Blog or white ... because it never is.

When I read a book for pleasure, it is usually a mystery novel.  Before I start the book, I read the last chapter first.  It is an actual thing that people do and I read to do this decades ago.  It doesn't spoil the ending for you, because it doesn't really make sense, but it helps you pay greater attention to foreshadowing in the book.  You pay more attention to the character development of the people name's you remember reading in the last chapter.  For me, sometimes books just get a little scary when I don't see how the hero/heroine are going to get out of this one.  When I read the last chapter and know that somehow they are, well, it just gets me through the scary parts.  Anyway, for me, reading the last chapter actually enhances my enjoyment of the book.  I am defending this for way longer than I should only because each time I start a book, my partner gets offended by this and we have a discussion.  It is the same discussion.  I...

Before I was an adult, I was a teenager.  Can you relate to this?  Anyway, as a teenager, I attended high school.  There was a girl in my high school who wore way too much eye makeup, particularly black eyeliner.  Seriously, I was very curious of how much she spent on eyeliner.  I think she was the inspiration for raccoons. I remember thinking that I wished I was her friend so I could tell her that it wasn't a flattering look.  As it happened, we weren't friends and ran in different crowds.  She ran in the crowd that would beat you up for criticizing one's choice of make-up.  A few years (cough decades), I was buying groceries and she happened to be my cashier.  Her use of eyeliner hadn't changed.  I still couldn't tell that she would look so much prettier without it because I still wasn't her friend, but, I was really sad that no one had told her such in all that time. I am very thankful that I have friends that tell me the truth....

Do you think those who won't wear a mask wear condoms?  If we saw someone riding a motorcycle with out a helmet, how would we react?  I don't know.  It has been so long since I've seen that happen.  I don't know for sure but I think there would be severe fines if anyone did that.  Wearing a helmet is primarily about safety but it is also economic and preventing high costs of healthcare and social services caring for someone who had an accident without a helmet.  At the Sturgis rally, there wasn't the great attendance that they thought would occur, but it still was well attended.  The coverage I saw had everyone wearing helmets while on the bikes.  Off the bikes, I didn't see any masks.  I am wondering why the rally was only covered for a couple of days and then the media moved on.  .At the beginning of the State of Emergency, I never missed a press conference giving the Covid19 update of new cases and new directives.  By Eas...

I don't know what Energy106 is thinking.  They are putting a heck of a lot of resources into a guy that is not worth it. He claims that he has grown personally and to give him a chance.  Yet, even last year he was still posting his hate speech on social media.  Obviously, every other radio station in North America has vetted him and took a pass on his "talent".  I think Energy106 is going to find he is not worth the trouble.  When he was fired from his previous station, Rogers Communications made it known that Wheeler had a very thick personnel file implying there had been numerous workplace issues over a long period of time. He has given an interview claiming he has changed and he is even pledged to give his first pay cheque to the Rainbow Resource Centre.  At first when I read this, I hoped that the Rainbow Resource would turn down his "blood money".  A couple days later, I think a little differently..  I think the Board of the Rainbow...

That is me proudly donating blood for the 75th time.  On that day, nothing would have subdued my mood.  Negative feelings took a holiday in my mind for a whole day.  Not so much, three months earlier.  I went to attempt to donate and was deferred because of low hemoglobin.  Every time that happens, I feel shame, guilt, devalued, and a whole lot of other things.  And, I also get mad.  I was mad and I was looking for someone to blame.  I was mad at the lady who took my hemoglobin because she didn't have the best costumer service skills.  I was mad at Blood Services for having too high of a threshold.  I was mad at my husband because I wasn't feeling it that day and he made me go anyway.  In reality, I wasn't really mad at any of that but I just needed someone/something to let loose some of my anger because it was festering.  What was I angry at?  I was angry at the stay-at-home order.  I was angry non-essential bu...

When I was less than a week old, my parents took me on a road trip to Saskatchewan to meet my maternal grandparents.  My dad drove and my sat in the back seat. I was in the front passenger seat in a laundry basket.  If that had happened today, well, it wouldn't happen today.  No one would put an infant in a laundry basket and drive a vehicle.  Never mind the law, people would just never do it.  When I was born, my parents owned a gas station.  At that time, people had bigger families and station wagons were very popular. One hot summer day, my dad was pumping gas for a station wagon and he felt something warm on his legs.  It turned out there was a hole drilled in the back of the station wagon for the boys to relieve themselves of urine.  When my dad told that story, it was very hilarious.  Speaking of my dad, I idolized him. But, he wasn't perfect.  When I was a child, seat belts were not mandatory. Lots of similarities to the m...

