Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Said the Chink to the Faggot!

Did I get your attention?? That is exactly the point.

Today Is End the R Word Day! Spread the Word to End the Word!










These are some Awesome Campaign Posters that the Special Olympics created to bring attention to the the inappropriate use of the word Retard.

I have had a few conversations with people about the use of the R Word. For the most part, people are usually understanding and will apologise when you ask them not to use the R word. But there have been a few instances where I have asked people to not use the word Retard and I have been told that there was no intent to offend. One person even told me that they weren't using the word in a derogatory way, which I thought was completely untrue as they were calling someone that they had just had a frustrating conversation with at work a Retard. How can you call someone a retard and not mean it in a derogatory way.
Another friend of mine said he didn't understand WHY it was offensive. I explained that the word had been used to classify and disparage an entire group of people with mental handicaps. I was then asked why the words stupid or dumb weren't derogatory. I tried to explain that you don't use the N word to describe a certain colour. There are no Nigger Black crayons. Still, the concept of the word Retard as an offensive word was still not understood. "I would never call a person with a mental handicap a retard." Of course not, but you use the word retard to describe something that you think is stupid or totally asinine? That's like saying you would never call a black man a nigger but you would use that word to describe the colour of something??? I just didn't understand their logic and they didn't understand mine. By the end of the conversation, we didn't see eye to eye on the subject, but they agreed to try not to use the R word around me. OK! I'll try not to call you a C word. :D JK JK. This was one of my best friends, so we agreed to disagree.

I just don't understand the problem. The word is offensive and it is used to describe something that is totally stupid. No one uses the word Retard or Retarded properly. So unless you are meaning that something is halted, stalled or slowed, you are using the word in a derogatory way, especially if you are CALLING someone who just pissed you off on the other end of your phone a retard. I don't understand how calling someone who is not handicapped a retard is NOT offensive but calling someone who has a mental handicap a Retard is Totally unacceptable. That in and of itself is wrong. "Don't call the Down Syndrome kid a Retard. That's not right. But that kid over there who just tripped on his own shoe lace is a total retard."

JUST GET RID OF THE WORD... There is no acceptable use of the word when insulting a person. There are engine retarder brakes or chemical retardants.

retard 
- verb (used with object)
1.
to make slow; delay the development or progress of (an action, process, etc.); hinder or impede.

Synonyms: arrest, back off, baffle, balk, bog, bog down, brake, bring to screeching halt, check, choke, choke off, clog, close off, crimp, dawdle, decelerate, decrease, defer, delay, detain, down, encumber, falter, fetter, flag, hamper, handicap, hang up, hesitate, hold back, hold up, impede, lessen, let up, loaf, loiter, mire, poke, postpone, reduce, retardate, set back, shut down, shut off, slacken, slow down, slow up, stall, take down


I completely understand why people who have mental disabilities are clinically described as Retarded, as their brain development can be arrested, slowed, decelerated, delayed, but that is another correct use of the Word. To call someone a RETARD because they did something stupid is NOT acceptable. To not know the difference and to be unwilling to see the difference shows ignorance and a halted, stunted, shut off, reduced intelligence. :D

World's Shortest Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl "Will you marry me?"


The girl said: "NO!"

And the girl lived happily ever-after and went shopping, dancing, camping, drank martinis, always had a clean house, never had to cook, did whatever the hell she wanted, never argued, didn't get fat, traveled more, had many lovers, didn't save money, and had all the hot water to herself.

She went to the theater, never watched sports, never wore friggin' lacy lingerie that went up her ass, had high self esteem, never cried or yelled, felt and looked fabulous in sweat pants and was pleasant all the time.

The End

50 Great Years

The family. We were a strange little band of characters trudging through life sharing diseases and toothpaste, coveting one another's desserts, hiding shampoo, borrowing money, locking each other out of our rooms, inflicting pain and kissing to heal it in the same instant, loving, laughing, defending, and trying to figure out the common thread that bound us all together. ~Erma Bombeck




Here are two pictures of my Great Aunty G and Great Uncle D on their 50Th Wedding Anniversary.

I was so moved by these pictures. To see the smiles, love, happiness and perfect peace they have between each other, encourages me. Aunty G is an absolutely Gorgeous woman and Boy does Uncle D look like my Grandfather! I am so happy and blessed to have a wonderful, loving family that I do. Most of the family I have is from my mothers side of the family. My grandparents on my fathers side passed away many years ago as did my father, who died when I was 11. His brothers (my uncles) haven't been in my life much since he has been gone. I wish everyone could have the warmth of a loving family. I am truly grateful for mine.


