Surreal

Still fuming, sorry..................

You know how sometimes, you have a meeting with someone or something just happens and you are so astounded by the content...you have to just pause...shake your head and say.."what the F just happened"...I had one of those moments in the docs office on Tuesday...and I and Robert (who was there too) are still trying to figure out exactly what the hell took place...but rest assured once I get it figured out in my head I will let you all know...

Surprise, Surprise !!!

I am so angry I can't think straight...let's just say INCOMPETENCY IS MORE THAN AN ACCIDENT IT IS AN EPIDEMIC....

Sensitivity

 Roberts first birthday, after we met and married, was an interesting one...I asked him what he would like me to make as a meal to celebrate the day and he told me...we were to have it his parents house because they didn't want to drive the 30 minutes to my place...so I cooked this lavish meal and  his favorite dessert and drove to their house...we ate and while Robert and his dad retired to the living room to watch the news on CBC...mother and I cleared the table and put the kettle on for a spot of tea to go with our dessert...She said she hadn't thought to make him a cake and I said not to worry, that he had requested my famous cheesecake ....at which she replied...don't you think it's bad enough you killed off one husband feeding him that kind of food, now you are working on another... (I'm not kidding, that is verbatim what she said)  I had no reply...of course, I was speechless...I excused myself shortly after that and stepped outside...thought about it a bit more out there and then left....left my dishes, my leftovers and Robert and drove home.. When he phoned later...he asked me why I left...and I told him...he was speechless.. and apparently had words with his mother, at which time she tried to deny that she meant what she said in a bad way...and finally when he wasn't buying it...she accused me of being too sensitive....and the next day he tried to convince me that that was my problem..I was just being too sensitive....His mother hated me ever since that day, probably before then too...or is that just me being to sensitive ?

Valentines day is a mile high hurdle for me...while others are being wooed..schmoozed and candied up, I find it hard not to get inebriated...Sid died on valentines day, 18 years ago...and every valentines day that rolls around feels like it was just that day... I suppose he if had died quietly in his sleep or of some lingering illness...it might be easier to forget...

Sid wasn't the greatest husband in the world, far from it actually, he was a drunk, had no use for kids, was a bit perverted with cutting out nude girly pictures out of playboy and hustler magazines and pasting them on the wall of his shop...(at the farm sale, remarks were made by people who didn't know us that he was one sick puppy...hahahaha)  I hated those pictures,  he cheated on me several times...and I would have left him had I had somewhere to go...he loved someone else he once told me...I don't know who but he said it was someone we knew...and that if she ever left her husband I would be out of the house so fast my head would spin...hahaha that made a girl feel secure... and in his frustration at not being married to the love of his life (as he put it) he got angry and abusive... yes, I was one of those pathetic women who stay in an abusive situation because they have no where else to go...

Our marriage wasn't always like that though...at the beginning we were good together, had a couple of babies, He taught me how to farm and I actually became a better cattleman than he could ever hope to be... I love the cows...the neighbours used to phone and ask me what to treat their sick animals with and if I could come and look at their calves... I market gardened for a few years but that was thankless work for little reward...I raised, butchered and sold chickens, about a thousand a year, I had pail fed calves, we had a hundred pigs, and in the early years (Sid had a dozen milk cows when I met him) we milked cows and sold the butter I churned and fed the milk to the pigs and chickens...besides all that I had two babies to care for and house and big yard.  I can still remember having the two boys in the truck with me, riding around and around the field...raking hay...getting home and canning cherries until 4 am... then waking up at 8 am and starting the day all over again...

So although I didn't have the best of marriages, (we stopped being a team after one of our sons died) it was like a disconnect...he drank more, I ate more chocolate bars..my drug of choice and a year later when the fog lifted I was fat and he was a drunk...he never stopped drinking and I kept on eating....so that fateful Valentines day...we were indifferent ....there had been a calf born in the wee hours of the morning and after lunch he was heading out to get it to suck tit....I asked if he needed help and he said "ya, you can hold the hammer"...a joke about knocking the damn thing on the head if it didn't suck the cow....

