I don't understand numbers all that well and they don't make me get emotional. Therefore, when someone gives me a number, say, ten thousand killed in earthquake, it often doesn't compute of affect me that much.
Now that's a terrible thing to admit but I will explain. If someone were to go into the area of the earthquake and talk to the people, who would tell their stories of a child disappeared, then I would get an image of sorrow and it would become immediate to me.
In the ninties, I had a neighbour who was an Inuit. He used to tell me that he'd made himself employed by started a translating service. Now that Nunavit was a territory run by Inuit people, there were a lot of Inuktitut speakers and all the reports were done in that language.
So he came to Ottawa, where he happily translated the reports into English and French and took reports to be sent to Nunavit and put them in Inuktitut. I asked was there much competition and he told me he was the only one doing this so had great job security. The government wasn't going away.
He told me other things, too. With great passion and upset he told me that when he goes back to the arctic how ten year old Inuit children would come up to him asking if he had any drugs he could sell them. This bothered him so much and he could be on the verge of tears when talking about it.
It made me see how communities of indigineous people have been affected by 'us'. The white people. Not me directly but the whole process of taking them away from their traditional values. I have heard it said that in the old days, no Inuit child would think of talking back or disobeying an elder. Benefits of civilization?
So maybe I shouldn't feel too bad that someone telling me 80% of Inuit are into drugs or some other such number doesn't make me sad or even get in my head. Not like my neighbour. I still think about what he said today and become as sad as him. Perhaps someday things will improve up there.
Book Hippo
Thursday, June 13, 2013
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Hot Weather
It's hot today. It was hot yesterday, and the day before. Good, right? Yeah, we have our fans on all the time and don't go out when the sun is high in the sky. It's great. Finally.
I do have to say, that I wouldn't like it if it was any hotter. Like in a tropical country. There are all sorts of strange and scary bugs that come out in tropical countries, and all sorts of diseases that we just don't have here in the north.
I've always considered myself lucky that I don't live anywhere near big, big snakes that eat people, squeezing them to death or biting them. There really isn't anything living in Canada in the category of 'creepy' that kills. Well, I know in Alberta and BC there are rattlesnakes but nowhere near any of the towns.
And of course there are bears, but bears aren't creepy. They're big and powerful and you can hear them a mile away. You don't stand a chance of stepping on them.
The worst things in Canada, I guess, are the plants. Even animals have trouble with them. I know cows will sometimes eat a plant that looks like a plant they like and keel over dead. It's something they warn you against eating when you go out into the forest. In fact, they don't want you eating anything at all if you don't know what it is.
I've always lived by that rule when I was out camping but it fooled my once when I was camping right by a huge blueberry patch without recognizing the berries. After I found out I was in that patch every day.
But still I never ate anything when I didn't know what it was. Another thing they have in Canada is leeches. They get on your body when you're swimming and if you want to get them off you have to light a match and hold it to their head. Otherwise they'll leave their jaw in your leg if you pull them off. The heat makes them let go.
So I guess I'm fortunate. No pythons or fire ants, nothing to give me nightmares. Only the weather when the snow is deep and you can't go more than four blocks without fearing frost bite. So when I go out in this nice, hot sun I'll think how good I have it.
I do have to say, that I wouldn't like it if it was any hotter. Like in a tropical country. There are all sorts of strange and scary bugs that come out in tropical countries, and all sorts of diseases that we just don't have here in the north.
I've always considered myself lucky that I don't live anywhere near big, big snakes that eat people, squeezing them to death or biting them. There really isn't anything living in Canada in the category of 'creepy' that kills. Well, I know in Alberta and BC there are rattlesnakes but nowhere near any of the towns.
And of course there are bears, but bears aren't creepy. They're big and powerful and you can hear them a mile away. You don't stand a chance of stepping on them.
The worst things in Canada, I guess, are the plants. Even animals have trouble with them. I know cows will sometimes eat a plant that looks like a plant they like and keel over dead. It's something they warn you against eating when you go out into the forest. In fact, they don't want you eating anything at all if you don't know what it is.
I've always lived by that rule when I was out camping but it fooled my once when I was camping right by a huge blueberry patch without recognizing the berries. After I found out I was in that patch every day.