Our most basic instinct is not for survival but for family. Most of us would give our own life for the survival of a family member, yet we lead our daily life too often as if we take our family for granted. ~Paul Pearshall


Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present, and future. ~Gail Lumet Buckley

Monday, March 30, 2009

Child Abandoned Outside Casino While Father Gambled

I HATE PEOPLE! I'm Sorry if my language offends you in this post.



I heard about this story and my stomach completely dropped. I thought I was going to throw up. Then when I went and read the actual story I cried, and cried, and cried! I can not believe that someone could do this. All I could think about was poor baby Beany, Freezing cold, Starving, Terrified and Alone in a car for 6 hours. OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My blood just boils! I either want to cry and call the police and tell them I will foster this baby boy, or I want to find this man and beat the living shit out of him. I can't believe that people do this to children, and apparently this is common.

"Between November 2002 and September 2004, there were 23 cases of children abandoned at casinos, the documents showed." WTF!

Casinos should be outlawed, or at least their parking lots should be patrolled hourly for this exact situation. How much more work would it be for the Casino security to take a tour of the parking lot once an hour and look in cars for children? GAWD! I'm tempted to call the Casino and ask them why they don't do this already?!! What a disgusting man! And this is just ONE incident of Child neglect that made the News. I can't even imagine what terrible and tragic things children go through every day. I wish that David and I had the wherewithal to adopt and foster children, to give them a loving, warm, caring home, with full bellies and safe beds to sleep in every night. Why must such atrocities still continue? I just don't understand. I couldn't even leave my baby in a car while I ran into the store for milk. How this man could have spent 6 hours in that Casino, not absolutely sick to his stomach in fear for his son, I will never understand. And this poor boy cried and cried in that cold car, throwing up on himself because he was so worked up, so scared, so cold!

All I can say is FUCK YOU! How Dare you?! You don't deserve to have children! They are a gift, a blessing. There are people praying for children in their lives, and you filthy scum, you squander your blessings, prefering to spend your time in a casino, neglecting your child, RISKING AND ENDANGERING HIS LIFE! STARVING HIM, LEAVING HIM TO FREEZE!!! ALONE AND TERRIFIED!! FUCK YOU!! How dare you? You don't deserve your own human rights. I'm glad you were caught you loser fuck. Now, you will lose your child. Now, he will finally have a chance to have a good life. One can hope at least.


I hate some people. Someone say something to remind me that the world isn't all that bad. That there are still people out there that do amazing things.

Opening My Ears!

It's been far too long since I have bothered to find new music, but in keeping with my Canadian Obsession, I was watching the Juno's last night and fell in love with two live performances. At one point, I'm watching this singer, and I'm saying to Dave, "That's Gordon Downey!" and D is saying, "Good old Gord." (like he has a clue) and I keep saying over and over, "Gordon Downey? Is he in a new band? That's not The Hip!" So I googled the Juno's and found out that in fact it WAS Gordon Downey from The Hip. He was singing with City and Color. The name of the song is Sleeping Sickness. I remember the song Save your Scissors, by City and Color a few years ago, and I fell in love with Alexisonfire when they first came out. I had no idea that City and Color is actually Dallas Green from Alexisonfire. So I think I am going to start listening to City and Color and see if how I feel about them (him?). I'm just floored that Dallas is the same guy from Alexisonfire. The man is a wicked singer and Alexisonfire is a loud, raucous punk bank from St. Catherine's, Ontario. Total polar opposite to the kind of music that City and Color is. In the last hour I have been listening to City and Color and am totally loving it.

Another song that I really like is I will follow you into the dark by Death Cab For Cutie. I kept looking for this song for weeks but I had forgotten the name of the song and the band. Then today, I was shopping with The Bean and Sam and it was playing on the radio in a store at Eau Clair Market!!! Hallelujah! Finally, it all came back to me!

A few months ago I got myself a few Feist albums. She is lots of fun. Moody and dramatic, passionate and girly. I'm totally in love with her lately too!

So I'm happy to have new things in my life. Music and knitting. And you know what the best part of knitting is... You can listen to music while you do it. :D

New Music, Podcasts and Knitting. I really wish I didn't have to work!

Oh I almost forgot to mention the second performance that I enjoyed.

Serena Ryder. The song was called Little Bit of Red. <-- -Live Version and it Still Kicks Ass! She has a wicked, gnarly, growly sound to her voice and such Oomph when she sings. Angry, Powerful, chaotic, Fun. Man I love Women! The fun part of this post is that I swear the only person who reads my blog is Sami and Hopefully I will influence her a bit in the music department. :P I can't imagine my mother or G & G following these links to listen to music. DO IT GRAMMA DO IT!










