Cartoons

One of my favourite cartoons is Pibgorn, available at http://www.gocomics.com/features/120.

However, the cartoonist, the most wonderful Brooke McEldowney, is taking a break from the regular cartoon to tell a story that he wrote for his daughter when she was a younger lady than she is now.

In the meantime, the regular characters of Pibgorn, temporarily out of work, have had to take jobs out in the real world. Regular readers of the cartoon will recognize the name Satori: she's a very snappy dresser, and pretty handy with a sword. But since the rent has to be paid, and she's not actually IN the cartoon at the moment, here's her new place of employment - in Canada; in darkest Saskatchewan, to be precise.




Yup, she's reduced to cutting hair.

This, of course, is all quite silly, but the people who come here from the comfy couch of confusion at the cartoon site will understand why I posted it.

Me

I'm trying again to post photos. To start, here's one of me on the way to work about 4 years ago. It was a bit cool that day.


I took some photos a few days ago on my lunch break, and on the way home from work; I'll see if I can't get those up here soon.

Hello Kitty

A friend of mine who uses a bicycle as her primary transportation, but cannot manage anything mechanical, came to me on Sunday with a flat tire. I fixed the tube for her, but the tire itself was beyond salvation. Her bike's a street cruiser, and heavier than I'd like to lift, and it has huge fat tires with wide whitewalls. And she wanted a whitewall tire to replace the dead one.

She found a whitewall tire the next day. It has a Hello Kitty tread on it. It was made under liscence (sic) from Sanrio. The friend is mortified, and extremely grateful to the cycling gods that the tires mostly hidden by the huge fat fender. I don't think it's all that bad; it's kind of cute. I can't wait to see her tracks after a rain, or after she's ridden through a patch of mud.

I think it's not so bad, mostly because the friend is so embarrassed by it. For a six yer old girl (who'd NEVER be tall enough to use it), such a tire would be appropriate. For an adult? Well, I'm not sure I want to meet the woman, or even the teen, who would actually WANT a Hello Kitty bicycle tire.

I have photographic evidence, but I can't find the darned card reader. When I do find it, I'll post a photo or two.

A Question

I discovered the Aimee Mullins TED talk today, and while she seems at home with herself, I don't know how what to think of her. It seems good that she would invite children to see her collection of legs without the inhibiting adults around; she's trying to lessen the fear and discrimination, suppose. And that's good.

I know nothing of Ms. Mullin's personal history, but I would be interested to know if any of you patient people with disabilities would let me know what YOU think of Ms Mullins. She has a diffrent mind-set from most people, and what she's doing is obviously right for her, but is it the right thing for other people? Is she spreading the right attitude?

I will admit that I'm envious of her being able to choose her height. I'd love to be able to make myself a couple of inches shorter...


Anone want to enlighten me about her?

Of Wheels and Wings

I've finally gotten a photo of that lovely shirt sent by Laura.


Thanks, Laura! Now I can think of Beth even more often...

Snow

Snow. Fluffy, white stuff, floating down in big, wet flakes, looking endearingly like a Dickensian postcard.

Or sitting in huge, immobile 1.5-metre- high windrows, piled by graders on the side of the road, or more likely on the sidewalk so the traffic has room to navigate on slippery streets.

There's a sidewalk under this mess. And there's a curb cut under the windrow; the truck's stopped just on the edge of the crosswalk. May the gods have mercy on anyone who has to go anywhere in a wheelchair, but without the aid of a car. Or even get to a car with a wheelchair or cane...


Snow, falling so hard that visibility is under 500 metres, and the 50 km/hr wind is whipping it into drifts across doorways that you have to shovel almost constantly to be able to exit the building for little things like work and groceries...

Snow. 80 cm deep drifts in the park, inviting snowshoers and cross-country skiers, trudging or gliding happily through winter's early dusk.

Or sitting in half-metre deep drifts on people's front lawns, if they haven't piled it up to head height as they cleared their driveways.

This sidewalk was cleared recently. The snow, cut very neatly by a snowthrower, is about 50 cm deep.



Snow can make it awkward to sit at bus stops.



