Blog or white ... because it never is.

I think every Friday in 2018, Trump has fired someone.  Last week, the popular money was on National Security Adviser McMaster.  He was not fired last week to the shock of many, probably including him.  Someone else had apparently gotten the white rock.  The political pundits did concur that McMaster would be fired today.  But, the President is nothing but unpredictable.  He fired McMaster early last evening.  Does this mean that the rest of the WH staff can breathe easily for the rest of the day?  No one will really know until the end of the day.  Other than a few individuals who are unfortunate to work for Trump, but they should know that already, today, I am feeling hopeful.  We have survived a year and a quarter of Trump Administration.  Other than outrageous headlines, nothing really bad has happened. I have long held the theory that the actual politicians have very little power and the bureaucrats keep the government running at the natural pace that it needs to be.  Theoret

I have always had an incredible high threshold for physical pain.  I was almost sent home 3 minutes before my daughter was born as the Nurse didn't believe that I was in labour because I was perfectly still.  She checked me and found my daughter's head was already crowning.  I was two hours into a root canal before the dentist realized that the freezing didn't work.  I declined any topical freezing when I had a cervical biopsy because I had to go back to work right after.  All these times, I felt the sensation but it wasn't pain.  It was just like an itch. There always seems to be a trade-off for everything.  Although I have a high threshold for physical pain, I have a very low threshold for emotional pain. I thought of this a couple of days ago when Trump had a news conference cracking down on opiod dealers.  He said these were horrible people and deserved the death sentence. I thought about the time I was addicted to opiods.  Maybe I wasn't technically addic

I am in the minority, obviously.  Teresa May is enraged and demands answers.  US Congress is demanding answers.  #deletefacebook is becoming a movement.  People aren't upset about the data mining, they are enraged about it. I can't arouse any negative emotions about it, mostly because, duh, what did you think was happening? It is ironic that people worried about their privacy being breached are the same ones that publicly share all aspects of their lives. Everything they eat, every time they buy a new tea towel, every thought they have about politics, everytime their cat does something cute (which is apparently 6 times a day) complaining about their privacy being breached when they are outing themselves several times a day. About once a month, I get a friend request from someone who appears to be a Colonel in the US Marines who is probably the most handsome man in the world and obviously very successful.  He sends a message saying that there was something about my eyes ou

As a social justice warrior, I think one of the biggest threats to social justice is the former reality star occupying the White House.  His tweets are really outrageous and sometimes even I have a hard time believing that this coming from the man whose position makes him the most powerful man in the world. So, about a month ago, I decided to follow @realDonaldTrump so that I could see for myself if the media is recording things right.  Unfortunately, the media is reporting his tweets accurately.  But, there is more. It turns out the media is only reporting a small percentage of his tweets.  The man tweets constantly at all hours of the day and night.  In addition to his tweets reported and analyzed by the media, he tweets just random stuff.  He also tweets stuff that is just really out there and the media does show him respect by ignoring his completely outrageous tweets.  This man is dangerous. A great percentage of his tweets are devoted to Crooked Hillary.  This is really troub

Several years ago, I remember sitting in my friend Rhonda's living room and we were having a serious conversation.  She was talking about her employment situation.  She was doing a job she loved but for an employer that didn't value her.  After doing the job for two years, she was still on term.  Worse than that, her term would end periodically and then she would be off work for two weeks and then be hired back on an indefinite term and the cycle would repeat.  It was difficult on her marriage and her pocket book to go on living like that.  She said very seriously, "sometimes I wonder how I am going to feed my children." Although this was a serious statement, we both burst out laughing.  We started laughing until tears ran down our eyes.  The reason was that Rhonda's house was filled with food.  They had two full fridges in their kitchen.  They had one full freezer in the house and two full freezers occupying the garage.  Their pantry had been converted to a

Rex Tillerson seemed to be the one shining star in the Trump Administration.  After all, he did call his boss a moron.   The thing that made Tillerson a star as Secretary of State was that he seemed to be focused on doing the right thing independent of his unpredictable President.  I think that was his demise.   Canada has definitely lost an allay in Tillerson in the Free Trade Agreement talks.  Now, there is no barrier to doing what Trump has suggested which is tear up the Agreement.  In a blistering, seemingly nonsense speech on Saturday in Pittsburgh Trump told the audience how Canada had been taking advantage of the US for decades.  Trump talked for over an hour before he even mentioned the candidate that he was there to support.  After that, the candidates approval rating went up.  Trump took the credit.  He actually thinks he is invincible.   Most of the pundits wonder why he seems so intent on pissing off Canada.  We wonder too.   Tillerson and our Minister of For

