I never asked him was he proud of me?

My Dad: Harvey Manning, climber, writer, environmentalist and father.

A little over two months since my father passed away, seems like forever then again I can't believe it has even happened. It is all true what others have said and gone through before me. There are all those first, you have to make it through. Even when you make through those there are time when I think, oh he would like that book or he would find this interesting. And he would, even though he is gone, his spirit still is within me and he is still my dad and I still miss him. He didn't talk a lot, hated the phone, would only pick it up if no one else was around and that was to stop the ringing. We never talked about deep things. We talked about the birds we had seen, how the animals were doing, good shows on TV. Before I left to move up here on his 80th birthday it was mother, him and I and we actually sat out on the deck and talked. About their trips, our trips, about how we were both drunks but didn't drink anymore. It was the last time I saw him and the best conversation I had had with him in years.

Was he proud of me? I am sure he was, I wish I had finished this novel and was able to send it too him for him to read. I did give him one chapter to read and his praise of it was a lasting gift to me. Did I do anything tremendous for him to be proud. I visited him. I talked to him. I forgave him and asked him for forgiveness. So did I accomplish anything while he was alive to make him proud. I suppose, because I loved him and he me.

Anyway if you have someone's loves that is always enough, don't you think?



Here are a couple of pictures when he and my mother were climbing in the Canadian Rockies. What amazing parents I have.

Here they are in a hut above Lake Louise in 1950. They were freezing because there was no wood or heat.

Here he is on top of some peak, man I know so little about his climbing days

Why they don't play Shinny in the States

Pretty obvious if you don't have nationalist health care, you wouldn't dare put your ass on the ice in boots a tennis ball and a hockey stick. Ya just don't. That is why the sport isn't big in the states. Well that and the states are a bit warmer then most of Canada. Remember we are the country that has Polar Bears going down the main streets of some towns.

Shinny last week I was called a cherry picker. This week I wish they would have called an ambulance. This sport is not a sport for the weak of heart but if you watch you might think we are all weak of brain.

So there we are with a few more added players then last week - 3, but one was a lawyer do I need to say more? With the added players the game picked up it's pace. Well not its pace but its injury factor. It started off pretty basic, a slip and fall and a slam down on their knees in the ice. This happened several times, sometimes with others involved other times more of a oh shit I'm on ice and bam, down they go. Like all good Canadian born and bred women, they would get up, brush themselves off and we would ask, are you ok and the response was, oh yeah, I'm fine. Then came the brain concussion. The individual got up we were concerned and asked, you ok and of course she replied, oh yeah fine I'm. She then shook her head twice and decided to play goalie for a bit. There was of course the attack of the killer attorney who took out one of our players. The attorney couldn't feel her fingers, but she hell she still had her other hand, so let's keep playing. I not having any health insurance had a sense that I was in a bizarre version of Monty Python and the Holy Grail done on ice (sort of like the IceCapades but with hockey sticks) Every time someone slammed down on the ice they got back up with the same fucking response. I was expecting at some point they were going to say, oh it's nothing but a flesh wound.

I could see this insanity was going to go on because these were strong like bull Canadian Women with National Health Insurance. I knew that death was the only thing that would stop this game if not that then a woman with no insurance.

So being the fabulous player I was moving gingerly down toward the opposing teams goal, waiting for my chance to mostly stay standing on the ice when it happened. The world turned, the feet moved quite wrong quite suddenly and without as much as a howdy doo gravity took over and I landed right on my tail bone. I rolled over on my stomach, did not shed a tear but with absolutely no grace or class said to one and all. I'm done. And hobbled away to lick my wounds I say this figuratively cause if you think after a fall like that or even if I hadn't fallen like that that I could reach around and lick my own back you must be crazy.

I sit here gingerly today telling you this story for your own good. If someone suggests a fun game of shinny, wait for a blizzard and walk off into the prairie, it won't hurt as much.

Well fuck

I so hate those New Year Resolutions. They are way, like way fucking stupid. I should of made a new year resolution not recognize New Years since it is part of the fascist society that we are part of (except in Saskatchewan) where we are forced to at least acknowledge these holidays probably created by white rich men who belong to the Masons or some such cult.

So promised to write in my blog every few days - fucking blew that off after what 10 days. That is pitiful.

I have been working on my novel - but if I put it on the web then those rich white men who are part of cults will steal my creative genius and use it to control the masses, so fuck that shit if anyone is going to control the masses, I want to do it.

I was going to cut down on swearing - oh fuck I never promised anything of the motherfucking sort. OK least I have some of my integrity still standing.

Diet. Cock sucking evil word created by once again the cult Male Chauvinist Society that wants to keep women down by keeping them thin, writing a zillion books on how to lose weight, thereby keeping them obsessed by food and their bodies because if they weren't obsessing about food and their bodies, they would see what a fucked up job the evil Male empire was doing and would gain a bit of weight and kick some major fucking ass. Are you with me ladies?

Yeah well so OK, we bought Potato Chips because some friends were coming over on Tuesday. They didn't eat it. Potato Chips are like Cocaine to me. I waited (remember that was Tuesday this is now FRIDAY) and kept eating my nuts, buying good stuff from the Health food store and then it happened. Those greasy little shits started Calling my name. Clauuuuuudia, oh Clauidiaaaaaaaa (fuckers can't spell either) crunch, crunch, oh how yummy. Well you realize if I ate a few then Barb would find out and I would be busted. If I ate the entire bag then I would feel like puke, but since I am not a bulimic I would just feel like it not do it. So then... I would have to buy another bag and never admit to the massive munching of the first bag. And that my friends is like drinking and then not saying anything and going around pretending I'm sober.

So ain't fucking going to do it.