It can look picturesque, even in the biting cold, when it's blanketing pillars in attractive layers. The snow on this lamp has melted just a little, but the layers are visible, I think. I hope.




Of course, snow exists best when it's cold. And it was cold trying to take these photos with a digital camera 9 hours ago. The camera batteries got so cold I had to change them for a pair I had in an inside pocket. And my hand got so cold I couldn't feel the end of the thumb, since the camera had to come out of the mitt to be useful.

Regina was the coldest spot on earth about a week ago; our temperature was -42C, with the breeze causing a wind chill of -52. It then proceeded to warm up, until 41 hours later, it was -0.8C.

It has gotten colder again, and the wind chill is in the -35 range again. Sound carries differently in the cold, and water freezes quite quickly. I'll have to try throwing a cup of boiling water into the air, and see if it causes a cloud. If I can do that on the weekend, I'll try to post a video of it.

I looked into Kate J's blog a couple of days ago, and was inspired to get my camera in gear again. Thanks Kate! And since I also have one of those ever-so-cool t-shirts she's showing off, I should get a photo of that too.

Meanwhile, I have to negotiate that sidewalk tomorrow to get to work. Thank goodness all that snow is being cleared away as I write, with the assistance of semi-trailer dump trucks and snowthrowers mounted on front-end loaders. Of course, the graders moving the snow to the center of the streets will leave a smooth, slippery path for me. There's a reason I use cross-country or trekking poles to walk here: it's 4 wheel drive for feet!

Loss

Would you believe I'm glad my mother is dead? Sounds hard-hearted, doens't it? But there's a bit of logic, warped and twisted, maybe, but logic.

My mother died in September, 2007; just over a year ago. She had Alzheimers, had been diagnosed in 2001, but for several years before that, she was acting strangely. I'm sure she was slipping even in 1996 or so. But for six years, we (not she, of course) knew that her brain was being stolen, by something that we couldn't stop. The doctor wanted her on medication, and she refused to take it because "there's nothing wrong with me!" Yeah, right, mom...

Dad looked after Mom for six years, and went mostly deaf because when Mom wanted to watch TV, you could hear it half a block away; but when she didn't want it on, even the quiestest volume was too loud for her. So Dad had to endure a noise level that left him wearing hearing aids, or not watch the thng at all. But he didn't abandon her to a care facility.

In August 2007, they started talking about moving to a senior's home; Dad was getting ready to admit that he simply couldn't deal with finding the milk in the oven, the toast rack in the garbage, and the tea - well, he never did find that...

Then, on the Labour Day weekend, Mom had a stroke. She had another in the ambulance, we're thinking, and at the emergency ward, the doctor had the joy of explaining that while they could mop up the pool of blood, they couldn't prevent what he called a second stroke; and the likelihood of a further stroke was high within twenty-four hours, and nearly a certainty within a week. She could still squeeze one hand in the emergency ward.

So Mom was moved, with consciousness slipping, into a ward for a day or two until she could be moved to the other Regina hospital, to the palliative care unit. She probably had a third stroke that night as she was being hooked up to the monitors in the ward. Her blood pressure was up again to over 235 over some insane number that I've forgotten. And she slipped into complete unresponsiveness.

Mom died 5 days later without regaining consciousness. Dad was with her almost the entire time, and my brother and I spent as much time as we could there, too.

We all cried, but I found myself sorta grateful that she died of a stroke, because she was spared the long, slow descent in the particular hell that is Alzheimers. Even my father admitted a few hours after we left her in the hospital for the last time that he felt strangely relieved. The method of Mom's passing was kind, compared to what she had to look forward to.

I miss Mom, but I have shed very few tears; I knew 7 years ago that I was going to lose her even before she died, so I did my grieving some time back.

And why am I saying this? I say it because some people have a little more trouble than I do when relatives die. And for those people, there are grievance counsellors.

If you've lost a loved one, and it's affecting your life and/or your work, please talk to a counsellor. You can find them through a palliative care unit of the nearest hospital, or through your employer's Employee Assistance Program. If you're grieving and can't handle it, seek help. Please.

Thank you.

And I apologize if this is a bit disjointed. I should know better than to stay late at work and try to type coherently.

Love and hugs!