One Goal

I want to have 5,000 hits on my Blog by New Years Days. So I don't give a shit if you read my blog but if you really, really love me you will help me achieve this milestone.

And if you don't and I have to do by myself, well you all can just bugger off.

And I mean that in the most loving way, especially if you are a gay man.

Merry Happy Holiday, Christmas, Quanza, Chanukah, Pagan Day, Solstice

Well here you and I are, the dead zone between the gathering and giving of gifts and entrance of the New Year where amateur drinkers drink heavily and puke loudly. They spend excessive money to wear funny hats, blow silly horns that end up full of drool so when midnight comes along they go splattt instead of wheeeeee. Both sounds are equally irritating, but the splattt one is worse when you get a faceful of someones spit while they try without success to make a sound that is similar to a cow farting.

I being a recovering alcoholic find the new year pretty boring. I can go to a party and watch others make an ass of themselves. I being who I am can do this without the use of alcohol which is quite a talent. What is more pitiful is staying at home and hanging with Dick Clark who after having a stroke sounds like he has been drinking and bring the new year in with him. What will most likely happen is I will go to bed before midnight and wake up and go huh, it's 2007, right on.

This is also the time when we all prepare to make new years resolutions that will be forgotten once we find out that taking Carb blocker pills don't really work and you in fact have to exercise and lay off loaves of bread at lunch. There are those who decide to quit smoking or drinking and in fact they do quit both these things on New Years Days as they sleep off the night before. I am going to come up with 5 resolutions that I plan on putting on my Blog and with these 5 resolutions I will weekly keep you up to date on my progress. I might put up pictures or direct you to another blog where I am working on a project, but you will have to trust me that I will be honest with you as I work on these 5 resolutions. (This is one of those keep you coming back kind of things)

Other then that my session with Myrtle went well. If you think that crying for two hours over things that happened to you when you were a small child is a success. It didn't involve hot pokers to the eye, thank God. What I did is I was given two small pads that are charged with electricity. So they don't zap but buzz your hands, sort of like vibrators for midgets. I go back to a memory, the things buzz in my hands, I cry (not from the buzzers) and then recount the memory, we discuss, go back to the memory and look at it from a different point of view and so and so forth. Taking the energy out the memory I suppose. I didn't leave there with any wows or new realizations since I have been doing this therapy for about forever though I did back into their fence since I was rather spaced out. I think going though these memories gets kind of old after awhile. Everyone has had shit in their lives, some when they where children, some when they were adults. At some point it is about moving on, letting go and becoming responsible for the life I have today. My grief over daddy dying will take a long time to heal, but my life can't come to a screeching halt because of it.

That is why I am so excited about the Christmas Present I got from Barb - it's a 4 month course in beginning acting with a performance at the end of the course in May. That is like a dream come true, it gives me hope and directs my energy to something I love. I can use my humour, doing stand up and my weirdness in a positive and great way.

So yes today I have hope for my future. Now if only I could get rid of my frigging cold that I have had since last Saturday I would be so very happy.

Next Post - my New Years Resolutions and the do's and don'ts of creating your own list.

Today is the Day

Well since I know you all are sitting waiting ever so patiently to find out what happened with Myrtle and I, which sounds like an awfully good title for a book, but something dramatic would have to be happening and it's just therapy, but you say yeah, therapy, you talk, ya cry, ya laugh and you leave. Well not this therapy nope. First of all I was referred by an EAP (employee assistance program) and they only provide you will like enough visits to get you through a crisis. So when I say Myrtle and unfortunately her last name isn't Muggles, but for you and I it will always be Muggles am I right? Can I have a hallelujah? Thank you. When I went for my first visit she said, usually they only allow one visit for a diagnosis but for you Claudia they are giving you the entire 7 visits! Can I have a praise Jesus from the crowd? Thank you. So it always helps to be over the top losing it to get the full value of your buck.

Today I have a two hour session. Why two hours? Cause we are doing this process called EMDR or also called Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Big words, but what the hell is it? Well from what I gather and I am sure this is all ass backwards, your brain carries memories, good bad and ugly. When you have had a bit of trauma in your life your brain passages get all screwed up and hold onto that energy and you keep going back to it and reliving it so with this process when you go back to a painful memory your eyes start twitching and like you are in a horror movie and then the therapist does something and you do something and then somehow the energy is released or your brain finds a new path to travel instead of going back to that shit and you get all better. Much like an enema for the brain.

Now in the past they tried different methods connected to the eyes and memories. Long time ago the therapists or sadists would stick a hot poker close to your eye and say, you think you felt like shit then, well that ain't nothing like you are going to feel now with this thing in your eye. This did work somewhat, it was true that you immediately forgot anything traumatic in your past and did focus on just today and this moment. But they found that after both eyes were poked out, that the patient rarely came back for more visits and anyway, anyone foolish enough to come back after their first eye was poked out with a red hot poker had bigger problems then just an eye poking could fix.

From there came using ice picks for lobotomies that also went through the eye but didn't blind the person but also left them with the eye cue of George W Bush, they gave up on that and now today we have this EMDR thingy.

So in less then 1/2 hour I will have a brain clean thing happening. I hope that I don't leave acting like a Stepford/Saskatoon Wife and wear dresses with pearls when I vacuum.

Myrtle Muggle

Having been a bit stressed out of late I found that spending all day long playing computer games and watching Dr. Phil I realized that even as bad off as I am, I am not fucked up enough to get on his show. Dr. Phil is the Jerry Springer of the middle class social scene. When I do go out it is to take Barb and Chasidy to work, pick them up and if lucky I go to the butcher where I see all those slabs of meat and think to myself, well at least they aren't alone. Well you tell me, could it get any worse then that to think that a piece of dead meat has more company then me? I agree totally with your conclusion is that the stress and changes I have made in my life have caught up with me and I am in need of a bit of professional care. So I call the EAP (Employee Assistance Program) where Barb works. They are always very kind with that very soft , let's get off the ledge kind of voice and they ask a few questions. Well because my father died, I can't work, I don't have any close friends, I feel isolated and I hate shoveling snow. This last one was what made the young woman realize I needed immediate assistance. So she asked what do you want from a therapist and I said, someone who isn't homophobic and will throw stone at me in a small office and someone with a sense of humour.

I get a call back from the clinic with the name of my temporary therapist. And what is her name? Get a clue I put it in the subject line - Myrtle Muggle. Now for anyone who has never seen a Harry Potter Movie then you might as well quit reading here because you probably won't get the humour in this.

I asked for someone with a sense of humour, not someone who is not only a Muggle - I mean I really need some magic here not your basic Muggle. But I get a Myrtle Muggle and as everyone knows (except for those of you who haven't watched the movie and I asked you politely the first time to quit reading kay?) Moaning Myrtle was the young woman who hung out in the woman's bathroom in the school and caused all sorts of mischief.

I am not one to judge someone before I meet them, but I mean what should I expect. Someone with a tight perm, sensible shoes and glasses.

I mean it is all rather funny to think that off all the people I could have as a therapist I get someone with such an astounding name.

So next Tuesday I will be meeting the one and only Myrtle Muggle for a few sessions.

I do hope she can give me some pointers on shoveling snow.

The Stress Test

Below is a list of stressful events in one's life. Find the ones that fit for you, add them up and then become even more stressed out or depressed. Follow me as I count up my stress factors and see what my score is:

The Impact of Life Crises, and How to Minimise Them
Life crises such as death of a spouse, divorce or bankruptcy can disrupt even the best stress management regime.
Different life crises have different impacts. In many cases, however, it may be possible to anticipate crises and prepare for them. It may also be useful to recognise the impact of crises that have occurred so that you can take account of them appropriately.

Some very interesting work in this area has been done by Drs T H Holmes and R H Rahe, with the Social Readjustment Scale. This allocates a number of 'Life Crisis Units' (LCUs) to different events, so that you can evaluate them and take action accordingly. While this approach is obviously a simplification of complex situations, using LCUs can give you a useful start in adjusting to life crises.