I ate the potato chip, but I did not kill the deputy. (for those of you who are too young it is from an old song probably written and sung by the white male fascist cultist society).

I also refuse to feel bad about it. I worked out today. I did dishes and wrote in my book. And I let you all know the truth.

Cherry Picking is not a term of endearment

In Shinny that is. That is the game where you stupidly and intentionally go on an ice rink in tennis shoes and hockey sticks and run around trying to hit a tennis ball. After about 10 minutes of going back and forth I figured, hell by the time I got to the other end of the rink the ball will be coming back my way so I stayed near the opposing teams goal. Barb kept calling me a cherry picker, I thought it was a compliment for some frigging reason, but no it is when you stand there and wait for someone to hit you the ball and you get a goal. I was in no way a cherry picker, I was happy if I kept upright which I didn't- fell 4 times. I also was told you can't run into the people who have the ball while screaming this I believe is called checking. For some reason they don't approve of you sticking your stick out and tripping the other players feet who have the ball especially if they are your spouse - this is called hooking and is frowned upon greatly. Oh yeah and if you hit someone elses stick as you go by and it accidently goes into their ribs rather sharply it is called spearing and for some fucking reason is considered in bad taste, once again especially if you do it to your spouse. I told them that since I was from America and since I was ignorant of their culture but wanted what they had (the ball most of the time) it was perfectly alright for me to bully, attack and abuse the opposing players

One down

Well thank you to everyone who knows how to use the refresh button, because I have now hit the grand and glorious over the 5,000 mark and I swear I had little to do with it. As they say in the Internet world I haven't gone viral yet and I doubt that I will, but hitting the 5,000 mark is rather exciting.

I need to read over my resolutions for the new year to see how I am doing. Working on my memory would have been a good one. But I am finished with my paper work and will be sending it in to Immigration this week. Then it will sit there, gather dust and from what I have heard, if you call them to find out what is up with your status, these people and I can just imagine this, they are all wrinkled and about a billion years old, with 33 inches of dust on every surface including their head. And if you do call them and bug them, they will take your file and put it at the bottom of these files that are stacked from floor to ceiling. That is what I picture.

Both sets of fingerprints came back with no arrests on them and that was a big relief to me because the 80's were a pretty big blur to me for all I know I had a child and didn't know about it.

As to my other resolutions. I am reading this book calledYou on a Diet which is a great book and gives information on how a body works and what foods to eat, so I am eating lots of omega 3 foods and feeling quite proud of myself. This is only week one so we will see. One thing I suggest if you are going to do this diet - as a snack you can eat some dry whole grain cereal with dried fruit as a snack. DO NOT eat uncooked steel cut oatmeal. Not only is it very dry in your mouth, think of eating sawdust, but with less flavour, but see it expands like a lot. Like that is a lot of fiber to have in one's stomach in an evening. I remember seeing this movie from the 70's called the Immigrants with Liv Ulmann. The story was about these poor Swedish people who were coming to America because they were starving. Make a long blog short, the little girl, hungrier then all get out got into the storage shed and ate raw oats, they expanded and her stomach exploded and she died.

This of course didn't happen to me or else I would be doing this blog from the other side and well then it would be a blog that would be read a lot I'm sure.

But just don't do it. Makes for an uncomfortable Swedish depressing movie kind of evening.

New Years Resolutions

Well there went one down the shit hole. Trying to get 5,000 hits by New Years Day without me logging on like a pitiful bloggerert who is so desperately in need of attention that I would try to up the number of hits on my blog. Anyway I realized after watching 20/20 on Friday night and seeing where one woman got 300,000 hits a month on her blog that I was doomed to be a baby blogger in the big scheme of blogland. I could do what she did which is share every personal detail of my life on the blog like she did, but if I did that, my therapist could once a week log on read what I wrote and then send me an email without ever seeing me. So unless I plan on doing live sex scenes on my blog I shall have to strive for quality then going for the utter exploited quantity of titillating trash about my life.

So I know New Years Resolutions are so lame and most people have that loser statement is " my new years resolution is to not make any new years resolution". I can say that because I have said that in the past. What I believe today and it could change is since I am not working, if I don't make some goals to achieve this year I will end up in a quagmire of mucky nothingness and by not forcing myself into a routine depression and despair are waiting in the wings to sweep me away to Dr. Phil Land. So here are my goals.

1. Write in the blog at least once a week.
2. I am writing a novel and my goal is to write a chapter a week - plus put it on the web, so if you are at all interested you can read it and if you find it at all interesting or have comment you can help me shape the storyline. This I will have done by the end of next week.
3. Ok, I know this is lame, but this past year I have been under a bit of stress - new country, no job, getting married, moving to a new city and the big one have both parents sick and my father dying. Due to this and not having structure or goals I have gained weight and feel just like shit about myself. So of course I went out and bought the book called YOU ON A DIET. Which explains how your body works and why diets suck, fail and why we all become raving, snarling bitches with the personality of Nicole Richie. I just want to eat better, work on my emotional eating and exercise because I like to do it not because if I don't I will beat myself up about it. Plus the dogs really need to see the outside world occasionally.
4. Big one - get landed immigrant status
5. Get me a frigging job.

So those are my commitments to myself for this year. None of that quit smoking since I already have, no commitments to quit drinking or not drink so much that I sleep with my best friends lab - since I already have - quit drinking that is, not sleeping with other people's pets, shit dude I gave that up like in 1999 or I think after that incident with my neighbors chow that was unfortunately picked up by the Humane Society Newspaper. See you can be an animal lover, just not a fucking animal lover.

Anyway those are my goals. And congratulations to myself and anyone who reads this cause, like I have been doing this for one year now. I would seriously like to thank my Netherlands friend Anja who clued me into blogging. She is one smart Netherlands type chick.