Category: Uncategorized

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A V-12 Woman Who Loves the Environment

How can this be?

I love cars. Especially ones that have nice lines, are well designed, sexy and powerful. I have never driven a V-12, I only drool over photographs of beautifully constructed automobiles. I love design, things that are crafted well.

I only ever got to drive one powerful, sexy car ever in my life – a Corvette, once, way way back when Corvettes were quite the status symbol. In my younger days I hung around with mechanics and race car drivers. I loved the fast and the furious, even if I never drove above the speed limit or had my hands on the wheel of a 600 horse. I never wanted to experience all that power personally. I was instead, enthralled by how all these mechanical parts; pistons and valves, camshafts and carburetors so seamlessly fit together in a big iron block and were so neatly concealed inside a sleek outer shell that made everyone look twice as you passed by. Oh, and the sound of a well tuned engine – my cat’s purr magnified a thousand fold.

So I see James Bond’s Aston Martin and I swoon. I went to an auto show years ago and fell in love with a Jaguar. It could be any well designed automobile, SUV, truck or even airplane (how could you not feel moved by the sight of the Blackbird jet?) and I’d get goosebumps.

So when you ask, how could I possibly be concerned about the environment when I love these gas guzzlers, it is because to me you are comparing apples and oranges.

I love design. When I look at a V-12 Jag or Aston Martin, pollution is not even remotely on my mind. My eyes are dazzled by beauty. I don’t have to drive them, I can just gaze at them. Just as much as if I see a field of wildflowers.

I care deeply about the environment, even if I am not an activist throwing soup at priceless paintings, or joining Greta Thunberg at a protest. I follow the Ocean Clean Up and other environmentalists and conservationists actually doing something other than writing or talking about our problems. I do what I can about my carbon footprint and I cry a lot when I see what we have done, and are still doing to our beautiful, priceless Earth. As someone who couldn’t afford a foot powered scooter little on a V-12 I don’t think I make much of an impact. As an aside, it is actually manufacturers that are the huge polluters, not the average citizen.

I have hope that great design can someday not also be a great polluter. Mankind is not likely to give up great design, nor horsepower for the environment, and I don’t think we will have to. The ingenuity of mankind is greater than that.

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Justice

One thing I have learned about the justice system is that it has very little to do with justice.

That statement is probably obvious to a lot of you already.

However, the depth of the above observation is unfathomable.

I took a course on Environmental Law, what an eye opener. It had little to do with the fate of the environment until the EPA was developed. Even then a lot of greed and ignorance reigned.

I read a book recently about what it will take to convict trump and it has nothing to do with accountability, obeying laws or righting wrongs. It made me sick.

I contemplate the Lady Justice statue and see how correct her depiction of justice is.

It ain’t pretty.

Why is it everything man touches is so complicated?

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Navel Fuzz

To believe your life is no longer worth living is one of the saddest things.

Life will throw a lot of things at you, but if you chose to give up the fight, you have lost an important truth.

Life is a gift. It is precious.

I know this appears to be a trite statement. But I have found that these words are on a much higher level than I realized.

You don’t need to have a purpose, or meaning to your life, I certainly don’t.

You don’t even have to make a significant contribution, or have much realized impact on the world around you. I never have.

It is not about your title or position or what people say and think about you. I’ve found no matter how hard I strive, most of my efforts are ignored. I’ve spent most of my life feeling unworthy of any good thing.

Yet. I. LOVE. LIFE.

It seems like a contradiction to write that, but it is true.

I don’t love all of it, there are things that I hate, detest and make me very angry.

But I consider it ALL to be a process of my life. The good, the bad and the ugly are what makes me, me. This is what life is. You are not special because you suffer, we all suffer. Grant it some more than others. Life is NOT fair, ever. Count your blessings when it is fair to you.

Being alive is a blessing given to you.

This sounds yawn worthy, but there is a deeper message in that. Take your nose out of your navel and look around. See the big picture instead of your own navel fuzz.

Before you become bitter about life, consider what is worth staying around for.

You’ll find it has nothing to do with you at all.

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Mental Load

I read an article that addressed the mental load that women carry in addition to the physical demands they cope with as mothers and wives.

But it is true of all women, not just those with children and husbands.

We are the ones expected to do not just the physical chores of maintaining our household, cleaning, laundry, cooking, dishes, etc. but the mental work too.

We are the ones who maintain relationships. We are the ones who provide the emotional support for others. We are caretakers, we nurture, provide sympathy, advice, help. We find the right medical help. Buy and administer the medicine, make sure of the right dosage at the right time.

We organize social events, parties, get togethers, dinners. We make sure we have household supplies, food. We prepare checklists, schedules. We make sure things are done on time. Appointments are made and kept. Arrange transportation. Plan vacations and make reservations and all that goes with it. Keep track of bills and payments, bank accounts and credit cards. Check on emails. Write letters. Make invitations. Prepare paper work and fill out forms.

We are also expected to be concerned about the world. Up to date on current events. Maybe even volunteering to help clean up pollution, fight poverty, take care of the elderly, rescue abandoned pets.

And then we do all the physical work too!