He fought with the calf...pounded it around the head a few times with his fist and we argued.... I said, "oh that's really gonna make it want to nurse...you beating about the head like that"   he got mad and stood up, kicked the calf under the cow...and began turning around to yell at me...but he just gurgled instead and staggered back into the barn wall...his mouth was moving but the only sound coming out was garbled...foam...and spit and then he fell to the barn floor, splitting the side of his face open on the concrete edge....when I turned him over, he was covered in manure and blood...his eyes were cloudy and he was blowing bubbles from his mouth...  I did CPR for about fifteen minutes I guess, I am really not sure how long...I only knew my arms felt on fire and I was crying....I had to make a choice at that point...with no cell phone back then, no phone in the barn I had to either keep doing what I was doing or leave him and go call 911.... I left and made the call...told my son his dad had an accident and to go and wait on the road for the ambulance...

I remember sitting in the hospital waiting for the doctor to come out and talk to us, I don't remember actually driving to the hospital...and then the doctor was there....he sat down in front of us and looked right in my eyes...he said...that even if your husband had been here in emerg...already on a stretcher there was no way they could have saved him...he had a massive heart attack that had blown the valves right out of his heart... He asked if there was someone I could call to come and take us home... I tried my neighbours but they were out for the day...so after an hour or so... my son and I drove home...

So ya, Valentines day is a tough one for me...in a small way, I still miss Sid, we had used to be very good friends...I miss the life we had, filled with tons of friends, his family...

Sid just in from the barn and our son David

I spent yesterday alone....Robert must have forgotten what day it was cause he didn't even wish me a happy valentines...he came in for breakfast and then headed back out to do his chores and never came back in the house until 10 pm... he apparently had taken a couple of pieces of leftover pizza out with him...I had made a nice supper...his favorite...lasagna with green salad, garlic bread and a strawberry smoothie...and it sat on the counter for hours before I put it away at 9:45... he came in shortly afterwards...asked me what I did all day...and then when I got up and went to bed, he was offended...I told him to just go away...and he went... to say that I was a bit upset would be an understatement...  I know, I know...it's been 18 years... but it still would have been kind of him to distract me...instead I sat here all day, reading, tried painting a bit and just remembering...

Night of Disappointment

Robert and I had a great day yesterday...we got our work in the barn done early, threw a few bales in the feeders and drove into small town for an burger and Chiropractor adjustment...Roberts hips are really bothering him this winter...so you see it is not just me that needs to get away from the very physical work on the farm. His hips hurt so bad sometimes he can't sit still and has to pop muscle relaxers like candy...but I keep trying to tell him that they won't help much when it is a skeletal problem...his family has a genetic problem with the hips...like dysplacia in dogs...his mother had bad hips, her mother had really bad hips..his sister had both hip joints replaced in her her forties and still has to use two canes...his brother also suffers with it and will soon have hip replacement.   and Robert has had problems since teenage years...and has so far avoided surgery because he is so active and has chiropractic care...but  each year it gets harder to get relief from the chiropractor...admittedly they can only do so much... poor Robert, I have great sympathy for him because I know what chronic pain is like... what a pair we are...you should have heard us both yesterday changing to go to town...both trying to put our socks on and groaning and moaning...joints popping and grinding...hahahah it would have been hilarious if wasn't so painful... I looked at him and said "what the hell are we doing to ourselves"

I felt somewhat vindicated at the chiropractors yesterday, not that I needed to because he is a very sympathetic doctor...(yes doctor...Chiropractors go to school the 7 years that your GP doc does plus two more years so don't tell me they aren't real doctors) My chiropractor explains things that are happening to my body, better than my family doc does...
but yesterday while he was having me move from lying on my stomach to my back...I got one of my spasms....the ones in my back that make my whole body go limp...like one of those toys we used to get when we were kids that would be like a horse or a dancer, made of beads on a rubber band and when you pushed up with your thumb on the plastic base they were mounted on, releasing the tension in the elastic band the dancer would go limp and when you released the base the rubber band would go taut and the dancer would stand up...


well that is what my body does when I get one of these spasms..and they can happen any time..so as I stood up off the bench to turn over on to my back...I got one and promptly fell to the floor, or I would have if I hadn't hit the bench on my way down...the doc grabbed for me and I had to lay draped over the bench for a few seconds until the spasms goes away and he helped me stand up... how embarrassing.... unfortunately there isn't much he can do to help with out seeing an ex ray of my spine...but he suspects that the LUPUS is weakening the muscles and tissue that hold the spine together and that like an old elastic band they have lost some of their tension...allowing the vertebrae to move excessively....and that nerves or muscle are being pinched between the bones...   I go for a spinal scan and bone density test on Tuesday morning...and then Tuesday afternoon I have an appointment with my new rheumatologist...since my lady rheumatologist quit her practice and moved to New York.