One of my pet peeves is the long good-bye.  You know, the co-worker who comes to say good-bye to you because she is leaving for the day.  And good-bye leads to telling what she accomplished that day, and then the good-bye lists all the tasks we will do the next morning, and then the good-bye tells you what her plans are for the evening, and then the good-bye leads to what she will be cooking for supper, and then the good-bye leads to useless small talk, and 15 minutes later, after confirming once again she is leaving and says good-bye for the 18th time, she actually leaves. Or, my loving sweetie, you gets up earlier than I do.  He will come and kiss me good-bye right after he gets dressed.  I love getting up early so I think he is probably gone so I think it is safe to come out, and there he is writing me a good-bye note telling me where my coffee is (always in the same spot) and telling me where he left my pills that he set out for me (again, in the same spot, as always) and he is d

One of my friends asked this question, "Why would the Ontario PCs elect a Trump clone?"  Good question.  I think most of the country assumed that Doug Ford was a joke candidate in the PC Leadership race.  I guess everyone thought that except members of the Ontario PC party. The reality is now he is going to lead the PC Party in the June Ontario election.  I would think Kathleen Wynne would be celebrating.  All of us remember when his brother was Mayor of Toronto.   Many of us would like to forget that embarrassment. His antics made Canada a joke around the world.  And, there was Doug Ford, standing beside his brother, Rob, and defending him.  They look very similar, and they seemed to talk very similar.  Not really caring about the impact of their actions, but just doing things they wanted to do.   Doug Ford came across as arrogant and lacking empathy.  And, now is running to be Premier.  After a chaotic night when the vote was so close that lawyers and party official

At the end of 2017, when I reflected upon the year, I decided it was not the best year of my life, but it also was not the worst.  I did predict that I had positioned myself to have a great year in 2018.  So far, it has been.  My partner and I decided to better start to keep track of the good things that have happened to us so we do not forget anything.  We wrote down the good things so far and our list was 26 items long.  No, we did not win a lottery or have someone volunteer to keep our home clean for the year, so most of our list might objectively not seem that significant.  But, it is significant to us.  It is the old adage, if you look for what is wrong, you will find it.  If you look for what is right, you will find it.  We have just had a mindset to look for what is right and to celebrate it.  We have both been engaged in putting out positive energy to the universe.  This looking out for what is right has had unintended consequences.  Since we are both focused on the sam

I grew up in a small town and I can remember two winners of Lotto 649.  They both won $1 Million.  I understand the prizes are much bigger now. Yesterday, I read a news article that suggested that Roll Up The Rim is a scam.  It was based on the fact that no one actually knows anyone who has won more than a donut.  Tim's had responded that it is not a scam and listed the odds for winning.  It was about 1 in 8 million to win an ordinary car.  They also suggested your odds of winning something (free coffee, etc) are 1 in 6.  The article had hired people to randomly go into a Tim's location and buy 6 coffees.   Apparently, out of 36 cups bought, they only won one free coffee.  This article suggested that they use RRRoll up the RRRRim as a marketing ploy to gather more traffic.   Shocking?  Not at all.  But, I have already ranted about Tim's already.  To save time......... https://spitfiretakesontheworld.blogspot.ca/2018/01/why-we-think-tims-are-bullies.html ht

When I was in elementary school, and I became old enough to have friends over, I had a choice of about 10 other children who were living in a three block radius.  I usually picked the same friend to invite over.  She was different from the other kids.  She had a complicated life.  She didn't have a father and her mother had health problems.  She had older brothers and sisters who also seemed to have complicated lives and they sort of came in and out of the house from places unknown.  She struggled in school.  I would often pick her up on the way to school and often that meant that I would be entering the unlocked door and waking her up, as no one else seemed to be able to. I don't know how much of this was something I planned, but we would always play board games at my house.  And I would always win.  Monopoly was our favorite game.   The reason I always won was because I would make the rules as I was going along.  I knew how to play by the real rules, but, I always wanted