The idea behind this approach is to run down the LCU table, totalling the LCUs for life crises that have occurred in the previous 2 years. As a rule of thumb, you may anticipate some form of serious mental or physical effects of the crises according to the following table:


Life Crisis Units and the Probability of Illness

LCUs Probability of illness

300 80%+
200-299 50%
150-199 33%

The LCU table is shown below:


Life Crisis Scoring Table

Event LCUs
Death of spouse 100 Nope
Divorce 73 Nope
Separation 65 Nope
Jail term 63 Running from the law
Death of close family member 63 Yes
Personal illness or injury 53 Nope
Marriage 50 Yes
Fired at work 47 Nope
Marital reconciliation 45 Nope
Retirement 45 Nope
Change in health of family member 44 Yes
Pregnancy 40 Hell no
Sex difficulties 39 Nope
Gain of new family member 39 Nope
Business readjustment 38 Nope
Change in financial state 38 Yes, yep and uh huh
Death of close friend 37 Nope
Change to a different line of work 36 Yes
Change in number of arguments with spouse 35 Nope
A large mortgage or loan 30 Kinda
Foreclosure of mortgage or loan 30 Nope
Change in responsibilities at work 29 No job
Son or daughter leaving home 29 Nope
Trouble with in-laws 29 They love me
Outstanding personal achievement 28 Hardly
Spouse begins or stops work 26 Yes
Begin or end of school or college 26 I wish
Change in living conditions 25 Yes
Change in personal habits 24 Yes
Trouble with boss 23 I wish
Change in work hours or conditions 20 Once again no job
Change in residence 20 Yes
Change in school or college 20 Nope
Change in recreation 19 Learning to freeze
Change in church activities 19 Going to burn in hell
Change in social activities 18 Yes
A moderate loan or mortgage 17 Yes
Change in sleeping habits 16 No
Change in number of family get-togethers 15 Yes
Change in eating habits 15 I wish
Holiday 13 Fucking yes
Christmas 12 Fuck yes
Minor violations of law 11 Shhhh

Where you are in danger of suffering the ill effects of life crises, try to minimise the disturbance to your life. If, for example, you have lost someone close to you, try to avoid changing your job.

If you have a high score, or know that you will have a high score in the future, it may be worth pre-empting any problems by adopting stress management strategies now. Look after yourself.


Ok let's add them up together shall we?
We have:
63+50+44+38+30+26+25+24+20+19+18+15+13+12
Ok for you math wizards you probably can count this in your head. Obviously since I am so stressed out I can't so I shall use the calculator to find out how near death I am:

adding.......

Other things that can add stress is using a calculator that is used by engineers. Any calculator that has stuff for calculus is evil.

And the grand total is:

397
Impressive huh? Of course I am disappointed which makes me stressed out that I couldn't even hit 400, but let see what does it mean that I am at 397?

So it says here over 300 and I have a probability of an illness befalling me. But they do all this studying and then don't even give us a head up on what kind of illness might land on our doorstep.

Will it be?
Leporsy
a bad hair day, week or month

I can't even imagine. But tis important to remember that I have control over how I react to people, places and things and just because I am at the top of my class when it comes to stress.

At least I'm not part of the Conservative Party.

It's M Damnit Not N

To protect Brenda I didn't use her last name but only her initial. My paranoia has obviously gotten worse because her last name does not start with an "N" but with an "M".

I stand corrected.

Stella meets Peter the Porcupine

Gather round boys and girls for the continuing adventures of Stella. Stella coming from the great northwest was known far and wide for her grand cat hunting abilities. The cats feared her and she was strong and proud of her prowess and strength.

Stella wanting to go on an adventure to prove to other lands how powerful she was moved to Northern Saskatchewan knowing the cats would shake with fear from just the mention of her name. But when she moved into her new home she was at first baffled, then alarmed and frightened of the cats up north. For every time the meowed behind a closed door or their paws would appear from underneath a door, her owner would whisk her away into another room a close the door. This happened so often that soon every time that Stella the fierce cat hunter would her a meow her ears would press back into her head and she would run to her room, knowing that these cats must be strong and maybe could hurt her. But she knew that even if she was hurt she would win because she was STELLA the CAT HUNTER

Her owner wanting to go running took both Stella and the lab Sara for a run in the snow yesterday. They ran to a small park and the owner thought it would be safe since no one else was there to let them run in the snow. She let Stella go and then Sara, but a second later what did she see boys and girls? Stella had found what looked like a stray cat underneath a tree and was trying to bite it. The owner wanting to save the cat yelled NO!, as she ran closer and she saw this was no small forlorn cat but Peter the Porcupine out for a morning walk. Stella was easily pulled away from Peter and the owner saw that her face was full of quills sticking out of her tongue and lips and mouth. The owner thought to herself about the old joke and not realizing she said outloud; someone said to a woman if you had as many pricks sticking out of you as you have had stuck in you, you would be a porcupine.

Jimmy raised his hand "I don't understand what does that mean Ms. Manning".

Never mind Jimmy and quit interrupting.

So the owner grabs Stella and Sara and runs as fast as a quilled up dog and a 10 year old lab can run in snow and ice back to the house. She jumps in her car with Stella and runs off to the vet. Arriving at the vet one of the thin 19 year old assistants ask, how did she find a porcupine? Well I was running with her. The young thin woman exclaimed that was daring of you to go running in this weather. The owner responded. No what was daring is showing up here in public in my tight running pants and long underwear.

So 20+ quills later and 130.00 dollars Stella came home safe and sound.

Now what did we learn from this boys and girls? Ms. Manning pointed at one of the students - "Yes Suzy" - Suzy all sweetness and light said "that porcupines can hurt?"

"Yes that is true but what else ?" said Ms. Manning.

That maybe Stella might think that porcupines are really big ass killer cats and she won't bother cats anymore. Jimmy yelled out "Don't say that word in class Jimmy, and yes we can be hopeful of that."

But what is the most important lesson learned by this story children? The children looked up at her with blank faces.

That exercising is very, very bad for you.

The End

P.S. What is the most disturbing part of this entire story is that I wanted to take a picture of Stella with quills covering her mouth for this Blog. That my friend is bad, bad, bad.

Snow Shoveling Retraction

Obviously I either don't listen to people or my dyslexia also takes conversations and twists them around to fit my needs because I was told in no uncertain terms that I had got the snow shoveling all wrong.

This quote from Ms. Brenda N -

Nooooooo noooooooo nooooooooo nooooohhh that's down the middle then left and right. Gotta have a place for your feet.

This information will help me in the future in not falling down or getting shit-loads of snow down my boots. I appreciate Ms. Brenda's input and we can only hope that this new information will help my sidewalks not look like a snake having seizures.

THE GREAT STORM OF 2006

Or maybe it always starts snowing in November and ends sometime around April. Hell if I know. But I can tell you it has been snowing for two days straight.

First year I liked shoveling the sidewalks for a couple of reasons. 1) we didn't have much snow last year and 2) it was a novelty.

This year I find out there is a specific way to shovel your sidewalks. This information was provided by Brenda formally of the Hobo clan.

It was explained to me like this:

First you go up the side walk shoveling the left side (never ever the right side, bad mojo if you do) then you shovel the right side and you finish it off with a lovely down the middle flurry of pushing the shovel and cleaning all the missed bits.

I still learning this talent that is in the Canadian gene pool, am embarrassed by my lack of finesse. You can tell what I have shoveled since it looks like a drunken crazed shoveler went on a rampage in front of my house. It looks someone like a snake, can't miss it.

The only thing I can say in my defense is, at least I am the first on the block to do it, making everyone else feel shame and I see them hanging their heads as they look down the street at my snake shovel effect. They could be hanging their heads because of the wind and snow combination but at this moment in my life I feel that if I am depressed and am suffering, I shall make others join me in my pain.

So this year the shoveling thing, not so much fun, cause the motherfuckering snow just won't stop.

So that's it from Saskatoon.

My stages of grief

No one knows how to do the grief. I have found there are no right ways to do it and I jump around like a Mexican jumping bean with them so that isn't so much fun. These are the five stages in case you are interested:

Denial (this isn't happening to me!)
Anger (why is this happening to me?)
Bargaining (I promise I'll be a better person if...)
Depression (I don't care anymore)
Acceptance (I'm ready for whatever comes)

Being a type A personality I have found that I work well with just a few. Anger and Depression and therapists say that anger is just depression turned inward. Which means I am doing both of them at the same time - snarling, crying, hating, crying, crying and crying. Hard to deny that a parent is dead. I have moments when I don't think about the impact it has on my life and then I see a beautiful sunset or when I see the ice flows moving down the river and I think Daddy would think that is interesting and then I remember that he isn't around to talk to anymore. That thing about having tears stuck in your throat is true. The last time I talked to Daddy was when I called and he answered the phone (he only answered if he was passing by and he did it to shut up the insistent ringing) excitedly I told him about seeing the Northern Lights the night before and how that was one of the things that I always wanted to see in my life. We talked about his experiences seeing them and it wasn't deep or profound but we connected. Finding things to connect with my father about wasn't easy but a pleasure when I found them.