But still I never ate anything when I didn't know what it was. Another thing they have in Canada is leeches. They get on your body when you're swimming and if you want to get them off you have to light a match and hold it to their head. Otherwise they'll leave their jaw in your leg if you pull them off. The heat makes them let go.
So I guess I'm fortunate. No pythons or fire ants, nothing to give me nightmares. Only the weather when the snow is deep and you can't go more than four blocks without fearing frost bite. So when I go out in this nice, hot sun I'll think how good I have it.
Wednesday, May 22, 2013
The Everyday Hero
All is fresh outside today. We had a big thunderstorm last evening and now it's nice out. I think it won't last, we're due for rain all this week. I'm so glad that I'm in my apartment, so cozy.
It makes me think about all the people in the past who weren't so cozy and comfortable in the rain. Like soldiers of the first and second world wars who had to stay outside in the rain and fight and maybe die.
My grandfather was a soldier in WWI. He fought at Salonika which is a little reported battle. He never talked about it, except to say that he hated mules. The officers treated the mules better than the enlisted men, he used to say, and that was all he said.
I think some day I'd like to go to Salonika and see what it would have been like for my grandfather and the others who fought with him. It was his downfall in a way because he was bitten by a mosquitoe and contracted malaria. This weakened his heart. After the war his doctor told him that if he wanted to live, he had to move to either Alberta, Canada or Australia. As he had relatives in Alberta, he went there on a Soldiers Settlement, which meant he got free farmland.
One day him and granny came home to find the horses had broken into their house and were eating their straw mattress. They gave up farming and grandpa went to work for the railway as a Section Foreman.
I don't know when the decision came to leave Alberta and go to BC, maybe he didn't care anymore that he would die young if he did, but they ran a boarding house in Vancouver and he worked as a steward on the ships that go up the coast of BC, making extra money by playing the piano for the crowds. None of this was good for his heart and he died at about 74 years old. I miss him still.
But strangely, when I think of him, it's not as the man I knew but as the soldier I've only seen photos of. Fighting in the rain. Covered with lice. Drilling. This terrible part of his life which changed him in so many ways. Even when hunting for meat in Alberta, he would never actually shoot anything but hand his rifle over to his friend. After the war, he couldn't bring himself to kill. The war made him gentle. It gave him nightmares. It was something he had to survive every day for the rest of his life.
It made him an everyday hero.
It makes me think about all the people in the past who weren't so cozy and comfortable in the rain. Like soldiers of the first and second world wars who had to stay outside in the rain and fight and maybe die.
My grandfather was a soldier in WWI. He fought at Salonika which is a little reported battle. He never talked about it, except to say that he hated mules. The officers treated the mules better than the enlisted men, he used to say, and that was all he said.
I think some day I'd like to go to Salonika and see what it would have been like for my grandfather and the others who fought with him. It was his downfall in a way because he was bitten by a mosquitoe and contracted malaria. This weakened his heart. After the war his doctor told him that if he wanted to live, he had to move to either Alberta, Canada or Australia. As he had relatives in Alberta, he went there on a Soldiers Settlement, which meant he got free farmland.
One day him and granny came home to find the horses had broken into their house and were eating their straw mattress. They gave up farming and grandpa went to work for the railway as a Section Foreman.
I don't know when the decision came to leave Alberta and go to BC, maybe he didn't care anymore that he would die young if he did, but they ran a boarding house in Vancouver and he worked as a steward on the ships that go up the coast of BC, making extra money by playing the piano for the crowds. None of this was good for his heart and he died at about 74 years old. I miss him still.
But strangely, when I think of him, it's not as the man I knew but as the soldier I've only seen photos of. Fighting in the rain. Covered with lice. Drilling. This terrible part of his life which changed him in so many ways. Even when hunting for meat in Alberta, he would never actually shoot anything but hand his rifle over to his friend. After the war, he couldn't bring himself to kill. The war made him gentle. It gave him nightmares. It was something he had to survive every day for the rest of his life.
It made him an everyday hero.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
The Historically Voiceless
I love to read a good history book. My favorite characters in history are often ones whose names I can't even remember. Everyone knows that the winners write history so there are many people in history who don't have a voice.
Now if I were to say that white people going to the American southwest were not the first there you would automatically assume that I meant the Apaches were there first. Well, they were but there were others. Namely, black people who had escaped slavery. Many of them found their way into places where there were no white people. Some lived in Apacheria.
