Senior moment in Kelowna

Red swirl done this summer

Red swirl done this summer

As I am turning 65 tomorrow, I have spent the week uncharacteristically. I got a manicure with candy apple red nail polish which turned out to be a very bad job. It is the fourth in my life and I was loathe to go in and get another one until the proper 15 years had elapsed. I had my teeth bleached today to a lovely lighter shade of yellow-gray. Instead of going to work, I went shopping and bought six tee shirts for $80. I am having tea with not one friend on one occasion but with two friends on two occasions. This week I have had three naps because turning older can be exhausting… and perhaps starting work at 9 am and working until 9 pm might be a contributing factor. I walked past a spider web. My to do list has remained in the dark crevices of my purse and my mind. We have gone to bed early and watched the comedy network on computer

art work layered as backdrop

art work layered as backdrop

and laughed.

One of our town councilors who has had recurrent cancer died Monday. I think about the close calls and am so thankful that I am still here to see my grand daughters, to be a friend, to enjoy the partnership with my husband, to become a better person. To have died at 38, 52, 55, 57 (from hemorrhaging almost 1/2 of the blood from my body, from cancer, an horrendous car accident, or from a live electrical line hitting our car would have meant that I would have come back as a chicken or a turtle or something perhaps.

Rhane, Dominique, Teagan, Cherie, Alexandra

Rhane, Dominique, Teagan, Cherie, Alexandra

I am only now starting to get “it”. I am only now starting to see that I am only starting to see. I am grateful for all of my teachers and all of my lessons. And like a piece of leather in the jaws of an Inuit woman from history, I have become softer with age and stretchier. I have been chewed on by time.
Planning to see a plastic surgeon soon about another eye lift…. So I can see without the flap of skin in the way.

Blessings.

Coalition Government, Stephen Harper Master Strategist

Stephen Harper: Master Strategist

URL: http://www.rickmercer.com/blog/index.cfm/2008/12/3/Stephen-Harper–Master-Strategist
Okay we just might as well admit it and get it over with. Stephen Harper is a genius.

Here we are faced with a global economic crisis. Nations all over the world are struggling to figure out how to protect their citizens — who are terrified. We’ve seen unheard of cooperation between political rivals all over the industrialized world.

But not in Canada. Not with Stephen Harper. Not on his watch. No my friends, he has one goal and one goal only and it has nothing to do with governing: how can he use this crisis to destroy the opposition?

And wouldn’t you know, he almost did it.

Stephen Harper decided Canada doesn’t need a stimulus package; all we needed to do was cancel the subsidy that political parties get.

Which would have saved the government about $26-million. That’s about the same amount Harper spends on bodyguards every year when he visits danger zones like Thunder Bay or Nunavut.

But the real upside for Harper, of course, is that the entire opposition would have been crippled or destroyed. It gives me great faith to know that as our economy crumbles Harper is on the case trying to come up with new an innovative ways to cutback the Green Party’s office budget and bankrupt the Liberals. And then the world will be a better place.

Maybe he has a point. Maybe that’s why Canada keeps refusing to give the man a majority. It’s not because he’s a mean little man obsessed with revenge, but because we just have too many choices. We go to the voting booth and get confused. Like that first trip to Baskin Robbins.

Maybe we’d all just be better off if Conservative was the only flavour on the menu.

Well we almost found out. Because if Stephen Harper got his way on this, democracy would have changed forever. And not a single citizen will have gotten to vote on the matter.