Not being able to go home was awful, knowing that they are going to have a memorial for him that I won't be able to attend really pisses me off (as you can see I am staying within the 5 stages, if you leave the 5 stages before doing all of them I believe you become emotionally stunted.)

My mother wants me to reach out to my one sister and make things right. I don't think that this is like the best time, cause emotions running high and if she is anything like me we are both doing the same to stages, if we talk while we are both doing anger. Well resolution and reconciliation ain't going to happen. Plus I found that she has a MYSPACE site where she puts her age at 42, let's see I am 47 she is 5 years older then me so she is being so internetish.

I am not writing anything deep here. This isn't worthy of much more then me pulling some of the shit out of my head and onto the Internet.

Oh yeah and they forgot the stage of grief where you turn into a pregnant termite and eat everything in the cupboards including the cardboard packaging.

What does one do with themselves

So it hasn't been even a week since my father died. Everyone else gets on with their lives and I sit here checking Google and other people's blogs about how they felt about my dad. I feel almost embarrassed writing since my father was such an amazing writer and I feel daft and silly trying to put into words how I feel. One should never have a desire to do the same craft as a parent who did it so amazingly well.

I've talked to my mother almost every day. We talk about how they want to name a peak after him and have a memorial service. I hope that they wait until I can come home before the have one, since now my father is gone and it is for the living to mourn and grieve the loss. I would like to be there for part of it, since I can't be there now.

My father was writing an autobiography before he died. That should be good reading I'm sure. Maybe he knew his time was near and that was why he was writing so furiously, one will never know if they know their time is near, because by the time they themselves figure it out, they are usually dead.

I need to not be resentful or hurt that my brother or sisters don't answer the phone or have talked to me since Daddy died, I have to admit I haven't asked to talk to them when on the phone with mother and she hasn't offered to hand the phone over to them to talk to me. People grieve in their own way and losing a parent isn't like the Hollywood movies where everyone forgets their differences and comes together in hugs and kisses.

Really do I want to talk to them? I suppose not or else I would be the bigger person and make an effort to reach out. I think that I don't have the energy to fight and apologize, forgive and forget and then talk. They probably don't either, though they do have each other to talk to in Seattle and I am left in the cold so to speak.

So what happens now? Paul and I will talk sporadically. Paul will talk to Becky, Becky will talk to Mother, Penny will talk to Mother and I will talk to Mother. A fractured family with nothing left inside them to give to each other. A family without a centre, without a foundation to stay connected.

I miss what never really was and now is apparent will never be.

Death of a Parent

On Sunday November 12th at 4:50 pm PST my father Harvey Manning passed away at the age of 81.

http://news.google.ca/news?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=RNWE,RNWE:2005-25,RNWE:en&q=harvey%20manning&oe=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=in

This picture was taken on his 80th birthday. I left for Canada about a month later, so this is the last picture of him but is in no way my last memory of my father.

You know everyone knows intellectually that mortality is one thing we all have in common, it's a given unless you are in your 20's and then you think you are immortal. But having to face and feel the lose of a parent is so, so much different. When a reporter interviewed me about my father, it was so hard to put into words who he was and my memories of him. How do you tell a complete stranger about a man that even after 47 years is still a mystery to me?

He was my buddy pal. That was our nicknames for each other. He was my one and only buddy pal and I will never have another. He was the man that rescued me from what he called them my evil older stepsisters, though they were no more evil then your average sibling and they weren't my stepsisters. This probably did little to help my relationship with my sisters growing up and I remember years of what was then called rough housing but now would be considered bodily injury. On weekends when my sisters were too old to go hiking and had their own lives and were prowling for blood I would go as my father put it lets go exploring Claudia. I said you don't get no where 'xploring. But I went because going no where 'xploring was better then what lay at home. We would take our sandwiches of pumpernickel bread which is think and dense and dark brown and add peanut butter to it. This is a meal that should be taken with several gallons of water but tasted good to me. Along with that we would share a milky way candy bar and a warm cream soda. Life was good. We were hiking up Bandera mountain one warm weekend, following the logging roads towards the ridge of the mountain. The clear cut afforded us a beautiful view but little in the way of shade. I said I bet we are going to see a marmot. My father said Claudie this isn't the right kind place for a marmot to live. Minutes later a marmot poked his head from a large rock, whistled and disappeared down a hole below the rock.

As we were close to reaching the top of the ridge the afternoon sun warming up the cream soda to body temperature I said, bet there is a lake on the other side of the ridge. Daddy said, I don't think so buddy pal, the map shows no lake. We reached the top and looked down and there was a lake surrounded by trees and mountains.

So being only 9 or 10 years old and being two for two, I considered on this day we did get somewhere going 'xploring.

My father was a man of great passions, whether it was food, cigarettes, booze, writing or his fight to save nature. His great passion was the saving of the wild spaces in Washington, the others were his addictions, that other then food he conquered along the way.

Today I feel less then who I was, because I no longer have that one parent or that one special love that goes with having a parent. I am feeling less unique, I am still Harvey Manning's daughter but I no longer have him to see and hug. He wasn't a man who was comfortable opening up to people and I never was able to break through the walls and barriers he created to protect himself from others, but what I knew of him I either liked, loved or finally as I got older accepted and forgave.

They say death is final and one doesn't realize it until it happens close to home. Because I am here in Canada and am working on getting my landed resident status, leaving the country to be at home with my mother and siblings might mean I would be refused entrance back into the country for six months and I can't afford the risk.

That makes me sad, but then again on the other side I also know that there is a count down of how long my sisters can get along before something big, bad and nasty will happen. Since Penny and Becky don't talk to me anymore, some of it my fault some of it theirs, I won't be there for the blow up or accusations or attacks. So I am thankful to Canada for that. With Paul my younger brother we talk and are close so maybe he will call me from Seattle.

What is sad is to be here in a city where I have no close friends and feel so alone and to know that they are all together without me, but what makes it worse is even my father dying won't bring us together like some Lifetime movie.

Daddy I will miss you more then you know. I am your daughter. I too fought the same addictions as you did. My one hope is that I will find my passion so I can do something in my life that I am proud of and that you would be proud of me for doing.

I love you Daddy.

So this is the deal

Man do I suck at being consistent. I'm sure everyone feels like I dropped off the face of the earth. The truth is if the earth had a face I would be now living up towards the hairline of the face.

Ok I moved north. To Saskatoon, I had too. No it wasn't because I was running from the law. Or that I didn't like Regina. And no I'm not going to change the name of my blog, what would I change it too? Saskatoon Sleaze, Prairie Prattle? Toontown Talk? No none of those are appealing. I am sure my readership will drop down to 5 (thanks mom for still reading!). No the reason was simple. My partner/spouse had been commuting since May from Saskatoon to Regina. So it was necessary.

I am in the process of getting used to this place. I miss my friends, my hair dresser, my butcher, I miss the small town appeal and that there were less cops. Not that I am running from the law I'm not, Regina moved at a slower pace and I enjoyed it.

Now that I am up here I have to find a job and work on getting permanent resident status. So that no red flags will come up while in this process, I have been asked by Barb my spouse, not to mention any of the following: crystal meth labs, Stephen Harper or George Bush, since she feels that my jokes and opinions might be detrimental to receiving a resident status.

This will also limit what I can talk about on my blog, so sorry if my blog might sound rather Brady Bunch Canadian Style for the next few months while I go through this massive process to become a resident.

I hope to post some cool pictures of the river and the piled up ice flows that are along it. Very cool.

I will miss you Regina, though I will come and visit, you were the first city I went through my first winter in and the first place where I ripped skin off my lips with frozen metal. So remember, you might not have a piece of my heart but you do have some of my DNA somewhere down there.