People don't understand how multi-millionaire athletes are making political statements that have nothing to do with their sports.  They are supposed to be playing their games and not getting involved with things that have nothing to do with them.  Well, first of all, sports has always been about more than the games.  Any fan of any sport knows that the reason they love the game is because of the ability of sports to transform lives and through sports we learn incredible lessons about life and humanity.  Secondly, they may athletes but they are also citizens of the world.  I like to think it is our civic duty when we see something wrong to say something.  We have been encouraging all citizens of the world to use their megaphone for promoting change.  Many of our athletes have responded.  We have seen the WNBA, the NBA leading the way using their voices to talk about racial strife.  We have also seen examples of such now in the MLB and ...

I don't have a rich social life right now, but when I did, I liked to have a few cocktails. There was always at least one person who would choose not to partake in having an alcoholic drink.  I have learned that each person who was abstaining from alcohol had a reason for doing so, and that reason was none of my bloody business.  I am just saying that people should have the right to live their lives as they please as long as they don't violate any laws or public health directives.  Beyond that, it is none of our business.  So, I don't understand Dave Wheeler.  I will be honest.  A few years ago, my only reference for him was Moose and Jets games until he was fired for politically incorrect comments he made on his morning radio show.  I wish we could stop talking about politically correct and politically incorrect.  To me, that brings us back to the 90s.  We should only be talking about correct and incorrect comments.  As a society,...

Erin O"Toole has the charisma of my neighbour's cat. He is also a 47 year old trapped in the body and mind of a 77 year old.  He has minimal command of the French language.  Not that it would have mattered.  The Conservatives will be in third party status after the next election.  In order for them to have any success, they must make significant gains in all areas of Canada.  Atlantic Canada will not move as they already think the federal government is Torontocentric and ignores them.  They may have been persuaded to vote for Peter McKay.  Quebec won't vote for any leader who is not bilingual.  In Ontario, the Premier, Doug Ford, has already announced he won't campaign for O"Toole.  Ontario voters have responded well to Ford's response to the pandemic so it will be hard for them to vote for a Conservative that is not supported by Ford.  The Prairies is where the Conservatives could make gains as Western Allienation is a ver...

As we are in phase 4 of re-opening, I know how important it is to support local businesses to help restart our economy.  However, I also know a lot of hard working Manitobans that work for corporations and they also depend on their jobs, so exclusively shopping local may affect their jobs.  Unfortunately, the pandemic didn't always bring out the best in people.  I saw a few examples of local business owners being interviewed on national media, or even on social media.  Sometimes, they expressed views that have made it almost impossible for me to support. But, I still try to support local as much as I can.  I have a new favorite coffee shop.  San Vito Coffee Shop.  I have several local coffee shops and they are all excellent.  San Vito has the best breakfast wrap ever that is currently my guilty pleasure.  My partner and I walk there on one of the weekend days and feel the treat is justified.  There is one chain that we like for break...

There is my guy donating blood.  This was several years ago and now he has 33 donations.  But, this isn't about him.  This is all about me !!! I am celebrating my 75th blood donation today.  I have to tell you I am pretty proud of myself.  I have this amazing vein so every donation that I have ever given, the donor associate has commented on my vein.  At times in my life, he felt like the only compliment that I was going to get.  The experience of donating blood seems to be a little bit different every time.  A couple of years ago, they raised the hemoglobin threshold and lengthened the time between donations for women.  I actually thought I would never reach 75 and I certainly thought my goal of 100 was off the table.  Of course, I understand the many reasons for changes in the donating process.  Our blood needs to be safe and I don't mind being inconvenienced if I am saving lives.  My primary reason for donating blood...

If 2020 has given us anything, it has been more time to think.  More time for us to individually reflect and more time for society to think about how we want to be remembered.  Apparently, social justice is something that is important to many of us in society.  We are appalled at the difference in our society based on race.  Individually, I have had to come to terms with my own white privilege at a deep level.  My husband and I have had very deep philosophical and existential conversations and we have been very honest with each other about how white privilege.  Unconscious bias has now become something to which we are very attuned.  Personally, I thank the courageous women of the WNBA for advancing the conversation forward.  But, now that we are looking for examples of unconscious bias, we are also seeing many examples of "entitlement".  People who think they are entitled to special treatment because they fall into a specific demographic....

First of all, I don't believe that Justin Trudeau should be Prime Minister right now.  He has proven that he is not "feminist in chief".  Letting go of two of the most talented Ministers in public office was unforgivable.  It doesn't speak to his policies but it speaks volumes about his character.  I don't think I can forgive him for his "blackface" incidents.  I might have been more forgiving of his apology if he hadn't made it in front of Winnipeg Liberal candidates.  I remember watching and seeing Doug Eyolfson and Robert-Falcon Oulette behind him.  We never heard that the Liberal candidates wanted to be there, so I am assuming they were forced to be there.  That was one thing that Trudeau should have handled alone.  The only way he could be re-elected was because he was running against Scheer.  He was given a minority government.  Regardless, when the pandemic hit, I put all this aside as I was going to support our leaders n...