Any way, what I really wanted to write about today was the night I just survived....Robert decided to sleep in the house last night after spending a couple of weeks sleeping in the barn... I was excited for him...but dreading it at the same time...you see, I secretly crave sleeping in my own bed...
and I thoroughly enjoyed the two weeks I had ours to myself... Robert is a horribly restless sleeper who snores atrociously...and I am a super light sleeper so any little noise or bouncing of the bed wakes me up... he lays in the middle of our king size bed with his arms and legs thrown wide and snores ....and when he turns in his sleep he doesn't just roll over quietly...he lifts himself up on his heels and throws his body over....and usually takes the covers with him...and lays on top of them...rolled up like a sausage roll..leaving me bare arsed to the wind... and I can tell you that that is quite a feat since we have a truly beautiful comforter on our bed made of 100 % cotton made 100% in Canada...it cost me an arm and a leg but ooooohhhh the luxury...and it is over sized too boot... so it hangs at least two feet down each side of the bed...there should be lots of blanket for us both..but not when Robert is in bed...anyway the night was spent...pulling the blankets back...him tossing around like a fish just hauled on to the deck of a fishing boat...and finally at 3:45 am... I got up and moved to the couch...minus my lovely comforter I froze my ass off with a fleece blanket instead...at 4:30 he woke up and went out to the barn and I could finally get some sleep...When I mention having my own bed...(this is nothing new, I have broached the subject before...not separate rooms just two separate beds pushed close together.so I won't feel him tossing around and I would have my own blankets...)  I am met with stony silence...and puppy dog eyes... so I guess I am doomed to go into my twilight years with dark circles under my eyes from lack of sleep...hahahaha

Communism is Alive and Well in Alberta

I have a friend whose husband (also a friend) used to be the Editor of our local paper until it was bought out by Quebec-cor, a giant media company that went around buying up small papers a few years ago. While my friend J continued to be the editor of the paper, he was forced to tighten the budget and increase sales of advertising, which meant going from business to business giving the hard sell to get more ads in his paper...He did all they asked...had the best sales and readership in the province...won awards and bonuses...for his efforts but none of that meant a thing when the company decided to streamline the papers...which meant shutting down the small ones and regionalize to bigger centres...so now Mayerthorpe doesn't have a local paper anymore...our news and announcements if gathered, appear in the Whitecourt paper...

J was given 5 weeks notice of the termination of his paper and he was required to break the news to the rest of his staff...he was offered severance or relocation...but since his wife is a teachers special needs aide...and teaching jobs are hard to find...re-location was not the best option... so he took the severance...and kissed the newspaper world good-bye. He had made it his career...working in a small paper in Ontario in his early years and then Grand Prairie, then spent ten years in Fort McMurray as editor of that paper...but when their children left to move to Edmonton and University, he and his wife moved from Ft Mac...to Mayerthorpe, where the company needed an editor for the small little paper they had just bought...and so he had worked for our paper for nearly 20 years...and in my mind, was treated very shabbily...very shabbily indeed.

So, he needed to find work...he's was in his early sixties and didn't want to have to big a commute...so he took a job as meat cutter in our towns local grocery store... a very big step down in stature as far as jobs go but he seemed accepting of it...if it allowed  his wife to keep her job and got him out of the house.  But after two and a half years of kissing ass there... things are coming to a head...

Now, I am appalled to know that our local CO-OP store treats their employees with such mistrust...and J is not the only one I have heard complaints from..as I am acquainted with several people that work there...I even contemplated working there myself at one time...