Rocking ReginaWood

As Regina recovers from having the Rolling Stones tongue on the cover of the Leader Post for the past two months. I sit and ponder what I missed out on. Well I really didn't ponder that much at all, cause if I wanted to see a bunch of old people move about I could always go to the Extra Foods on Broadway. There are many who did go to the concert who are also pondering what they missed, since they accidentally got to the beer gardens at 3:30 and stayed there the entire time missing the show. But that is neither here nor there, well really it is mostly there since the beer gardens weren't here at my house, but there at the stadium. The biggest concert that Regina has ever hosted is over and we now only have the pleasure of looking forward to hockey and a damn good game of curling. What gossip or sightings can I add to this experience? Well I was standing behind a roadie at Starbucks that had to buy 10 drinks for the other roadies at the show. I did meet a young girl named Melanie whose father is an electrician and he was the only one from Regina allowed to work on the lighting for the show, so she was going to the show on Friday night and get to go back stage AND get a backstage t-shirt. She also got to go to the Nickleback show and the Grey Cup. I told her I bet you must be real popular, she said no she isn't and I told her then the kids at her school must be like totally stupid not to be friends with her because she is totally cool.

By using the words like "like", "stupid" and "totally" often in a sentence you can communicate to most every child. Some people like to use the word "gay" often but I think that is like totally stupid so I don't.

And we all know that nothing can happen in Regina unless if involves our Butchers Tracy and Dave. Yes not only were they going to the concert, but Mick ordered a rack of lamb from them. Yep, a fucking rack of lamp. So the lamb that Dave or Tracy touched (we are hoping with washed hands) was then picked up and eaten by none other then the man. Is this not cool?

But don't be bummed my friends, things are looking up for us in the next two months, cause who will be shooting a movie up in little old ReginaWood but none other the Charlize Theron. I have been told that if you are hip and a movie star or just like to get jacked up on coffee you will hang at the Atlantis Coffee Shop. I following this lead, did a drive by on Saturday and didn't see her there. A drive by isn't enough so, I believe that I will have to start hanging out there to see if she does show.

I am not sure but do restraining orders that are ordered by a judge in the states, do they really count up here? I mean really if the person that I have stalked from afar comes to where I live, then doesn't that mean all bets and laws are off?

I don't know but keep the lookout for a tall slender blond in most likely a baseball cap and sunglasses surrounded by big burly men.

Well that's all the news from Regina. Stay up to date as I try and track down the elusive Ms. Theron and find out if they have computers in jail.

The Health Care System in Canada

Or why are there so many old people who live in Regina? Having lived here a year, I certainly have noticed a huge majority of the population is older then me. Which has it's up side in that it makes me feel young and spritely. On the down side you had better have good damn eyesight when you are coming up on those cross walks because some elder citizen of Regina might jump out, well they don't exactly jump out more on the lines of they either manually push themselves very slowly out with their walker or have one of those 4 wheel drive motorized things that go anywhere, either way, you don't want to hit them. But as I swerve and dodge these mobile elders, I wonder, how in the hell do they live so long up here?

Sure the summers are fine, but most of these people don't leave in the winter and they are still here in the spring. If you look at the obituaries, living to one hundred is not out of the question.

After doing some research I have come up with the reason why so many people live so long up here.

It's because they are all waiting to get a hip replacement and the hell if they are going to leave this earth without getting one, or when they do get one, by god and by golly they are going to get their monies worth out of it.

Oh and can I tell you how tough Barb's mom is? She is thinking about having the hip replacement with only a local, she says lots of people do it up here, just get a spinal and be done with it. I asked her, do they also give you a bullet to bite on?

I swear the people are up here are tougher then nails strong like bulls. America could learn a lot from the tenacity and the strength of people who live in the northern prairies.

Same-Sex Law needs to go

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.
Sir Winston Churchill (1874 - 1965)

What law is this that Noreen Drake speaks about in a letter to the editor of the Leader Post on September 14th, 2006? Is it that if two or more people of the same sex congregate in the same place then they must be arrested? Is this a new law that I don't know about that is legislating what goes on in our bedrooms? Because I am all for a law that says having the same old sex the same old way really, really needs to go because boredom in the bedroom is a marriage killer.

But wait as I read more I realize, it's not that Noreen want to try out that Come a Come a Chameleon Karma Sutra book she has heard so much about. No sadly she is against Same-Sex Marriage.

In her first sentence she stated
In a just society - in a democracy which is Canada - the new same-sex marriage legislation is unjust.

She goes on to say: The bottom line is that it's not fair to pass a law that affects so critical a change to the character of our society without the majority agreement of our society.

She is hoping that in the fall session Prime Minister Stevie Harper would re-table the same-sex marriage legislation.

Where to start, where to start. Now I could go on an extended rant about her bigotry towards gays and lesbians and what is so wrong about giving them the same rights as every other human being on earth has, but that has been written and spoken by better people then me.

For me if I were to compare gays and lesbians getting married vs. more and more young Canadian men and women being killed daily in Afghanistan I would have to say Noreen, that having Canada go from being a peace keeping country to being in an active war which brought down what was once the country of USSR and happened without the vote of the country would seem to be a bigger issue then people who love each other getting married, paying taxes, volunteering in the community and helping their neighbors. How committed love "affects the character" of the community is beyond me. How 100's of young people coming back from a war dead or severely injured will affect the character of the community is something that should maybe concern the population more.

Honestly Noreen, I know of three couples in Regina and 1 in Saskatoon that have been married in the past 6 months and I haven't seen a decline in the character of the community, no increase of crime or decline in civility. Oh of course there is the issue of people falling into the dumpsters out at the landfill and that is of course something I worry about and should everyone. The city hired a safety consultant to analyze why people are falling into these dumpster containers while unloading their trucks. Hell they could have hired me and payed me a whole bunch less, it's simple, combine alcohol and gravity and well people are going to be accidentally dumpster diving into the landfill containers.

Sorry off the subject. The truth is, sometimes the government makes decisions that the people aren't ready to make. Sometimes the government makes right decisions as in same-sex marriage and sometimes they make wrong decisions as in Afghanistan. Two decisions, two different governments - one creates equality, one creates death.

So Noreen which of these would you want to vote on?

Lesbians foaming at the mouth

Lucy Lawless or as her friends and stalkers like to call her "Xena" is on TV again bringing alive the hopes of millions of lesbians and cross dressers around the world that Xena didn't die and maybe just maybe they will do a movie.

Lucy can be seen on Celebrity Duets which is on Fox TV on Thursday and Friday nights takes has been singers with has been actors and athletes forces them to sing duets together. http://www.fox.com/celebrityduets/

But Celebrity Duets is a far cry from the leather wearing, sword wielding, dark hero of our fantasies. Trust me in saying that our fantasies were damaged almost beyond repair with her being a biologist of some kind dealing with killer bats in New Orleans or human eating locusts across America and *gag* being married to some wimp with children. Seems to me they could have had her at least wear a leather coat in one of those poor quality movies to give us a hint, a prayer of what once was but looks like will never be again.

To see why the lesbian community is foaming at the mouth more then when they killed off the tennis player on the "L" Word go to the message board on Celebrity Duets and read the responses to the post that Lawless sucks. Lord did that bring the die hards out of the woodwork.

If you listen very closely when
you look at this picture you can
hear millions of lesbians chanting
Xena, Xena, Xena

Lucy though not the greatest singer there has potential, mostly because she can do no wrong has legs that go all the way up and she's Xena damn-it, why they put her with Kenny Loggins is beyond me. She will be gone soon enough if they continue to force her to sing his songs. I mean how many times can you sing Foot Loose anyway before it loses its charm and reminds you of how god awful the 80's actually were. (Correction by writer - the celebrity will be teamed up with a different singer every week. Let us all pray that they won't team her with Michael Bolton)

Where I stand on the subject is this: If they are going to put her in badly made movies about mutated killer bugs and blood sucking killer flying rodents and have her sing with aged rock stars, then why in God's name don't they just do a damn Xena movie? I say better to get chaffed wearing leather that is a bit too tight then singing 80's songs that make our skin crawl worse then the man eating killer locusts do.

