A Skewed View

I'm not a huge country fan. The parental units have some seriously messed-up radio station playing in their bathroom in the mornings ... and always seem to forget to turn off the radio when they leave. Probably so that I won't be sure they're done in there, thus preventing me from using up the hot water with my showers when I visit. But I digress. Today I heard a song playing that made me look up the lyrics. It's George Strait's "She Let Herself Go". Allow me to share, with help from www.songlyrics.com : He wondered how she'd take it when he said goodbye. Thought she might do some cryin': lose some sleep at night. But he had no idea, when he hit the road, That without him in her life, she'd let herself go. Let herself go on a singles cruise, To Vegas once, then to Honolulu. Let herself go to New York City: A week at the Spa; came back knocked-out pretty. When he said he didn't love her no more, She let herself go. She poured her heart ...

So, is being a jerk to a jerk still being a jerk, or is it being a conduit of the universe and defender of the karma? At the movies on the weekend, an ape of a man sat in front of me with who I assume was his son. These two were up and down, in and out of the theatre, and chatting throughout the movie. I was annoyed by the up and down, but couldn’t hear their chatting so by and large I actually managed to ignore them. Maybe 20 to 30 minutes into the movie they appeared to be finally done with their random migrations, so I settled in to my seat. I put my feet up against the middle of the back of a seat to the left of Ape Man to be more comfortable. They remained there for perhaps half an hour before Ape and his spawn got up again. When Ape returned, he noticed my feet on the back of the chair to the left of him. He stood right in front of me and said “Wanna get your feet off the damn seat!” It was not a question. (Let me just pause at this juncture to say this – right here – this attitu...

Since moving to my new neighbourhood, I've been taking pictures of things that have struck my fancy or caught my attention. This week I missed a shot, though. Walking to work I saw what I thought was a discarded child's toy in a parking lot. When I got closer though, I saw that someone had placed (or driven) a remote control truck dead centre into a parking spot at the end of a long line of parked vehicles. I laughed for half a block. It was so completely something I would do with the hope that someone would notice, but all the while figuring that I'd be alone in my amusement. It felt good to know someone else out there is on my same wavelength. Sadly, today when I finally remembered to take my camera to work, it was already moved. So here are some shots I didn't forget to get: My first morning in my new apartment, I woke up at 6 a.m. It was a cool, clear morning, and I went for a little walk to see my new neighbourhood in the early light. The way the first bright rays ...

I didn't clean up this weekend. Well, I tidied up. And I finished packing up the things my sister said she'd store for me since my new apartment has decidedly less storage. And I did half a sink full of dishes (I think I need to borrow my niece. I hear she's in a cleaning mood -- speaking of which, when is Aunty Day?). Ooh -- I walked to the grocery store (yes, the walking part is significant) and bought actual items of food rather than frozen or prepackaged stuff. And I stood at various vantage points in my apartment and made a mental list of what I'll sell if I'm going to Toronto -- which is pretty much everything except my tvs (one will come with me), my couch, my end table and my coffee table. I may even dump my closet of clothes in its entirety (let's face it, very little in there even looks good on the hanger.) There is something really liberating about wiping the slate clean and starting over somewhere else. I'm a year away from being 40 yea...

I managed to get my CFC application off Tuesday afternoon. Which is good because it isn't due until May 14 (and should be there today) ... but is bad because I had planned to send it off May 1. As usual, I tragically underestimated the amount of time it would take to do something. Specifically, my "letter of intent". Which, I believe, is just a snooty way of saying "letter of kiss-ass". " Tell us how you plan to utilize the program ." Really? Do people really answer that question in any way other than "I plan to listen during the program and complete the assignments."? And if I were to answer it differently, would that get their attention enough to read the two scripts I took the time to write? So I kissed ass. Like that's something that's new to me. In my day job with the provincial government it's known as "bs-ing" -- and is actually another of my life-long talents. I believe it is what my sister refered to when she...

I had a moment of such joyous abandon this morning, I should have been an inspiration to others. Instead, I think I made people very very uncomfortable. But first, what lead up to the moment: I took the day off work yesterday to work at the shelter to lend a hand with the oiled ducks. Taking a vacation day to volunteer somewhere, you say? Is that wise? Well let me answer you with some background: We have been without an executive director at work for almost a year now. We've been without a chair for the committee since the start of March. We found out that in the fall Alberta Health and Wellness was drafting legislation to disband the committee I work for, so the department was looking to pull my job out from under me without mentioning anything. And finally, a few weeks ago the man who would be our executive director's boss if we had an executive director said that the fact that we haven't had a chair for two months "should tell [us] something about the future of the ...

I’m over my initial sarcastic anger at Syncrude. Of course it isn’t as simple as workers didn’t want to go out into the cold to do their job. But decisions were made to delay the implementation of prevention techniques, and it isn’t the decision-makers who suffered (unless they lost their jobs … and even so, that isn’t really on par with sinking to the bottom of a toxic oil-filled lake when all you wanted was to rest your wings after a day’s migration). I teared up when I saw the Edmonton Journal’s headline: 500 Ducks Enter Toxic Pond and Only 5 Come Out, seen here: http://www.canada.com/edmontonjournal/news/story.html?id=1f6b1f26-f2d3-4c76-85b7-ade44fd699ce&k=29815 And it's not like I think oilsands workers would be immune to that statistic, either, as easy as it would be for me and other wildlife-lovers to point our fingers at them and shout "Shame!" I remember two workers from Syncrude driving an injured goose down to Edmonton from Fort MacMurray so that the Wildli...