There are apparently surveillance cameras throughout the store trained on the staff...and someone sits in the upstairs office watching the screens and making notes on staff behavior....and after my friends mentioning in a moment of venting that they are required to purchase a certain percentage of money at the store..(in other words they are pressured to buy all their groceries there or else) I questioned some of these other people I know who work there and found that to be true as well...

So my friend J, works behind a glass window cutting and trimming and packaging meat for the counter...if you need assistance in the meat counters you push a button and one of the meat cutters will (in a minute or so, since they have to remove their bloodied apron and wash their hands) come out to the store and help you...well the person in the office has determined on several occasions (the staff are reviewed every six months...and given letters of assessment) that he spends to much time chatting up the shoppers when he is buzzed for...and that he trims the meat to much...therefore cutting down their profits...and he refuses to take management training ( he applied for a meat cutter position not meat manager position) but the meat manager wants him to perform his job as well as that of meat cutter...and J doesn't want the responsibility...

They have (they being, the meat manager and store manager as well as the regional manager, because Mayerthorpe Co-op is affiliated with Barrhead Co-op.) decided to make  his work life miserable so that he quits... He is belittled, ridiculed, and constantly made to feel like an imbecile... and they then have the gall to review his Co-op share number to see how much money they have spent in the store...he is told he and his wife are not spending the correct percentage of his wages in the store....and that is what finally made me go ballistic...WHAT THE HELL KIND OF COMMUNIST CRAP IS THAT.

As if they have the right to tell you where you can shop....

So I had his wife here last saturday, and boy was she upset, she spent the entire afternoon venting to me and worrying about her hubby...he is so depressed and despondent that she is worried for his health...He is going to be 64 in the summer and she wants him to quit his job right away and apply for early CPP. She wanted to know what I thought if you can imagine....she says she considers me one of the smartest people she knows and wanted my opinion...Huh...go figure...I don't consider myself any smarter than most people but I do know how to read people fairly well...She had a plan and I asked her what it was...she explained her plan and asked what I thought...

I said it would work but the catch was that if she took money from their savings to pay off their personal debt and he took early retirement, that they would have to work hard at not accumulating more personal debt or the whole pay off thing would have been for nothing...and that perhaps he might consider taking a part-time job (you are allowed to earn up to $29,000. per year without it affecting your CPP payout.) to keep from having to dip into their modest savings any more than necessary... I told her about our experience with cashing in my investments to pay off our mortgage during the BSE crisis and that it was worth  it to get rid of the worry of the bank taking the land but that there is no longer that safety net, my investments provided....so now we live from cheque to cheque and when shit hits the proverbial fan, it hits hard... but we will never mortgage the land again...that is the lesson we learned...

So we wait with bated breath to see what they decide to do..but in my mind nearly anything would be better that continuing to work at a place like that... I am so outraged that I have decided to boycott that grocery store which means I will have to drive a lot further to grocery shop...but there is a principal behind that decision....those communistic bastards can choke on my dust...and I am encouraging everyone I know who shops there to do the same thing.

Can you imagine...I can't think what the hell they were thinking...but it is still going on...in our own little towns... even Wal-mart can't make you shop at their store exclusively...as if !!!!!

What would we do without Oil

Some one recently said to me, how can you as an Albertan feel good about the tar sands impact on our environment.  I responded, how as a Canadian would you feel about relying on the turbulent, hot tempered middle east countries for your fuel, heat and plastics...Want to know what that would feel like?  Just look at the USA...they consume triple the amount that they can produce per year...so they are very reliant on middle east oil...and that, I believe is why they have to stick their noses into those countries politics...fund their armies and generally kiss ass....We don't have to do that...because we produce more Oil and Gas than we consume. 

Now don't get me wrong...I am not happy about the way the tar sands are being developed, I believe there are way better ways to handle the waste sludge and tailing's ponds that they produce up there...but the problem stems from demand for our product and the speed at which the whole thing took off...not enough time was given for developing those more environmentally friendly methods. It was all about getting the thing into production and worry about what to do with the waste later...unfortunately later hasn't happened yet...just ask all the birds that died there two years ago... my worry is what about all the shit that goes on in the rest of the country that we DON'T hear about...