Contact Lens

So I have contact lens. You would know if I was wearing contact lens because by the evening I am blinking my eyes every few minutes like a barn owl looking for mice but without that annoying twisting the head around, Exorcist thing, because that has nothing to do with wearing contacts. If anyone you know is twisting their heads completely around and blaming it on their contact lens, they are not only liars but they are possessed by the devil and you shouldn't hang with them unless you are a priest with issues with your mother. If by chance you do decide to hang with them, expect your dry cleaning bill will go through the roof because there is nothing harder to get out of a nice outfit then green pea soup puke.

(This is what happens when you sleep with your contacts in. Do not let this happen to you. The puking thing, well that is a whole other post)

I got contacts because I thought it would be easier then wearing glasses. Faulty logic is the foundation of most mistakes, fucked up and otherwise insane decisions. Examples - War in Iraq, thinking that because George W stands upright that he is human and therefore has common sense and that contact lens are comfortable alternative to glasses. Oh yeah it is much harder to put glasses on the bridge of the nose then it is to take these little bits of blue plastic stuff and then to somehow be able to touch your eyeball and have them stay in the eyeball. Yep those damn glasses are a pain in the ass.

It is also important to listen and read the instructions about the care and wearing of these evil bits of plastic. To not wash your hands before you put them against your eye can set you off for hours of glorious pain. Like who knew a bit of salt could act like a acetylene cutting torch ripping it's initials into your eyeball. Now some people would take them out immediately and clean them. No not me, I will continue to wear them until the time when I start turning my head around and around. Because to take them out is even more insane, to put two fingers against an eyeball and pull at what you think is the contact lens but really that delicate covering of your eyeball, whatever that is called and to not do it once but enough times so that your eye is bright red and tears are running down your face. That is insanity.

The other thing they don't discuss with you at the doctors office is what happens when you put them in the wrong eye. I did that the other day. Don't know how, but I did do it. Wondered why I was having problems reading and why being sober and all that I kept walking into walls. Didn't figure it out until that night after I took them out. Went to bed and dreamt that someone had dropped acid in my coffee and was on an all night acid trip. In the morning I deduced that somehow I switched the stupid bits of blue plastic.

So what have we learned today people?

Wash your hands often
don't use tabasco sauce unless you are planning on washing your hands a lot
If you are walking into walls, check that you didn't put your contacts in wrong or get your ass into treatment
If your friend's head is spinning like a children's top and she is saying disparaging remarks about your mother and puking, she is either possessed by the devil-
or a real bitchy bulimic
and in either case you might want to stay away from her.

Canadian Postal Service

Other then the wood dust sniffing termite alien posing as a postal worker, I have had no bad experiences with the postal service up here. My brother the professor who lives in Peterbrough on the other hand has made many disparaging remarks about their ability to do their job.

Today in the mail I received a letter from Houston Texas that was generated after I talked to a call service located somewhere in India. I spelled out my address several times with increasing frustration after being asked the city and province name 3 times and the spelling out the postal code slowly "S" as in Sam 4 N -4 "B" as in Boy 9. This I thought was simple, trying to have them understand the word Saskatchewan much less spell the word showed that we may think globally but are still able act incompetently.

Below is the address that I spent a good 10 minutes trying to communicate to with a woman in India. And even though totally wrong it still arrived here in a timely manner, so my hat is off to the Canadian Postal System, but to the outsourcing of services to other countries - Fuck off and also a big old fuck off to Credit Card Companies that cut off your credit when you move to another country.

Global Community My ASS

Meaningful Conversations

My brother Paul recently returned from a trip to Georgia. Not the Georgia of Peaches and people who still believe that George W. Bush is a good president but the Georgia that is in between Turkey and Russia.

When us regular people are asked how we spent our summer vacation we usually say, went to the beach, the cottage (that is what they say up here, they don't go to cabins they go to their cottage) or they did really fun stuff like work on their houses until their back was hunched over and their fingers were bloody stubs and tears of pain slid down their face that was streaked with wood dust and sweat. Yes it my summer reminded me of that Movie with Sally Field Places in the Heart - the poor widowed woman who had to work with her children and the black man in the cotton fields under the blazing summer sun, her fingers bloody and poked and swollen from picking cotton all day long while the blind man at the house did his caning and made dinner for those poor folk, cause they just had to get their cotton picked and to the cotton gin before anyone else so they could get that hundred dollars, they just had too. Obviously it seems that while my brother spent his time in the country of Georgia in my mind while sanding and painting and sniffing varathane I spent my time in the depression in the state of Georgia.

So my bro the professor spent hung out with the people of Georgia doing what professors do when they are doing their thing. Which I have no clue. But they do it so good for them.

When he comes back he usually visits my parents for a week. Second day he was there I get this call from my mother. Barb hands me the phone which I cradle in my scabbed over bloody puffed up fingers and Paul is on the phone. So we talk for a few minutes, he bitching about his computer he bitching about working, then we both began complaining about the custom charges that I had to pay for my wedding gifts from my parents. There is nothing better then being able to have a sibling to bitch with.

Our bitching was interrupted by my mother in the background yelling SAY SOMETHING MEANINGFUL TO EACH OTHER! THIS IS PHONE CALL IS ON MY DIME.

Well the pressure to preform was now on us and I fear we failed miserably. We were able to say we love each other but when you have a mother circling in the background wanting their children to bond like some genetic superglue we did what we knew what to do, we bitched about the Canadian Postal System. I really have nothing against the system, other then the one guy who was really an alien who sniffed me but Paul, well he could spend hours on it.

I have no clever ending to this post, other then to say that I have nothing against the Canadian Postal System, so please continue to deliver my mail.

Thanks

It has happened here and will happen to you - be warned

I knew it would happen someday, maybe not to me but to someone I knew. I felt in my soul that what I believed in wasn't just craziness created by crazies in New Mexico, small bit of Newfoundland or Steven Spielberg but in fact was a reality and that they were living among us.

And I met one.

An Alien.

You might scoff and say, get that woman out of that house she is going off the deep end but believe me I know when I have gone off the deep end because I have spent most of my life there and this is not deep end material.

This is how it went -

I was sanding on the hardwood floors upstairs, covered from head to toe in dust, have glasses and a dust mask on, so it is pretty obvious I have been sanding, when the door bell rings. I run downstairs cause any chance to talk to someone is a thrill for me and who was there but the mailman delivering a package.

He looks at me smiles and says "you've been sanding I see"

Clever observation by him I thought

I said why yes I have, then I lifted up my dust mask so he could understand me and said again, yes I have.

He held a package to me for my signature and then sniffed me, not in the way of a dog sniffing another dog because that is so not right but just a short sniff and said. "Aw I can tell by the smell of dust on your breath that you have been sanding hemlock, you can't even get that wood anymore, it's worth it's weight in gold.

I said and my blood and sweat too.

Then I realized, this was no postman. No this was an Alien Terminte taking the form of a postman to get information on us human life forms, because no human would sniff a woman and know exactly what type of wood they were sanding. Oh you might think, how scary could termites be when it comes to taking over the world. I have 3 words for you mister know it all - soft wood industry.

If Aliens are really Termites posing as postmen and have invaded Regina, well all I can say is good luck world because it is Regina today, but it will be New York or even Saskatoon tomorrow.

What really happened between Dilana and Magni

This is Dilana with a friend before she became a star on SuperNova, notice the piercing attached to her lower lip.

























This is Magni the sweet Icelandic singer who doesn't flounce around in icelandic sweaters before the tragic accident that happened last week.

The World Did Not Come to an End

It has been postponed due to technical difficulties, so all my cult followers please come out of your caves and go back to work, so I can continue to receive the monthly checks that allow me to communicate with the Gods. Without this money I am unable to get a clear line to the Gods, sort of like having to use dial up when I could be using DSL.

This is the last week of working on the house. Last week I had a nervous breakdown and was unable to continue working like Debbie Fucking Travis on crystal meth. It was a combination of realizing that no it is absolutely impossible to work 3 weeks straight without your body breaking down and darn it I got stung.

I think the straw that broke the camel's back as they say in middle eastern countries (I always try to keep this blog political) was the attack of a certain angry flying creature. Here in Canada they call them wasps, where I am from we call them yellow jackets. In the States we consider a Wasp to be either one of the these buggers pictured below. They both have yellow markings a very small waist and a violent attitude except that the one with wings is believed to be smarter and to have a better singing voice. What these two also have in common is when you hear one sing, or one stings the end result is usually the same - tears of agony.

