. Out when Im hiking? noooooooooo ,the thought of running into a grizzly on a mountain side just doesn't make me feel warm and fuzzy whatsoever! It is odd though because being a scuba diver I thrill at the thought of seeing a shark on a dive. Many times when I was living in Egypt and we would head out for a day of diving we always had to know where others had seen hammerheads! I guess you don't hear too many stories of horror killings of scuba divers by sharks. Im sure it happens and I did watch the movie " Open Water" which gave me sick icky feeling because I have met people who have been left behind on dives. Lord, could you imagine coming up from a dive and you're in the middle of the ocean, all alone , nothing but you and the fishes!!  Scary , yeah , it's that whole bobbing around on the surface like a wounded fish or seal thing, that attracts the predators. Blech, getting back to the bear topic and my fear/reverence for them , there has been a lot of them around town lately. I think for the most part they are minding their own business, trying to fatten up for the winter and not get shot in the process.  I think if I had to pinpoint the escalation of my fear of being eaten by a bear it is a book my brother presented me with for a little bedtime reading "Bear Attacks!" ya...that was the title, nice bedtime true stories  to lull you off to a refreshing night of slumber. One story that really stuck with me was regarding a woman , who was a geologist, she was dropped by helicopter somewhere up north, like maybe northern Alberta or something. Anyhow, to make a long story short she was stalked and attacked by a black bear who basically ate both her arms off and tried to bury her and then went through her backpack and chewed through the cans that  had meat but left the creamed corn and peas....WORD! But by some twist of fate or stroke of  luck the helicopter came back and found her I don't know how much later (could have been the next day or days later!) and the bear was shot and she was rescued. She has no arms now but is fit with prosthesis and apparently she still does her surveying...They said , claimed... the bear had abnormalities and that's why it attacked. Eeeeeyah...right , okay , had nothing to do with it being hungry? Well nuff said...and that is why , I prefer to see nature from the safety of a vehicle, basically when i say nature i mean wild animals with sharp teeth or hooves that could potentially smash my skull in or chew my limbs off. Scuba diving and sharks though? Ahhh for that I make the exception , at least until someone presents me with the book " Shark Attacks!" Then i may have to opt for the underwater bubble vehicle but I doubt it!

Troubled Waters....or Down in the dumps?

Hmmm either or? same thing really isn't it? No...I don't think so. Sometimes it just happens, you get down in the dumps. Or you drift into troubled waters I suppose, well actually I think it is more like this: Troubled waters, you get hooked on drugs/alcohol weird sex addiction type stuff where you randomly go looking for Mr. Goodbar...or Miss Goodbar? eeeehya...anyhow, you get yourself into dangerous situations that require a bit more thought and action than simply pulling yourself up from being down in the dumps.
I remember being in troubled waters a few times in my life, lost , drifting no land in site and thinking "wow, this sucks, Im in a leaky rowboat, there's a storm approaching, I've lost one or both of my oars and I think I may have just been struck by lightening? and on top of it all I just broke a nail" but being in some sort of troubled water induced stupor I wasn't quite sure if I had been struck by lightening or not??? Ya ....I was just that troubled. It was in those times of wallowing in the depths of despair that I probably learned how to pray. Well, I mean I had probably learned how to pray in Sunday school when I was a little girl but I don't think it was quite the same prayer or the same conviction. I think those prayers worked though because somehow I saw the light begin to break through the storm clouds and with long and tedious self introspection I was even able to  believe that I was catching a glimpse of a rainbow!! Long story short without getting into any weird and embarrassing/ humiliating details I did see the sun shine again and I do on occasion see rainbows! Sometimes a Unicorn is riding down one of them (gag relfex).
Somehow, with thanks to the higher Powers that be I did survive my teens , oh and my twenties....uh and my early thirties (okay , okay I was a late bloomer! sheesh ) but that isn't to say I didn't or don't get down in the dumps! Yup sometimes I get down...way down and I just wallow in it!!!! Take a good old mud bath and lay there moaning and groaning and cursing all humanity for the horrific things they do. Usually the " down in the dumps" saga is precluded by being subjected to an episode of Family Ties....or something a bit more dire like witnessing a news clip reporting the inevitable decline of the Polar Bear population. Or Walrus' grounding themselves due to  lack of ice because it's all melted due to global warming and therefor will begin the process of starvation. It begs the question....can't they net a few Polar Bears and drop them near the Walrus' and let nature take its course? Not that i don't like walrus' however I do like Polar Bears also, except when Im sleeping in a tent somewhere north of Churchill and they appear suddenly drooling over me, Oh wait ...that's never happened and I probably never will be in a tent in Northern Manitoba so forget i said that....Okay but getting back to my suggestion, drop some Polar Bears, catch a bunch of fish, oh but not Cod cause they are declining and becoming extinct, so catch some other fish and drop them near the Walrus' and then once nature has taken its course bring in some vets to dart and sedate the bears and take them back somewhere way up north where the ice is still solid and uh.....shit....uh....and then....um...Well I dunno!!! Im not friggin David Suzuki here people!!! I didn't claim to have all the answers....ahhhh hmmm well, I got the bears and the walrus' that far so to avoid getting down in the dumps over the whole ordeal Im gonna go to my happy place. It's a nice place where Polar Bears tickle Walrus' tummies, rainbows are everywhere! Lions are giving Unicorns lick kisses and feeding them pomegranates and deer and antelope are playing in open meadows while skittles fall from the sky and nobody is ever hungry or thirsty. Oh and more importantly the waterfalls are actually gin and tonic.