So little is known about these people that no one can tell you if they lived in groups or as loners wandering around. They probably lived by hunting, perhaps trading with the Mexicans and Apaches. Whatever happened to them is also not told.
All through American history you will find black individuals who escaped and were accepted by natives. One group of whites went to treat with a Sioux tribe and found themselves face to face with a black man in full Native dress. There was no taking him back to slavery, the whole tribe backed him.
Some blacks even became Chiefs and fought with distinction.
Another group of the voiceless were women. Again, the American west was the place where they stepped out of their roles and became themselves. One women took to dressing in animals skins, showing quite a bit of leg, mind you and rode like a man. Riding her horse by one general, I think Sherman, he remarked, "What was that?" So unlike a woman of the times was she.
Her name I can't remember but I would surely like to know what she thought about and how she came to live the way she did. She fought with men when she felt like it.
Not just white women were voiceless parts of history. An Apache tribe had a woman leader, a very wise woman, by all accounts, who kept them peaceful and non-combatant and counseled them how to get along with the whites and how to make good. I have never read what became of this tribe. Whether they veered from that path after she died and now live the terrible life of a modern Apache, or whether they became productive people, at home with the system.
The last person I will mention is an Englishman, again in Apacheria. He went to the USA and found native life congenial, so one could find him living with a tribe and wearing native dress, happily hunting and doing whatever his tribe was up to. Six months later, one could find him in Tombstone, Arizona with his best white person clothes on, dining in a saloon and living 'American'. He went back and forth, however his fancy took him.
Someday I'm going to write about one of these people. At least I promise myself I will. They are fascinating, the thing that keeps me going back to history books. Humans are so interesting but for me, these faceless, nameless men and women make history a living thing.
Now if I were to say that white people going to the American southwest were not the first there you would automatically assume that I meant the Apaches were there first. Well, they were but there were others. Namely, black people who had escaped slavery. Many of them found their way into places where there were no white people. Some lived in Apacheria.
So little is known about these people that no one can tell you if they lived in groups or as loners wandering around. They probably lived by hunting, perhaps trading with the Mexicans and Apaches. Whatever happened to them is also not told.
All through American history you will find black individuals who escaped and were accepted by natives. One group of whites went to treat with a Sioux tribe and found themselves face to face with a black man in full Native dress. There was no taking him back to slavery, the whole tribe backed him.
Some blacks even became Chiefs and fought with distinction.
Another group of the voiceless were women. Again, the American west was the place where they stepped out of their roles and became themselves. One women took to dressing in animals skins, showing quite a bit of leg, mind you and rode like a man. Riding her horse by one general, I think Sherman, he remarked, "What was that?" So unlike a woman of the times was she.
Her name I can't remember but I would surely like to know what she thought about and how she came to live the way she did. She fought with men when she felt like it.
Not just white women were voiceless parts of history. An Apache tribe had a woman leader, a very wise woman, by all accounts, who kept them peaceful and non-combatant and counseled them how to get along with the whites and how to make good. I have never read what became of this tribe. Whether they veered from that path after she died and now live the terrible life of a modern Apache, or whether they became productive people, at home with the system.
The last person I will mention is an Englishman, again in Apacheria. He went to the USA and found native life congenial, so one could find him living with a tribe and wearing native dress, happily hunting and doing whatever his tribe was up to. Six months later, one could find him in Tombstone, Arizona with his best white person clothes on, dining in a saloon and living 'American'. He went back and forth, however his fancy took him.
Someday I'm going to write about one of these people. At least I promise myself I will. They are fascinating, the thing that keeps me going back to history books. Humans are so interesting but for me, these faceless, nameless men and women make history a living thing.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
The Parrot
I love to visit my friends. They live outside of Ottawa and have a huge house and a pool. There's also three dogs plus one bird. The dogs are great, the bird, not so. It's a parrot and it attacks when it's not being paid enough attention. And when it's left alone upstairs when everyone's downstairs, it makes a sound like a child crying.
So one day we're all downstairs. The bird's crying and it so happens someone has backed into my friend's car and a cop is taking a report. Suddenly, he looks up. What's wrong with that child?
No, it's a bird. There's no child in the house.
He's not convinced and because he's worried that a child is being abused, he has probable cause. They let him in. He checks the whole downstairs. No child. He starts up the stairs.