Back to my story, I was working diligently in the back yard pulling up weeds and getting ready for a load to the dump (the only time I get out and socialize lately) when while pulling up thistles I felt this intense pain the pain that made me want to go running to my mommy, yeah that kind of bad pain. I look down thinking that I have a thistle in tennis shoes and since I'm not wearing socks I'm thinking it got stuck there and what do I find but a yellow jack - wasp - sonofabitch inside the tongue of my shoe stinging away. I screamed and knocked him out and then went hopping into the house cursing silently to myself. Why to myself you ask? See what you all don't get is they are called Yellow JACKETS, which means if they are all are wearing the same colour and have the same coat, hello get my drift - as in the Hell's Angels yeah see where I am going with this, these fuckers belong not only to a gang but to a species and if you call one of them out, then you better run mighty fast cause they will be calling their brothers out and you will be puffed up like a puffer fish out of water.

I did as I lay on the couch with a bag of peas on my ankle make some pretty rude remarks about how small his little fucking stinger must be if it took him that many times stinging me for him to get my attention. I mean I am talking small here people.

So this time of year one thing you can be sure of the yellow jackets, wasps are running out of their food they normally consume so they will be fighting for our food. This along with Paris Hilton being played on the radio, makes it not safe to leave the house for any reason at all and if you do have to leave your house, run, get into your car, lock your doors and listen to CBC or NPR (National Public Radio) for only then do you have a chance of not be tortured by the sounds of the other wasp.

5 days until the world comes to an end

Things aren't moving along as planned, but then what would be the excitement if they did move smoothly. I was expecting to get the upstairs room finished but, with the temperature hitting 34 yesterday and most likely 10 degrees hotter upstairs I said to hell with it I shall hand sand stairs with my bloody fingers. But as you can see I did put the first coat on, though it is hard with this picture to see the droplets of blood and sweat mixed in with a sand colored paint.




The learning curve in a project like this is very fast or painful whichever you desire. I have learned that when you sand stairs with an 80 grit sand paper and leave it that way. The chances that you will get fir slivers in your bare feet is well over 99%. These are things that Debbie wouldn't tell you but I am because I really do care. As you can see by the picture Debbie believes in using drop cloths for almost everything, the little hussy.





Finally I packed up one of our computers and moved the other one so it looks more officeish (in layman's language less cluttered) Everything about selling a house is to make it lived in but you don't want anyone to actually think you live there) At 9pm last night, tired, sweaty and having eaten two, count them two ice cream bars I discovered that computers have more cords and if you put the little pieces of shit together they would be longer then your small intestine. This is just a wild guess on my part but for anyone who has had to move a computer I am sure you agree that by the end of the job you would like to rip out some one's small intestine, starting with Bill Gates.

So today I finish the upstairs, sand the stairs so I spend more time working and less time pulling little bits of wood out of my feet and hopefully finish painting the bathroom.

Have I mentioned lately how much I detest painting, sanding and home remodeling?

6 work day until house is up for sale

I writing you from the combat zone also known as my house. I am sitting in the office, the only room that hasn't been soiled by the likes of paint or stains. Think of it as the room the UN is occupying and has cease fire somewhat happening in it. Sure there is the occasional mudding happening on the ceiling but other then that it is free of clarity and full of clutter.

Today I will be painting that bastard room upstairs, I ran out of primer and paint and tape so as they say in the business I was SOL. My goal today with my bloody fingers is to prime and paint this room where satan must dwell - I ask that you not look too closely to the sanding job - with blood spewing from what is left of my fingers my desire to make a smooth and silky surface went out the window.

You know it is never a bad day when you can put a picture of Monty Python in your blog.

So today my goal is to prime, paint, tape and sand. These are the areas that I am focusing on. The upstairs satan bedroom.

And why the hell not, I shall get down on my hands and knees and sand these bastard stairs that probably wouldn't have needed so much sanding if I had put plastic down on the stairs as was suggested by Barb. When she said this to my I wondered if killing was on her mind, because to put plastic on a steep staircase would seem to me to be creating a new ride called slip and slide to your death. I can almost picture the carnies working the ride.

I will most certainly have to put Sara the Canadian lab outside because everytime I swear or scream out in rage she comes running to me in a codependent manner which makes me feel bad and takes away from my ability to work at my full rage filled capacity.

To have this house ready for selling by Monday the following things have to be accomplished:

• Master bedroom finished patching
• Prime Master Bedroom
• Paint Master Bedroom
• Stain staircase
• 2nd coat on bathroom
• paint ceiling in office
• put up crown molding in dining room
• put in base board all over the frigging house
• do touch the fuck up work
• clean like a motherfucker
• clean the backyard
• take two loads of important crap to the dump
• clean carpet
• Oh don't worry there is something else I am sure I forgot

Remodeling a house

HGTV - all the shows on this channel are lies. If you watch this channel and are sitting drinking a nice cup of tea watching Debbie Travis do miracles on some house in Toronto - it's always in Toronto or Montreal, never ever do you see her drive her little truck through the Prairies. I am sure she has done homes in Vancouver but I bet that she has had that little truck of her transported on her private jet, so as not to have to travel through the prairies. Now if you are delusional enough to actually believe that you can do some of the things she does in the time period she does for the show and want to start a project, believe me in real life there is no way to cut and edit out the bad things and let me tell you there are many bad things that happen when you are fixing up a house yourself to sell, things that Debbie or Holmes on Holmes (whose Carharts are never dirty) will never share with you, but I will because I am in the middle of this living hell.

Sure you might have a hard time believing me because I did stick metal in my mouth when it was 20 below. But there are certain things I would never lie to you about and these words I shall speak to you are the truth.

Let's start with the type of house you are living in. I am living in a wartime house. Lovely hardwood floors underneath some orange carpet, that is covering some really ugly fake brown brick looking linoleum that is covered by wait, is that more white ugly linoleum, why it is, no wonder the doors don't close. After about a week of scrapping and crying and you really begin to relate to the Cinderella Story, this could be due to the fumes you have been huffing from the stuff that that is supposed to be environmentally friendly for a couple of weeks that you use to scrap the most likely asbestos invested motherfucking ugly linoleum off the floor. Listen pot is environmentally friendly too, but I don't see that shit legal, except for the Netherlands and we all know that without drugs how would you convince people to continue to walk around in wooden clogs eh?

So you find the hardwood floors and it doesn't fill you with as much joy as you expected, this could be because you aren't huffing that shit anymore and most of your brain cells are gone, which is perfect for the next project you are about to embark on: Drywalling.

In the states we call it sheet rock, but that is because we have rocks to climb in Washington and they don't have any here so they call it drywalling.

First you have to rip out all the old drywall which isn't hard since they guys who put it up were so fucked up on the glue they were sniffing from putting the wood down that they missed half the time with the nails. This job isn't bad, because you might be a bit pissed off and this helps get the anger out, tearing out walls. Suggestion that you wear heavy shoes, because nails go through tennis shoes. Which makes you even more angry and then you have run out of walls to rip out or solvent to sniff.

When putting up new dry wall, always measure twice and cut once. You do it the other way around and well, you are fucked. It is important not to put on the mud too heavy. Cause the more mud you put on, the more you have to sand it bloody shit off. Things to remember about sanding.

Those masks you wear to keep the dust out of your lungs - you have to replace then at least once per room, or they become dust collectors and become tools to keep a steady supply of dust traveling into your lungs.

This might be a no brainer to some, but remember I have been doing a lot of stripping of floors - putting your contacts in and then sanding right underneath the area to be sanded, isn't probably the best idea. See sand underneath contact lenses, cuts, and cuts and cuts. Which you don't notice since you have been sanding for oh let's say about 5 days now with sand paper. When you fold sandpaper you have a rough surface against your finger pads as you are pressing down to sand the dry mud. After 5 days of this process you realize - fuck the FBI cause now they can't get you, cause you FUCKING DON'T HAVE ANY PRINTS LEFT ON YOUR FINGERS. All you have are cracked bloody stubs.

Next you have the real estate agent come to the house. And she says an amount that you want to scoff and laugh and scream at her at, because based on the amount of pain and suffering X number of brain cells destroyed you think the amount should be closer to a billion fucking dollars - US dollars by the way. You will be saddened to find that your time and hours put into the house are not worth as much as you envisioned.