We also have to do all this at our jobs!

No wonder we are exhausted.

(A nod to my Mother – if only I had of realized how much you did when I was growing up. I am truly sorry I did not. I am so grateful Mom. Forgive me.)

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Star Wars

I recently watched the first Star Wars movie and was sorely disappointed.

The story is great and timeless.

So why, Mr. Lucas did you muck with it?

Countless fans have already bemoaned the changed scenes, so I don’t need to rehash that. Especially the who shot first scene of Han Solo. But I also was unhappy with the stupid looking creatures added and the times the words did not match peoples mouths (the words had been changed).

As a writer, I know the temptation to go back and improve something created a long while ago, believing I know better now.

But I look at my old work as standing on their own and being the best I could do at that stage in my life. And what was true decades ago may no longer be true, may even be offensive today. How could I know that then?

But if someone loves my past work I am not ever going to change it. If they hate it and it is out of synch with the current times, I’ll delete it completely.

I have watched movies that have so many deleted scenes the story no longer makes sense. Why do they do that? Even the Muppet movie, of all things, deleted an entire scene from their version of the Christmas Carol. How crazy is that? And The World According to Garp removed the beginning scene, that although yes, some might find offensive, was the defining thing to the whole story. There were other parts removed from that movie that also made things a bit weird. Erik the Viking is another movie that got hacked up. But gee whiz. Modern movies are so full of graphic violence and sex and foul language that I find are a thousand times more offensive than any old movie or book.

I don’t care if the special effects of an old movie are dated, are not state of the art CGI. What matters is the story. If the story is terrific I can overlook the rest. You need to consider the time when things were produced. In the time period something was created there may be things that are politically and otherwise incorrect or offensive today. A Hitchcock movie made in the 1950’s is still very good. A book written decades ago is still thrilling. You can’t update them, they lose their magic. I think people are smart enough to realize that it is a product of the times, or if something is deliberately being offensive.

So please, give us the originals and let us decide for ourselves if we like it or not.

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Forms

My fingers are numb from filling out forms.

From the moment we are conceived (and actually for generations before we are even thought of) we are data on forms. We can trace our lineage practically back to the cave man thanks to forms.

Everything we do in life is recorded on forms. Your birth, death, marriage, financial status, health, shopping, you name it. You fill out forms over and over and over, in duplicate, triplicate, ad infinitum. Ad nauseum.

You fill out forms for yourself with cross references to others who also have their piles of forms making a huge web of interesting, but probably mostly useless connections.

You fill out forms to prove you filled out other forms.

And those forms are passed on to others who fill out more forms to prove they have read your form and it goes on and on and on. Entire departments are dedicated to this. It employs a lot of people, which is good I suppose. Eventually you have quite a pile of forms about yourself, with virtually the same information on them, that sits on a server somewhere. Forever.

Until you need that information for some reason.

And then it can’t be found anywhere.

There is no record of you ever having been there, done that, purchased this, returned it, had it repaired, filed it, been at this place, seen this person, had this conversation, underwent this procedure…

The information is lost, misplaced, stolen or just never received.

You need to fill out a new form.

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Lawless

I find that Covid accelerated a bad trend in society.

Things are so much more different now.

It’s not just the products we can no longer get.

It’s the respect we no longer enjoy.

There were always unwritten ‘laws’ to social behaviour, that enabled us to have a civilized society, and to get along with our fellow humans.

But all that has been tossed out. People are lawless. They have no respect for unwritten codes of behaviour, like being polite and apologetic. They snub their noses at written laws because if you have enough money you can buy yourself out of trouble. The attitude is, Yeah, what you gonna do about it sucker?

We have lots of self entitled Princesses (Karens) and Kings who think nothing of killing someone because they accidently backed into their laneway, or they didn’t give them a pack of ketchup with their fries.

There is no more compromise, of cutting someone some slack, just because it is a nice gesture. Of doing favours. Of being, NICE. Just because it is nice to be nice. To have even an ounce of compassion and forgiveness. To give someone the benefit of the doubt. Because, Lord knows, we ALL f**k up at times, and are far from perfect. Seems like no one remembers their own misdeeds.

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Homeless

I have said this before, many times.

We do not have a housing problem. We have a HOMELESS problem.

Big difference.

We don’t need big homes built on prime land that no one but the very rich can afford. And they only buy it as a rental property. Rich people have lots of rental properties that they make a fortune from. From people who can barely, if at all, afford that rent!

We have plenty of empty buildings that just need some repairs and upgrading that could be used for those who cannot afford rent.

We take better care of abandoned animals than we do humans.

We rescue dogs and cats and horses and post it all over the internet.

But human beings?

Out on the street people spiral downwards very, very fast. As fast as the dog tied to a tree, or a kitten left in a box. And human beings have a lot more issues than just food and shelter. We have mental health to consider.

If you lose everything, pride and hope soon follow suit, and then you have nothing left to lose. There are huge repercussions from that.

Stop these greedy politicians who make billions devouring our precious lands, giving them to developers to cement over. Keep our green space. Keep our agricultural lands.

How about using what we readily have available to help people.

Yeah. Help people.

What a concept.