There is no question that there will be changes to our tax system upcoming.  We have to pay for what we have been getting in terms of pandemic relief.  I don't like the idea of a wealth tax, mostly because it presumes that wealth equals monetary accumulation.  Personally, I have a great partner, two great children, one great son-in-law, and the greatest grandson ever.  I consider myself the wealthiest woman I know.  I propose a "give back" tax.  I think it should be mandatory for everyone to contribute 1% of their gross income to charity.  For a person making $20,000/year, that would be $200.  For a person making $250,000, that would be $2500.  Not a huge amount and charities need a boost.  No tax break for this gift.  Tax incentives would apply after this threshold. Those who don't give, would have that amount taken off directly by CRA.  Based on gross domestic product figures, this would provide about $16.9B to charity an...

I happened to meet a painter yesterday.  Kind of guy who like immediately.  Kind of guy you start sharing stories with as if you have known him forever.  In the first minute of our conversation, he says that he quit smoking 34 years ago.  Quit one time and never went back.  It was a good thing, too, because he had to have heart surgery two years ago and the surgeon told him that if he had been smoking all that time, he never would have survived the surgery.  I was about to ask him more questions about this when he told me that people say that after any heart surgery the heart grows bigger figuratively.  He said he was the proof in the pudding.  He said, he never really thought of himself as a jerk, but he definitely is not one now.  He cries about once a week and an equal amount of tears of joy and tears of sorrow.  Prior, he maybe cried a handful of times in his life.  If he sees someone struggling, he feels compelled to he...

I was interested in reading the Board of the Bear Clan's very long statement posted in response to some interviews of their former ED James Favel.  He clearly has hit a nerve in his interviews.  The Board seems to be going out of their way to state their case.  It makes me wonder if they actually see the irony in the situation.  The Bear Clan was formed to help the neighbourhoods that the city had turned their back on and to help the marginalized that society had turned their back on.  It was supposed to help people who were left on their to regain their power.  It was to serve as a model that one person can make a difference in making their corner of the world better.  And now, things are going back full circle.  One guy, James Favel, with only one tool, his voice, up against a Board of Directors with a great deal of resources.  I was on a Board of Directors once that fired an Executive Director.  Board members were immediately ...

My father died at the end of 1992.  He essentially spent the last three months at St. Boniface Hospital.  Our family was essentially there all the time so we interacted with a lot of staff in a lot of departments in all shifts.  We never had one concern.  In fact, even thinking about the excellent compassionate care that he received brings tears to my eyes. They did more than take care of my dad, they took care of all of us.  This was decades before the words "person-centred care" were part of the vocabulary of health care workers.  A few years ago, my mother was briefly at St. Boniface Hospital after a cardiac event.  I was exceptionally grateful for the excellence and compassion that we encountered.  I have many friends who work at the hospital and I know they are continuing to provide a high standard of care.  They also report a strong ethical treatment of them as employees.  It pains me that my idyllic vision of St. Boniface ...

Last year, just before the Grey Cup, Sports Manitoba had a Hot Stove event during lunch hour.  Attendees had an opportunity to hear from Chris Walby, James Murphy, and Joe Poplawski.  I pitied the people who work with my husband.  He attended and I am sure he talked about nothing else for the rest of the afternoon. The same man who can't remember three items that I ask him to pick up from the store was able to spend all evening telling me verbatim everything they said. The event was only one hour long but I heard about it for over three hours.  You would have thought these local celebrities would have been somewhat arrogant, but that wasn't the case.  They focused on the behind the scenes stories and ones that were particularly self-deprecating.  James Murphy never heard of Winnipeg until he was here, but made a life here beyond football.  Chris Walby tells the funniest of stories about playing in the Grey Cup in Vancouver where they thought they wer...

Life in 2020 is certainly different than we thought it would.  I never realized how social I was until I couldn't socialize in the same way.  It is weird staying home much much more and not doing much.  But, at the same time that we are not doing as much, we seem to be more tired.  Instead of tracking our volunteer hours and activities on the family calendar, I am tracking our toilet paper usage and percentages of increasing cases and deaths. Before the pandemic, my partner and I had our Saturday morning routine.  We would be out the door at 6 am and go for a walk to be at our grocery store when it opened at 7 am. We would buy our groceries, walk home, get the car and pick up our groceries and drive them home.  Then, we would take on our day!  Now, the grocery store doesn't open that early and we don't quite qualify to shop when it does open.  One Saturday, I slept in till 8 am.  Like, seriously, what can I possibly accomplish when I slee...