After a fruitless search for more stripping compound you hear the words that send your soul into a very dark place that is full of screaming and retching.

In one weeks time the house is going up for sale and it is my responsibility to keep the house totally clean all the time forever.

I thought sanding one room forever would be my idea of hell, but no this is it. This means, dusting - fuck, washing and putting the dishes away every day. Vacuuming every day. Double fuck on that one and here is the freakiest one of them all - making the bed.

If you can get through this entire experience and still believe in a God then I say right the fuck on. Hey Terrorists - bring it on, if you think you can do anything that fucks with me more then is I would like you to try.

Excuse me while I try and take my contacts out of my bloody eyeballs with my bloody stubs of fingers.

Canadian Idol

The remarks I make in this following post, will get me stoned for being a heretic and a witch more so then being a lesbian. So let me begin with a disclaimer and a confession. I have been watching Canadian Idol from the beginning. I can't help myself. They start the show off with such bad singing that it hooks you in, in the same way that seeing a tragedy unfold like a Hurricane or Tornado or a Pamela Anderson Marriage. You get hooked and can't help yourself. Then when you get down to the final 10 after wading through the contestants singing 2 minute bits of their favourite songs, you have now hours and hours of time invested, so like picking a scab you stay with it until it is complete.

For those of you who aren't from Canada or don't watch Canadian Idol (cause you are so hooked into America's got talent) This guy above is from Saskatchewan. He was born in Moose Jaw, raised in Rockglen and was working at the Smitty's on North Albert Street. I went there for breakfast on my birthday, I know I rock. The food sucked but it is now one of the places to visit and to touch the menu that Tyler might have touched. So don't any of you be saying that I haven't done my bit to get to know the real Tyler, cause I haven't done anything to research him. I mean do you really think I can Divine something about this kid from his DNA on a menu for Gods sake? That is just crazy talking shit.

So I have been watching the show and we all know the shows of this kind have one HUGE flaw in their voting system. The only people who text message are teenage girls and gay boys. Otherwise for us older people it is hard enough to get our club like fingers to push buttons to make a phone call, much less text message to tell our friends to meet us at the mall at 3pm.

These young girls and gay boys have fallen hard for this strapping young man and texting their fingers bloody putting in his number. (This is where I get stoned) The guy doesn't deserve it. Sure he is cute and all, and he really likes that straight hair thing they have done for him, cause it is totally hip and the girls like it and chances are he also the only straight looking guy left on the show. So to keep the ratings up, the strange people they call judges - I have not a clue what their background is and I really think Sas needs to 1) think really hard about a woman in her 40's who is blond going for dreadlocks and 2) if the dreadlocks are because she is so fucked up which she certainly sounds like it 99% of the time then maybe she should go to treatment. These judges continue to say Tyler just rocks the house. The poor boy doesn't have a half bad voice, but compared to the Eva and even Stephie D, he has the personality of a tall farmer boy just in from the Canola fields. It would help if they would only film him from the waist up cause unfortunately the only dance step this young man knows is the stomping of the foot dance. I think his dancing would get better if he got down and dirty with some sexy got the funk on black chick from south central LA, now she could show the boy how to move those hips a bit more. But other then that, come on.

Canada already has Tori Spelling living here, do you really think that Canada deserves the to have Tyler as the next American Idol?

Immigration to Canada

I'm having a hell of a time writing this morning. Haven't written since my birthday when I turned 47. Something about odd number ending years stresses me out. I am sure it is some phobia that I don't know about. Or it could be that 47 sounds a lot closer to 50 then 46. 46 sounded kinda of young but 47, that sounds like I really should have my shit together and be asking my daughter when she is going to have a grand child and stuff. This part won't happen since I don't have any children that I know of. The 80's was really hard on me. I think anyone who survived the 80's would want to say they too blacked out during that decade, cause it wasn't pretty. Green house effects started showing up in the 80's due to the amount of hair spray being consumed by the women in New Jersey.

So I am supposed to be grown up. Know what I want to do with my life and have a job. Well fuck off, cause I don't. First of all I have to start the immigration process to stay up here. You would think it would be easier since I am now married and all. Nope it is in no way easier. It is a marathon information, plus a 550.00 filing fee just to get the process started. With the marriage they ask personal questions, like did you go on a honeymoon, they want pictures of the wedding and my partner has to commit to taking care of me financially for 7 years I think. Plus I have to get a physical and a chest x-ray, so I can prove that I am up to par with the standards of health in this country. How healthy can a group of people be that are constantly eating perogies with sour cream and cabbage rolls?

So now as I sit here I ponder, do I really want to move up here? Oh it isn't the paper work or money that is bothering me so much. What I am upset about is do I really want to move to a country that has welcomed Tori Spelling into their fold with open arms?

Not that I am comparing myself to her, that would be foolish. How could I even compete against someone like her. Our differences are so vast that it wouldn't be fair to either of us. I mean look at the differences:

1. My boobs real
2. My nose real
3. My lips non injected
4. My fat - all mine
5. I have job skills (don't you even pretend to think that she can act)

So there you have it. Don't come whining to me when you have a Tori Spelling movie of the week on CTV. Hell there has been one already. That is just the beginning. The only blessing we have living in Regina is the chances of her coming to visit are pretty low.

So I have to get back to my immigration paper work. Hey Tori good luck on that chest x-ray thing.

Phonesh Interruptis

I like to throw in my knowledge of Latin occasionally, makes me sound really smart and really how often at a cocktail party does a person get to talk Latin to another person? Sure you might be talking to someone who you think is speaking Latin, but those people are usually either drunk off their asses or speaking in tongues, and in the big scheme of things, what is the difference? Ya can't understand them and you need an interpreter to explain to you what the other person is blabbering on about. When I was a born again Christian for the 2nd time (first one didn't take) I spoke in tongues, wasn't hard to do since I was used to talking while being drunk off my ass.

Back to phones and phone calls in general. I have parents and for those of you who also have parents you might understand this conversation and how the phone system was trying to do an invention of sorts between my mother and I.

My mother and I have a good relationship. The older we have gotten the more we appreciate each other. This doesn't stop us from getting into arguments that are incredibly stupid. As is this one.

My mother calls to tell me she is sending off my birthday present and it will be late. She calls around 8am in the morning. She always says, Claudia this is your mother Betty. You would think that after 47 years I would know her voice and also know that she is my mother and that her name is Betty. Maybe she is doing this for her own benefit but I only have one mother so I am pretty sure I have her voice down. This does not go the other way around I am afraid. When I call her I too always announce who I am, because she had 4 of us kids and even though one is a boy, I don't want her to get confused and think she is talking to one of her other daughters and if I don't say this is Claudia she will talk for awhile and then go, oh it you Claudia, which is irritating.

So she calls to tell me stuff that she had already told me the day before, this is not saying my mother is losing it she isn't cause if she is so am I. I do the same thing to her. I have reached the age where I have a collection of stories that are funny and I will tell them to people and then tell them again because they are just so damn funny and then try and tell them again until I am told I have already shared this story one too many times. So having my mother call me and repeat things isn't so bad since I do the same thing to her.

So she calls, and as she does the big hairy cat Mr "P" walks by with a piece of shit on his butt. I know he has this on his ass before I see it because he had sat on my newspaper and left a creative shit print on the front of the paper. It would have been so damn funny if Stephen Harper - or Steve as George W, likes to call him had been on the front cover but he wasn't so it was gross.

I tell my mother this bit of information and she goes into this long ass conversations about how well you know from working for a veterinarian Claudia that cats are very clean animals and if the cat has crap hanging from his butt he is sick.

I said - mother, the hair on his ass is too long and it gets stuck, hairy ass have shit stuck problems

She said, no there is something definitely wrong with the cat and you need to get it to the doctor.

I said why because it has shit sticking to it?

She said something about not caring for the cat.

I said I do care for the cat

She said you are in a bad mood aren't you

I said well when you call me up telling me about the cat's ass yes I get in a bad mood.

This is all going on as the cat is walking around with shit hanging from his ass. Stressing me out because I really want to clean it off of him.

She said you just got married you should be in a good mood.