Happy International Women's day.  A day to reflect on what we have accomplished and what is yet to come.  Remember, without a woman, none of us would be here.  The biggest revelation for me over the last year was the recent federal budget.  The Prime Minister and the  Finance Minister told all of their colleagues that funds would only be approved if they went through a gender equity lens.  What was surprising was that was necessary in such a progressive country as Canada.  Yet, this was necessary because the gender gap still exists.  That baffles me and even though the budget will help, there likely will continue to exist a gender gap.  It has been just over a century since women were declared persons under the law.  That is remarkable and yet sad. Another sad reality is that the biggest obstacle facing women is usually other women.  We should all know that we have enough barriers to deal with each other. Today, many men will pay lip service to International Women's D

President Trump was asked to comment on the exit of his Communications Adviser Hope Hicks and how his Administration had a lot of vacancies and how would they be filled.  Fortunately, for Trump a lot of the vacancies were made up positions so they don't really need to be filled.  So, now that the Administration is without Hope, how will they cope.  Hope Hicks actually had the most seniority with Trump.   Yes, a 29 year old with very little experience was the most senior Trump advisor.  Her experience seemed to be that she was a teenage model and a friend of Ivanka Trump.  Also, if her job was Communications Adviser to Trump, she was not effective.  Trump responded to questions about numerous vacancies was to say that his was the greatest Presidency of all time and people were lining up to work at the White House. Yes, this was Trumps actual response and not Alec Baldwin playing Trump on SNL.  Moments after he made these comments, his top economic adviser, Gary Cohn, resig

I confess.  Sometimes I watch the Bachelor but not often.  I didn't watch this season, however, I tuned in last night as it promised to be shocking.  The more shocking, the better for the ratings. Yesterday, a former Trump Aide had a veritable melt-down on various media, before Erin Burnett asked him point blank if he was drunk.  He denied drinking and said all he had that day was his anti-depressants.  (I would be curious to know if he was on anti-depressants before or after he worked for Trump.)   Yet, that wasn't the stop story yesterday. The bachelor occupied twitter and a great deal of social media.  Why do we fall for this? First of all, it is really easy to fall in love when you having a private dinner at the top of the Eiffel Tower or you are in the Caribbean with lots of sunshine and not an ordinary worry.  It is quite a different story when you are back in actual reality fighting over whose turn it is to make supper or having the reality of bills and things like

When I speak of trouble in the White House, I'm not talking about goes on downstairs in the offices.  We all know that is a unmitigated disaster.  I'm talking about upstairs.   I think there is finally some faint hope that the President will be brought down.  I suggested a few months ago that the only hope was Melania, and I think she is showing subtle signs that she is getting ready to bring him down.  Teflon Trump has survived the Stormy Daniels scandal.  We've moved on to other things, but, there is signs that it affected Melania, particularly after the allegation that he was with Stormy shortly after she delivered her son.  For one thing, Melania has not been seen in public with Donald since their New Year's Eve Party.  This includes the State of the Union address.  For the State of the Union address, Melania and Donald arrived in separate motorcades.  This is in contrast with Michelle and Barrack who walked together to the Capital Building for 8 years.  The p

Today, I found.myself in a kerfuffle.  I was in a situation that I didn't like.  I started blaming others justifying how other people caused my situation and I was just an innocent victim.  Reluctantly, I then admitted that I really had no one to blame but myself.  I expected my partner to disagree with me and help me perpetuate the fantasy that I was not in any way responsible.  Instead, he said that he wasnt going to say anything unless asked, but it was indeed my fault.  Even though I will not remember this in a year, taking responsibility is a hard thing to do in this day and age. We all remember the woman who sued a fast food chain because her coffee was too hot.  She was successful and now every cup of take-out coffee we buy now has a warning on it that it is hot.  Essentially, we all paid for her mistake.  She could have  waited a minute or blown on it but instead she chose to sue when she was burned.  Another choice she could have made was not to buy the cup of coffee

I have three men in my life that I love completely.  I love them totally but differently; my son; my grandson, and my partner. Today, my sweetie is celebrating 54 years young and I love him more today than I did yesterday.  And, I loved him a whole lot yesterday.    My love for him keeps evolving.  There are so many reasons why I love him. Yesterday was a great example.  He got up at 4:00 am and left our home at 4:30 am so that he could participate in a program sponsored by Canadian Mental Health Association called Not Me, Today.  He was speaking to the night shifters about positive mental health.  This is so amazing.  Part of his recovery plan from depression is helping others and he does so in spades.  He eagerly shares his journey with anyone who will ask.  I am so proud of him.  He tells me that he was often bullied as a child, yet he is free and open with his mental illness.  After two this for two hours, he went to his regular job for 8 hours.  He was sure to wear a pi