Well, the bird cries because it's lonely. When it hears a whole troop of people, it stops. The cop sees the bird.
It's not making any noise.
They try to explain. Anyway, half an hour later, he's finally convinced there's no abused kid in the house, that the bird is a brat and he leaves. My friend is philosophical, Just doing his job, she says.
Anyone who owns a parrot knows about the quirky behavior of these birds. Wouldn't it be better to leave them in their jungle home?
So one day we're all downstairs. The bird's crying and it so happens someone has backed into my friend's car and a cop is taking a report. Suddenly, he looks up. What's wrong with that child?
No, it's a bird. There's no child in the house.
He's not convinced and because he's worried that a child is being abused, he has probable cause. They let him in. He checks the whole downstairs. No child. He starts up the stairs.
Well, the bird cries because it's lonely. When it hears a whole troop of people, it stops. The cop sees the bird.
It's not making any noise.
They try to explain. Anyway, half an hour later, he's finally convinced there's no abused kid in the house, that the bird is a brat and he leaves. My friend is philosophical, Just doing his job, she says.
Anyone who owns a parrot knows about the quirky behavior of these birds. Wouldn't it be better to leave them in their jungle home?
Sunday, April 21, 2013
Gaston
I'd almost like to start this blog post with a psuedo-Yogism, It doesn't pay to buy. Well, Yogi didn't say that, I did. I think it every time I think of Gaston.
I decided one day, to visit the Rideau Center. It's a big shopping center of about 250 stores. It is on one side of Rideau Street and is connected to The Hudson's Bay Company by an overhead walkway. THBC is on the other side of the street, of course. The walkway is enclosed.
In the walkway, there are vendors. Some sell hats and scarfs, usually cashmire and wallets. Anyway, I was walking from THBC when a man stepped out from one of the stalls. He introduced himself as Gaston.
Now I had made a pledge not to buy anything and I knew Gaston was a salesman. I should have kept walking but he was so nice and amiable. I decided to stop but not buy.
What a personality. Well, Gaston convinced me to buy not one, but two kits I didn't need. Eighty dollars. I walked away regretting it immediately and worried what David, my room mate would say.
I walked home.
"What's that?" He asked.
"Some stuff I bought."
"How much did you spend."
Gulp. "Eighty dollars. And it's stuff I don't use."
"Take it back."
"But, you see, Gaston...he is such a good salesman."
"You have a weakness for those people. Give it to me. I'm taking it back."
He left and I felt some relief. An hour later he was back. He still had the bag which he put in front of me. Now there were three kits in it.
"Since when do you buy beauty products?" I asked
"Gaston...he's..."
"A really good salesman? He can make you like him so that you buy things you wouldn't normally?"
"He actually is a good guy."
Right. So now I have three nail kits just waiting to be used. I tried one, it was nice...sort of. Pretty good for something I don't use.
On the good side, I stopped feeling bad that exact day about my weakness for salesmen. Especially ones like Gaston who make you like them even when they're pushing you to buy something you don't want. He's a supersalesman. But I look for him whenever I'm at the Rideau Center just so I don't end up with more stuff. I turn and walk the other way.
I decided one day, to visit the Rideau Center. It's a big shopping center of about 250 stores. It is on one side of Rideau Street and is connected to The Hudson's Bay Company by an overhead walkway. THBC is on the other side of the street, of course. The walkway is enclosed.
In the walkway, there are vendors. Some sell hats and scarfs, usually cashmire and wallets. Anyway, I was walking from THBC when a man stepped out from one of the stalls. He introduced himself as Gaston.
Now I had made a pledge not to buy anything and I knew Gaston was a salesman. I should have kept walking but he was so nice and amiable. I decided to stop but not buy.
What a personality. Well, Gaston convinced me to buy not one, but two kits I didn't need. Eighty dollars. I walked away regretting it immediately and worried what David, my room mate would say.
I walked home.
"What's that?" He asked.
"Some stuff I bought."
"How much did you spend."
Gulp. "Eighty dollars. And it's stuff I don't use."
"Take it back."
"But, you see, Gaston...he is such a good salesman."
"You have a weakness for those people. Give it to me. I'm taking it back."
He left and I felt some relief. An hour later he was back. He still had the bag which he put in front of me. Now there were three kits in it.
"Since when do you buy beauty products?" I asked
"Gaston...he's..."