I said I am

then the phone went dead. I immediately called back because of course I wanted to continue proving that I was not a bad cat owner and she should quit being a mother. Couldn't get through. As I look back on this I should realize that the phone system or the CIA and FBI are listening in and really don't want us to continue this conversation because it is grossing them out and has nothing with me being a terrorist.

Ah I finally get through to mother

Mother I said I just pulled the crap from the cat (sounding like a Dr. Seuss story now) and there was grass in it, not that I looked too closely but I could see grass ok?

Mother goes Oh, there is something definitely wrong because if animals are eating grass that means they aren't feeling well and are trying to get rid of whatever is wrong.

Ok mother the two dogs and the other cat all eat grass, so now you are telling me that they are all sick? Cats and Dogs are omnivores, they eat grass because of vitamins, not because they are fucking bulimics and need to puke up shit all over the house.

Oh Claudia I can see that you are depressed.

The phone goes dead again. At this point I should take a deep breath, let it go and get on with my day. But I can't and neither can she

So she calls back and I say, yes I am a bit depressed, trying to deal with fixing up this house, running out of money and trying to become a landed immigrant is stressing me out, plus I have a shit dragging cat walking around the house.

Claudia you are almost 47 isn't it time you get over this depression

this is from an 82 year old who still goes through depression.

I said nope never to old to be depressed.

We finally agreed that we had to start the conversation over so we did. Asked how each other were and then said we loved each other and hung up.

Sometimes I picture being raised by badgers and how that wouldn't be such a bad thing, cause badgers don't call. But then I realize I would be living in a cave with a really weird looking face and very few friends, so come to the conclusion that my family is like much cooler then badgers.

Things about Regina that I find interesting

Having lived here for a year, I feel I now have enough information and experience to share my vision of Regina, a vision that is far reaching and will most likely impact you deeply.

The SSS (Saskatchewan Schizophrenics Services) has a chapter located in Regina. Regina is also where all the baby Mounties come to train. So at any given moment anywhere in the city is an unmarked white car trying unsuccessfully to parallel park or make a quick U turn as you pass them by. I not being a landed immigrant and having license plates that aren't legal often get that rush of adrenaline when I see a Mountie failing a parking. Now if my level of paranoia is raised and I am somewhat normal, what do you think it does to the poor schizophrenic who is minding his and all his friends own business, just a walking down the street and car after car is a white unmarked Mountie car drives by making sudden U turns and speeding by you? I would say if there are that many white unmarked cop cars in Regina then they are no longer unmarked cause every white car in Regina is most likely a cop car. So change the colours, mix it up a bit if you wouldn't mind and maybe go to Moose Jaw occasionally and stress out those people.

The Leader Post - the daily newspaper of Regina. A paper whose obituary section is thicker then the front page section. I enjoy reading the paper. But don't you find it a bit fucked up that they have this
on the front page of their paper counting down the days to the Rolling Stones Concert?

Not that this isn't an exciting event, it is truly something that will go down in history. And who will be attending? Rolling Stones fans and those people who want to stare and Keith Richards and say wow, the Movie Night of the Living Dead is not fiction but really a documentary.

I like the fact that the Leader Post in their announcements would let their customers know about the Marijuana Party's upcoming potluck dinner benefit (get there early is all I can say!)

Or my favourite is the big argument going on about installing more traffic cameras so the police can ticket the people who run red lights. You would think what is the big argument, makes sense, bust those bastards who run the lights. Except that Canadians don't want to be filmed getting in trouble and are very concerned about their image, so they aren't running the lights at those two intersections therefore the percentage people being rear-ended at those intersections has gone up 80%.

And above all remember - Catherdal Area - hip cool and without a doubt the place to be seen.

Barb and Claudia's Wedding

Here is a slideshow of our Wedding and expect endless more pictures plus the wedding video. This is better then the people who come to dinner and then show you a three hour slide show of their trip to North Dakota

Getting Married

Haven't been around for awhile. Well I've been around, but I've been busy with this getting married thing. In the states other then that damn liberal state of Massachusetts, us people who are of the same sex can't get married. But here I am in this one country on the North American Continent that believes in equal rights and hockey and I am getting married. Like tomorrow. I'm getting married. There are things we had to think of before we got married that straight people don't have to think about much. The big one is:

Who to invite. Sure your friends and family. But you really want to make sure that anyone you invite will blow bubbles not throw stones. To clarify when I talk about blowing bubbles what I mean is, those little blowing bubble things that you give people to blow when you walk down the aisle aftewards. Not the God your guests so drunk before the wedding and look at them, sitting in a stuper with those gross little spittle bubbles coming out of their half parted lips.

Plus bubbles are better then throwing rice cause that isn't cool anymore cause the birds eat it and blow up in mid air that can really screw the dinner afterwards. Sure I could dodge a few small stones no problem but I sure as hell wouldn't invite some 8 foot giant homophobe who can toss a boulder or two our way.

But how do you know if the people you invite are going to freak on ya? I was pretty upfront. I said, hey we are getting married, wondering if you would like to come and by the way are you going to freak if you see two women kiss? Cause I found out you have to kiss to like seal the deal, sort of like Tupperware but without the burp.

Also finding a minister that will do it is totally necessary. Clue for anyone who is getting married - the United Churches are the hip and cool churches to use. We found a Pastor named Kim, so we call her Pastor Kim, or Kim or her HipHop nickname is KP that's how hip she is. This is also her first same sex wedding so she said that the other Pastor she works with will be so jealous.

Once you get the pastor, then you have to go through marriage counseling which isn't harsh but they ask all sorts of personal questions about sex and do you love each other and do you both just love the Canadian show http://www.cornergas.com/, cause I guess if you don't just love it they won't marry you. Interestingly enough I found out the only family member you can marry in Saskatchewan is your cousin, much like most of the Southern United States. So if you are gay and marrying your gay cousin, this is the place to do it. They also have no restriction against farm animals that I know of, at least they never mentioned that you can't marry them when we went to get our marriage license. Again like most of the Southern United States, unless they are gay farm animals, then that is totally disgusting and against the law.

So you are saying to yourself, got the pastor, found non stone throwing people to attend where do you have it?

At Kim and Tom's place. It is very beautiful and Tom just built a new fence that has 98 pre-drilled, countersunk screws in every eight foot section (this information was provided to me through an unnamed source within the Tom and Kim household). So it can with stand any drive by stone throwing homophobe giants.

Ya got the pastor, the people and the place, how about food and wedding wings (I meant rings but it sounds funny eh - wedding wings)?

Go to a' la Carte owned by Beth Traynor 525-0501. She rocks her place is in the Cathedral area which is the only hip area in Regina and she put up with us because we kept finding non stone throwing friends who wanted to attend. And you know that her food is good and you can trust that no one will be spitting in the food before it is served.

Finally you want rings, by now you are realizing that weddings aren't cheap but you have to have rings that are cool. Well you go to http://www.mysteria.ca/. Marlo who is one of the owners is absolutely one of the most rocking people around and we found cool rings that are silver and classy with a little diamond in it, not like some rings that have more diamonds in them then a poor African country can produce in a year. Oh yeah and Mysteria is also in the Cathedral area so as you can tell the Catherdral area is the place to be seen - that is why I shop at the Catherdal Safeway.

Some of you might ask, why go through the hassle of doing this? Isn't living together as common law enough, why do you have to be so out there and political and stuff. Well other then the obvious reason is that we love each other and want to be together the rest of our lives. It is because of:

the gifts
and the party with friends and family that you love.

In some respects straight and gay people aren't too different.

A Public Service Announcement About Ticks

Ticks are red with little with lots of legs. They do not get big until they have sucked up what remaining blood is left by the bastard mosquitoes of the Northern plains.
If you have big hair it is suggested you wear a hat and not a beehive bouffant into the fields and grassy areas of the prairies.
If you come home and are sitting watching TV and one drops from your hair to your arm after coming back from an outing in the above mentioned landscape what you do is:
Grab it by your fingers and ask your partner or friend what a tick looks like. Once told, you scream and go, oh fuck, oh shit this is so fucking gross and you run outside and throw it cause you don't want to pinch it between your nails, because then you will have tick juice and that is even worse.
Then you stomp back inside and ask, why didn't you tell me there are fucking ticks here? Why am I the last to know?