I just wanted to share a few pictures of our house now that is has been spring cleaned! It looks absolutely Awesome! I love it! Everything is all shiny~









Pinky Petal Scarf
















I finished this scarf last week for My Girl Friends Daughter who just turned one. Her name is Lorelai. I have posted pics of her here with the Bean. The Princess and the Alligator.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

CBC and G & G

This Post and the next one are for G and G! Now Also know as The GREAT G & G!

So first of all I will start with a Hearty Hello to G & G !

I write this for G & G because I once lived with them. Years ago. When I was about 9 or 10. And again when I was about 16, and once again when I was about 22 or 23. Don't quote me on that. When I was 9 or 10, I lived with G & G while my mother was living in Vancouver and going to school at BCIT and UBC to get her degree in nursing. When I was 16, I was a terrible child and an attempt was made to live with my Grandparents in the hopes that a change of scenery would do a girl some good. Epic Fail! Let's not talk about that. Then when I was in my early 20's, I personally wanted to go back to school and needed some change in my life. My high school friends weren't the best influences and I thought that getting out of the big city and back to school might do a girl some good. Epic Fail.

In all those years of living with G & G, there were many constants. One of which was the little radio on the Bureau in the front hall, just outside the kitchen. On it was CBC radio.
Every morning that little radio would play the CBC morning news. Everyday we would listen to various CBC broadcast programs. It's only now that I am older that I have come to realize how comforting the sound of the CBC News song is to me. It's like the Hockey Night in Canada Song. I still get the same warm feelings, hearing the sounds of CBC radio and the commentators and announcers that I hear there. And now, I find my self downloading CBC Podcasts. Podcasts of the Vinyl Cafe with Stewart McLean. Podcasts of The Best of DNTO.
CBC RADIO PODCASTS!!!

The other constant in my G & G's house. CBC and CTV television. Two Channels. Road to Avonlee and any other Canadiana. I was addicted to Road to Avonlee. And now, I can't get enough of Canadian Broadcasting, Canadian Television shows, Corner Gas, This hour has 22 Minutes, etc. And, to top it all off, I'm starting to mute the TV during commercials!

So if this isn't a sign of the influence that my Grandparents have had on me, I don't know what is!

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Insult to Injury!

So, I have been sick for roughly 15 days now. Slightly reminiscent of my mothers last post! I had a cold that started one week before the William Watson Weekend. I had hoped to be rid of it by the Friday that we left but it was still lingering in my system. Now, I'm still struggling with chest pain, a constant tickle in my throat and a scratchy pain in my esophagus from constantly coughing. It's starting to irritate me to be quite honest! By the end of most days I have a headache from straining and coughing and no amount of halls or Ricolas seem to help. The frigging tickle wont go away!

And if that's not enough, my poor little Baby Bean, who I am so Absolutely and Deeply In Love With, has an ear infection and the same fricken cough/cold that I have. He woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday when we were at William Watson and was just crying and screaming inconsolably. I suspect know that it was ear pain that has caused him the distress. His eyes were all gooey then too. But Monday morning was the worst! He woke up in his crib and I went to go get him and broke into tears. His eyes were so gooey and grungy that it took me nearly 5 minutes to clean them so that he could even open them. He couldn't see me when I came into his room. He could hear me though and I was so scared for my little boy!

So Monday my plate was full. I had a cleaning lady coming in at 8 to start a full house spring cleaning, a sick and miserable baby boy, and my own terrible cold to deal with, and it's not exactly a cake walk when your cleaning lady comes to do a full spring clean. You do just as much work as she does, actually, probably more! And cleaning and 1 year olds don't mix all that well. He was trying to help with the blinds tho. :D Watching him standing at the window, grabbing at the blinds and looking up at Minnie with a huge grin on his face.

Tuesday Minnie (our house keeper) came over for a second day of house cleaning, and Wednesday we finally finished everything up by near 1 pm. My kitchen, living room and dining room were completely spit shined, polished, degreased, and sterilized! LOVE IT! Now the only part of the house that needs to be tackled is the basement. Wish me luck.

Ohh.. and What fun! In all the chaos of spring cleaning, the washing machine Sh*T the bed. The timer knobby thing stopped working. It's kinda funny because I haven't even had a chance to wash the laundry from the William Watson Weekend yet. The Washer crapped out on Monday. I haven't gotten a chance to wash anything since before we left. So the basement isn't pretty. LOL Mountain of laundry that is just getting bigger. D is getting the part for the timer knob thingy today (at 115$) and will be fixing the machine today, hopefully. He's a good man! Then we have to catch up on all the wash. I need to clean the cat litter, the laundry room, the den, and the spare room! !! !! !! ! OH EM GEE!! Again, wish me luck!

