Category: Uncategorized

Laundry.

Ugh.

Ranks right up there with dishes, housework and throwing out the garbage. A hateful task.

But boy, can it pile up fast if you’re not paying attention. Suddenly you’re groping around for a pair of underware in your drawer and realizing, there ain’t none.

However, like all good laundry procrastinators, my excuse is, the pile has to age properly first.

I know.

Just shut up and do it!

I think what is much worse however, are the people who do their laundry and then let it sit in the laundry room overnight or, days, and never collect it. So inevitably someone else needs a washer or dryer and heaps the stuff on the counters. UGH.

I never go to our laundry room on Mondays, because after a weekend of such abuses, it is not a pretty place.

One of my motto’s for years has been Just shut up and do it!

I apply it to most anything I hate doing, am lazy about doing, have tantrums about doing and also, to things I love doing, but procrastinate.

It takes me much longer to think about doing something, than to actually do it.

I can waste days thinking about cleaning up a mess that when tackled, took only five or ten minutes to rectify.

I can let dishes pile up, when really, it only takes maybe twenty minutes to wash.

Sometimes, I admit, I like to torture myself and not do things. I have no idea why, except it feels a thousand times more wonderful when I finally just stop my whining and do it. Sort of like in romantic relationships where making up was worth the breaking up part.

How did we ever go from the molehill (albeit a very serious one) of a pandemic of a deadly disease that we need to protect ourselves against (with social distancing, masks and vaccines) to a mountain, where this temporary situation is somehow going to result in a dystopian brave new world society?

Like holy cow. What the F?

Seriously people, you need to stick to what is really going on and address that. Not let your colourful imaginations take you down bottomless rabbit holes.

We have to surrender freedoms in this case in order to stay alive.

It is not complicated.

We have a zillion rules and regulations which we must abide by to stay healthy. We have building codes so that our dwellings don’t fall down. Automobile laws so we are safe when we drive. Food inspectors so we don’t die eating at a restaurant. We need vaccines to go on vacations to foreign lands. All these things are to protect us.

A lot of rules and regulations we have because people can’t think for themselves, and often prove that they are a lawless mob, quite eager to infringe on the rights of others to get their way.

We have laws to protect ourselves from the lawless. We have to do this.

I’m not going to debate about whether this is right or wrong in the long term. It is what makes our society work right now, until we find something better.

Yes, sometimes we need to question things, but when you do, for God sake, think about what you are questioning.

And it is not all about YOU. Not everyone agrees with you. You don’t speak for everyone, maybe not even a few of us.

I once had this great idea that I could wipe out a memory by revisiting it.

Long story short. It didn’t work.

I had very special memories of Montreal and a man I loved.

So I took the train to Montreal and decided to go back to some of the places that were particularly poignant and just wipe clean the memories. A purge, if you will.

But all it did was depress the hell out of me.

So much for that.

Here is the correct way to deal with such memories: see the good that came from the experiences that gave you those memories.

That love affair taught me so much, and is invaluable to who I am now.

And I still love Montreal.

And I guess, I still love him.

We have been hit with some nasty cold weather this January, the thermometer dipping close to -30 degrees centigrade, before the windchill!

I would have loved to gone out and snapped photographs of the trees covered in frost, but after some debate, decided this was not such a good idea. Not because of the extreme cold so much, as the ice underfoot.

But an awesome ice crystal mural was to be found in the bus shelter.

Nature is an award winning artist!

My father worked at the Central Experimental Farm for many years in Technical Services. He helped design many of the laboratories on the farm and invented machinery.

His work there has just disappeared. Not a mention anywhere.

Granted, my father was not the most liked man on the job. His previous occupation was that of a Sergeant Major, so he was a tough lad at six feet and didn’t suffer fools gladly, if at all.

But he was an exceptional hard worker, and brilliant. He contributed a lot to the farm.

His co-workers got streets named after them. Many got articles written about them. But my father has vanished into history. Even though his name is not there, he left his mark on numerous buildings and projects.

It has been almost 40 years since he left this planet, and in my old age, I have wished that my Dad had of received some kind of recognition on the farm.

But I guess every daughter wishes that for their Dad.

Time for a rant!

I saw, once again, some poor person filmed coming out of anesthesia and of course talking nonsense.

This is so wrong to film someone in this condition and a thousand times more wrong to post it on social media.

This person has just had major surgery. This is not funny on any level.

Any kind of posting of things like this should be automatically banned.

Ditto for embarrassing situations where people are mocked for accidents, mistakes or just being dumb.

Stop it.

It is NOT okay to do this. Ever.

Since I have a cat, my celebration of Christmas is severely limited. I cannot put up decorations or have a tree or wrapped gifts, it is just too much temptation for a happy feline!

So I bought myself some cheap pins and put them in a box and look at them once in a while.

My box of Christmas cheer!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

And be sure to get your booster as soon as you can! Three’s a charm!

I never tire of seeing a rainbow.

• 

Enjoy.

For my birthday I bought the original Carl Sagan Cosmos TV episodes on DVD. (Thank you Bill and Carol for the Amazon gift certificate!)

When I first watched this series, Dr. Sagan got me through a hard time in my life. There is something very soothing and comforting about Carl Sagan.

Young people would find the series boring. Dr. Sagan talks slowly with dramatic pauses. The episodes are long drawn out affairs with lengthy special effects overlayed with music crescendos. Nothing moves quickly in Cosmos and that is what I love about it.

Dr. Sagan gives you plenty of time to think about what he is saying and conveying. Those lengthy pauses are pauses for thought. The music and special effects stir the imagination. Cosmos is a meditation.

The show originally aired on PBS and every so often they had telethon fund raisers, where you could pledge money to this organization. They had great commercial free TV, non interrupted episodes of Cosmos and Nova, as well as sitcoms and other programs like Sesame Street. During one telethon, they were offering to the first 20 callers or so the album, The Music of Cosmos. Well, I dialed my finger to the bone to get one, and I did! Not only that, I got to speak with the President of PBS. I still have that music record today! I wouldn’t part with that for anything, even though I no longer have a record player. My next gift to myself will be the CD.

Watching the series now, it is eerie the accuracy of Dr. Sagan’s predictions for the future. I don’t currently agree with everything he believed, but there is nothing outdated in his commentaries.

Thank you Dr. Sagan.