Who doesn't love dogs!

I love dogs! I love all kinds of dogs, big dogs, little dogs, fat dogs, skinny dogs, vicious dogs ( they need love to...that's probably why they're vicious!) friendly sweet dogs, smelly dogs, fluffy dogs, short haired shedding dogs , you get the picture, if it is of the canine species I pretty much am a sucker for it! Unfortunately not everyone shares the same affection for the four legged variety of humans best friend. Take for example an ex coworker of mine. He hated dogs, he said he didn't really but he did. You could see it every time he would eye ball the dog hair on my coat as I would hang it in the closet next to his. What?...there was an empty hanger next to his black DKNY overcoat.  Anyhow, I remember posting some photo's for my wallpaper on my desktop of my  pooches and admiringly telling him the names and traits of my little furry children. He really tried to fain interest but I could see something lurking under that facade.
So I asked, "you don't really like dogs do you?" , "Oh I don't know...they're okay I suppose but no...actually no I don't really enjoy them." Well at least he was trying to be all  P.C. about it. I asked if he had ever had a pet dog and he was happy to say Nope! and I wouldn't want one either, I did dogsit one time though. And he proceeded to tell me exactly why he thought dogs were stupid, smelly, hairy, annoying , dumb (ya I am being redundant, but so was he) and a complete waste of time and effort. Apparently he and his partner were doing the good deed of helping out a friend by dogsitting their shi tzue  or little shit, as i like to refer to them. He said at first it was all , Oh okay...isn't she cute? but the admiration of her cuteness waned quickly as the work of dog care set in. He said she would sit there and just stare at him, he would ask her "are you hungy?" stare...."are you thirsty?" stare....."do you want to go out?" stare , blink, look away and look back again to stare...."Oh well if you aren't going to tell me what you want then tough , you can just sit and stare" He said this was a daily routine which took place most waking moments when they were trapped in the condo together. He also lamented that he would take her down diligently several times a day to do her doo doos , a trek which was down the hall to the elevator , down 11 stories , out to the boulevard to simply stand and wait while she would just look up at him and stare. Sometimes she took a little tinkle but usually nothing substantial. Oh no...nothing until they would return to the apartment and as soon as he would close the door should would drop a little chocolate for him !!! What a good girl!!! He stated that this was her behavior the entire time he was saddled with the tiny staring googly eyed burden. Poor little doggy, I asked him " did you ever pick her up and cuddle her? Did you try to engage with her and maybe play fetch or maybe
just try to keep her entertained a little bit?" His reply, "Nooooooo ? why would I do that? she's dirty and hairy" He said the experience in itself was enough to convince him that dogs are stupid and useless. He said the final straw was when he went to put his designer loafer on (can't remember the label ,seriously, they were loafers people!) anyhoo, getting back to his final straw, he went to put his loafer on and she left him a loaf! haha, pinched a loaf in his loafer! Who's stupid now huh? I think she was probably much smarter then dumbass could ever give her credit for, she knew he didn't like her and so she made his life misery cause he was making her life misery. All she probably wanted was some affection and something that resembled a walk not a jaunt to the elevator then down to the boulevard. I have seen my dogs exhibit stupidity but I have also seen them exhibit signs of intelligence. They sense my sorrow and they sense my joy. Ive seen them smile and Ive seen them pout, Ive seen them show great concern for people in distress and at times Ive seen the deviousness which has rendered them giant loaves of bread off the counter. One thing I know is no matter how crabby Ive been , no matter how horrible my day is and I may have taken it out on them in one form or another ( like not taking them for a walk or ignoring their pleas for belly rubs) they are still there for me. Every morning is truly a new fresh day for them and they are always sooooo thrilled to see me! Im a superstar in their eyes!!! The worlds greatess person ever!!! I am the keeper and holder and distributor of dogs biscuits!!! But it's not just that, I am their Alpha ....and probably Omega for that matter, they truly enrich my life and honestly their unconditional love is what has led me to believe that dog spelled backwards is God for a reason. I like cats and birds but what does that render when you flip it around? Drib? Tac? I rest my case. And with this I ask you, Who doesn't love dogs??? I know I do!