"A really good salesman? He can make you like him so that you buy things you wouldn't normally?"
"He actually is a good guy."
Right. So now I have three nail kits just waiting to be used. I tried one, it was nice...sort of. Pretty good for something I don't use.
On the good side, I stopped feeling bad that exact day about my weakness for salesmen. Especially ones like Gaston who make you like them even when they're pushing you to buy something you don't want. He's a supersalesman. But I look for him whenever I'm at the Rideau Center just so I don't end up with more stuff. I turn and walk the other way.
Monday, April 8, 2013
Hopefull Fashions For Spring
I think it's here. Spring, in all springly glory is melting the snow from several snowstorms. Trees are beginning to have buds. I am going out more for walks and best of all, stores trying to rid themselves of their winter stock are having sales.
I went to a shopping mall called Carlingwood the other day and a coat store was selling $200.00 coats for $37.00. I got two good quality winter coats for next year. The only think is, I'm on my diet and have lost about twenty pounds, so they might not fit. Well, one will fit because it has strings you can pull to make it fit better. I'm keeping them both, even if I do lose more weight, though, because they're a deal. They'll just be a bit big. Find with me.
I didn't know I would find any sales this year as Zellars went out of business in February. I was getting deals galore in the weeks leading up to their closing but they're gone now and so are the deals.
So I've been a bit worried about where I'll get my pants. Tops I can get anywhere but not as cheap as Zellars but that's okay, they're better made. But pants. Pants are so expensive if you're not at a discount store. Some brands are $100.00 a pop. Even $40.00 is more than I'm used to paying. What to do?
It has me thinking that maybe I'll go through with a plan I had in the ninties of last millenium. Making my own clothes. Back then, I came up with this plan because the fashions of the day were so horrible.
It began in the eighties with everyone wearing unisex army clothes. Battle jackets and boots. Some people even got married in combat boots. I never went along with that particular style but stuck to t-shirt and pants. I wish now I'd have dressed better when I was young but then, remember leg-warmers? Even dressing up back then made you look like an idiot.
So I thought when the nineties came around and there was no improvement to fashion, that I might learn how to design my own clothes. Just simple things. I bought a lot of fabric but never could afford the fees for the classes.
Then fashions got better. Now you see young girls wearing knee socks and looking good because of the type of skirts they wear. They're so cute and the fashions for older women are good, too. Heck, even men's fashions are improving, especially the shirts.
But now I'm losing weight and thinking I might be better off learning how to design pants so I can make some I can take in when I need to
Spring makes me so hopeful.
I went to a shopping mall called Carlingwood the other day and a coat store was selling $200.00 coats for $37.00. I got two good quality winter coats for next year. The only think is, I'm on my diet and have lost about twenty pounds, so they might not fit. Well, one will fit because it has strings you can pull to make it fit better. I'm keeping them both, even if I do lose more weight, though, because they're a deal. They'll just be a bit big. Find with me.
I didn't know I would find any sales this year as Zellars went out of business in February. I was getting deals galore in the weeks leading up to their closing but they're gone now and so are the deals.
So I've been a bit worried about where I'll get my pants. Tops I can get anywhere but not as cheap as Zellars but that's okay, they're better made. But pants. Pants are so expensive if you're not at a discount store. Some brands are $100.00 a pop. Even $40.00 is more than I'm used to paying. What to do?
It has me thinking that maybe I'll go through with a plan I had in the ninties of last millenium. Making my own clothes. Back then, I came up with this plan because the fashions of the day were so horrible.
It began in the eighties with everyone wearing unisex army clothes. Battle jackets and boots. Some people even got married in combat boots. I never went along with that particular style but stuck to t-shirt and pants. I wish now I'd have dressed better when I was young but then, remember leg-warmers? Even dressing up back then made you look like an idiot.
So I thought when the nineties came around and there was no improvement to fashion, that I might learn how to design my own clothes. Just simple things. I bought a lot of fabric but never could afford the fees for the classes.
Then fashions got better. Now you see young girls wearing knee socks and looking good because of the type of skirts they wear. They're so cute and the fashions for older women are good, too. Heck, even men's fashions are improving, especially the shirts.
But now I'm losing weight and thinking I might be better off learning how to design pants so I can make some I can take in when I need to
Spring makes me so hopeful.
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