It took me a while to become a fan of the Winnipeg Jets 2.0.  Of course, that all ended in 2018 during the playoff round.  I began to believe.  Full disclosure, they will never be my favorite team.  I will always be cheering for any team that is coached by Barry Trotz. You can take the girl out of Dauphin, but you can never take the Dauphin out of the girl.  I can tell you that when I attended Jets games at home, it appeared to me that Buff had the best work ethic on the ice, during the pre-game skate.  I might have been deceived but I really liked Byfuglien and the team seems a little lost without him.  My husband is the biggest sports fan ever.  He is usually occupied watching everything soccer and basketball.  He is also a US College Football fan. But, he also watches curling, hockey, golf, rugby, football, horse-racing, tennis, darts, and bowling.  Basically, if it is sports, he is watching.  About a month into the COVID...

My 22 year old daughter doesn't believe in feminism.  We have had many discussions about this.  I have tried to explain to her that feminism is something that everyone (males and females) should all believe in; it simply means that there is no differentiation in treatment on the basis of gender.  I suggest to her that what she believes is that there is no discrimination on the basis of gender.  No, she asserts, she doesn't believe in feminism, and she also believes that males are being subject to gender bias.  Ok, my babydoll, you and I are going to have to disagree on this one.  In reality, I secretly am cheering for her theory. I would love to see a world where there is no gender bias.  One of the reasons that I watch CNN is because of the many strong women that they have anchoring their news desk as well as the many strong women that are senior reporters.  Another reason why I watch CNN is because my mom loved Don Lemon.  I feel so...

Does anyone know where or how to recycle these?  My friend has quite the stash and it clearly says reuse, return, and recycle on it, but she doesn't know where you return them or if you just put them in the recycling bin.  If anyone knows, let me know and I will pass it on to my friend.  My friend told me that it reminds me of one of the best weekends of her life.  She and her best friend were newly separated and their children were with their fathers. They went on a road trip to Wisconsin to visit the friend's sister.  They had so much and so many laughs.  The sister was so happy to have them.  They had just moved to a small town in Wisconsin where her husband was coaching football at a small college.  The HOA had allowed them to purchase a small town house in a gated retirement community.  The sister was miserable as she hadn't met any friends.  She also was an alcoholic and my friend and her best friend enabled her consumption all...

So, a guy gets out of a BMW........... No, not a joke. Yesterday, I happened to be outside the front entrance of a hospital.  It is a busy place, lots of people getting picked up, getting dropped off.  It is a "no-stopping" zone.  People doing their best to get out, get in quickly and move on because there seems to a lot of people waiting their turn.  In the midst of this, a BMW parks and immediately it is causing congestion.  A white male steps out of the parked car.  "Excuse me, sir, you are parked in a no-parking zone"  "I'm not going to be long."  I am not going to be long.  Oh, well, of course, I didn't see the fine print.  The rules don't apply if you are not going to be long.  It turns out, he was mostly correct.  He wasn't that long.  He was stopped by the screener and was told that he was going to be long and was instructed to move his car to the parking lot and then come in. I wonder why he chos...

I am appealing to every adult in the world, but, in particular those who support Donald J. Trump.  We have a woman of colour as a running mate for the Office of the Presidency of the United States.  This is a moment of real consequence for America.  We must make this election about issues.  It has to be about the President's record; both parties vision of the future;.  It has to be about ideas.  It has to be about qualities and attributes that your candidate has.  It can not be about hairstyles or skirt lengths or flabby arms.  We have to make sure that we have evolved beyond this.  And, that is on us........ We have to tell our leaders that "woman-shaming" is unacceptable in 2020.  We have enough that divides us, we can't resort to petty politics.  I admit I have done it.  Just yesterday, I thought, "ok, now Karen Pence can quit her diet, she won't be going to an Inaugural Ball."  Yeah, it is easy to do....

Andrew and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last month.  It has been quite a ride.  We met four years before we began our relationship.  He will tell people that he didn't like me.  He can say that, but, a girl knows when someone has a crush on her.  He had a crush on me.  But, he was a very angry guy.  I remember one time, we were at a gathering, and he started expressing some of this anger to me.  It wasn't me that he was angry at, but, I let him vent.  Another woman joined this one-way conversation.  She was flirting with him.  I kept trying to redirect him to this other woman, but, he just kept being angry.  I wondered what other opportunities he has missed.  Somewhere in those four years before our first date, he fell asleep while he was judging a speech contest in which I was competing.  He doesn't like that I bring this up.  He was sitting in the back row completely asleep and no one saw but me....