The poisonous water leeching into the lakes and sloughs around northern Quebec, from an old mine...dead babies, birth defects, cancer...don't hear anything much about that whole fiasco anymore...
Then there's the whole toxic waste management site in Swan Hills, here in Alberta...which is only about a two hour drive from here.... A few years ago they actually banned hunters from eating the game they shot in that area...you can shoot for trophy antlers (cause they have some freaky antler growth up there) but don't eat the meat....fish by all means but don't actually eat the fish...or berries. There have been a couple of incidents where a hunter has shot a deer that had three ears...and a moose with a fifth undeveloped leg...now THAT is scary... they are going to shut that site down...the huge concrete pits that they were holding the toxic waste in developed cracks only a few years after it was built (which is the nature of concrete in these cold climates) and waste water has been leaching into the water system up there and the ground...

So the tar sands are not nearly so scary...sure the oily sludge that sits in open tailing's ponds is a sure death to migrating birds that land on it...but they do have some measures in place to make sure that that doesn't happen...the canons broke down that one time and voila...it made the national news..

This whole environmental activist thing is a bit baffling to me. I am all for people feeling strongly about stuff...but use some common sense.  After all if it wasn't for oil and gas how would they get to the places they want to protest...did they walk, I think not...what about the plastic signs they hold up in protest...and if there was no oil industry...we wouldn't have fuel for our cars, no airlines to wisk you away to your winter tropical holiday destinations...no plastic...and if you think about deleting all the things derived from oil...you would feel like you were living in the dark ages, plastic..for instance, think about all the things you use daily that are made of plastic...and now imagine life with out them... so ya the oil and gas industry has a ways to go to improve their impact on the environment...but at least we won't have to invade another country to achieve our commute or heat our house in our Canadian winter... and I can honestly say that no one in my immediate family profits from working in the oil and gas industry... but I just don't want to be one of the thousands of hypocrites who use the products but poo poo the process....

You can bet your booties that when, the whole middle east goes into a tail spin (and there is definite signs of that happening even now) our knees won't be knocking... we'll be fine...our cars will still move, our homes will still be warm, but we may have to worry about being invaded by the USA, for our oil....hahahaha...cause you can be assured that when their middle east tap is shut off they'll be looking northward...

The Americans may think of us as bumbling backwards idiots but we're bumbling backwards idiots with a lot of oil and fresh water....

WHY do I even try

You know, I can't help but think that life would be so much better if people would just say what they think...

For instance there is this guy that works at our local UFA store...farm hardware store...he is actually assistant manager..but what a lame dick...when I go there (which is a lot lately, for calving supplies) I am always soooo lucky to get him to attend me at the till.... He never smiles, never chit chats...and I always end up thinking the exact same thing..."would it kill you to smile...or better yet take the f''ing stick out of your ass and relax a bit, people will smile back." .....he is the  least helpful worker there, I am not sure what the hell he gets paid for...if you ask him if they have this part for the water bowls...he says "NO" without even going to look, or saying "no, but I can get you one in two days" or something like that...but it's just No....end of conversation... and then I recently found out that he is actually a town councilor in Mayerthorpe...hahahah that cracked me up... he is such a lazy, stiff dish wad..  Oh if only I had the nerve to tell him what I think...

But we don't do we, no, we play nice and smile in spite of his funeral face...I mean come on man...you're the first person, other than Robert I've spoken to in over two weeks and that's the best you can do....

I did a completely out of the box thing for me, today...I called my two girl friends and tried to arrange a girls day...bring lunch and your favorite DVD to Sherry's house and we'll hang out, eat lunch, watch movies and talk...Sherry's husband works til late and they have the best flat screen TV, it's big too...with surround sound...you know make a day of it and have some girl time... It was a big step for me to take the initiative like that...as I am a bit of a social retard...and end up being way to complacent....but I thought what the hell, nothings going to change unless I make it, right?.... I ended up having to leave voicemail messages..they were both out..and so far one of them has called back to tell me she doesn't feel so good and won't come...

I am disappointed...so now I am just waiting for the other ones excuse...and I am now convinced there will be one... because nothing like this ever turns out for me...

Oh well, I tried...maybe another time. I guess I will go out and help Robert spread some straw...