We got Bean off to the Doctors on Monday where they gave us some eye drops and antibiotics for his ear infection. They seem to be working as his eyes are no longer all sticky. He still has a bit of a cough which makes me very nervous but as always my boy is in great spirits. He's always smiling and it just brightens my day! Last night he stayed up till 10 pm which is a super late night for my lil guy. He was laughing and giggling! Dad was tossing him around on the bed and roughhousing like boys should! It's just hysterical to hear him laugh. I'm happy he is feeling much better.

AHHHH!!! Washing machine update!!!!

I just called D to see how the washing machine was coming. (As an aside, is it just my man or is it every man? Does your Man get cranky and grouchy if he tries to fix something and is unsuccessful? Seems that he can be a very unhappy man when something doesn't work for him.) Anyway, apparently it was not the 115$ timer knob that was the problem and APPARENTLY you can not return parts purchases. Soooo, washing machine is still not working, hubbyman is cranky, and laundry isn't any closer to being done. Wish Dave luck this time! I don't want to go to the laundry mat. It has been nearly 4 years since I have been to the laundry mat and I don't wanna do it!! YOU CAN'T MAKE ME!!!

I'm lucky to have a handy man. He is great with tools and is usually very logical and smart about things. I'm never worried that he will make things worse and I can trust him to make the right decisions about things as far as appliances and such. I just stay out of his way. Somethings, however, take a little coaxing. "Honey, can you hang this up for me when you get a chance?" - Me in Feb He finally got the hanging up on Friday :D:D:D YAY!!!


OK! More complaining. I have a new desk / cubical at work and I think it is right below a vent and I'm cold all the time now and I don't like it one bit! On the bright side, I have a huge window and a beautiful Vine plant hanging above my desk.

Monday, March 23, 2009

William Watson Weekend


We had an absolutely AWESOME time this weekend at the William Watson Lodge in Kananaskis. This first picture is of Nakiska Ski Resort as we are just getting into Kananaskis.


Here we are getting closer to Nakiska.


Some beautiful mountains and a deer friend that was in the middle of the road licking salt.
He kindly moved over to let us pass.

YAY!!! We are almost there!


Finally in the cabin and the boys already want a nap.
This was Sam and Beans room.


We borrowed a play pen from a friend so that the Hunter Bean wouldn't roll onto the floor.
There was a cute little fire place.


Quaint little Kitchen with all the Necessities.

Dining room.


And the WICKED COMFY Sofa bed that Dave wanted to light on fire by Sunday am!


My Boy!


ROAR!! POT HEAD!!


Ok! This is the Red Neck farmers version of Monopoly!
STUBBLE JUMPER!
Don't ask me!


Mr. Sam and D played this on Friday night and had a blast!

He he he!
This was my comfy corner for the weekend!
It was perfect for knitting.
Ohh I made Dave a Necklace at the Wine and Cheese party earlier in the evening!
Looks good with his goatee don't you think! ?

This is King Nicolas! He Adores Hunter Bean!

Nicolas' Sister and Bean Playing!


BIG HUGS!!!
All the families got together on Saturday morning for breakfast and the little kids all gathered around playing with toys and play dough and all sorts of fun stuff! Hunter was right in the middle of things!




I absolutely love this picture!
I think it's my new favorite!
Dad looks so handsome and Beans eyes are just peeking out!


Sledding afternoon! All the kids got together for some snow ball fighting and sledding!
It was amazing weather! So sunny and warm and the snow was perfect for snow balls! Hunter Boy on our Tube!

We went for a walk down to the lake and opted to tow the Bean instead of carry him.


Here is some of the scenery on our walk to the lake.


The path we took!
The Sleeping Bean on our walk.

And then! The LAKE!!! These are the stunning shots I took when we got to the lake!
My mouth just hung open! I was in pure AWE!




And the Bean Missed it all!


Back at the cabin before our Pot luck dinner!




Awwww Dey loves each ovver!

Then Saturday night the Hunter Bean woke up after 1 hour of sleep.
He was crying and screaming and we couldn't calm him down for nearly an hour.
We had to give him some motrin and a bath and let him relax till he would calm enough to fall back to sleep. He fell asleep on daddy's chest with his thumb in his mouth.

Then daddy fell asleep!

It snowed that night!Check SpellingNearly 8 inches in the mountains!
But this was the view through our windshield on our drive home.
The roads were absolutely terrible!
When we got home Dave and I needed to shovel our sidewalk before we could even think about unloading the kids and the truck!