Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

bipolar children

Give me a fucking break. The  extension of the agri-militari-pharma-entertainment complex into family life marches on.

1.  Kids with behavioural problems are almost always a) malnourished b) badly parented and c) badly educated.  IMHO.  Some of them may have genuine mental health problems, but this shit does not happen in a vacuum.

2.  Let’s just medicate these problems so we don’t have to challenge the little snowflake parents, who get right pissed and litigious if somebody calls them a bad parent.

3.  Let’s just medicate these problems so we don’t prevent teachers from doing their jobs.  However they are defined these days.  On the basis of the ‘education’ my children received until they went to Purpose, I think high school teachers are in many (not all, but many) an unholy combo of jailer and propaganda peddler.

4.  Let’s just medicate these problems away because pills are cheaper than family counselling and don’t take as much time, which we need to spend in front of the television, imbibing messages that bad behaviour is good, up is down, and idiots make money every day by being idiots.

5.  Rinse, repeat.

6.  In twenty years, when all the kids that were medicated are obese, have diabetes, kidney failure and are still fucking nuts, open up a big can of class action lawsuits….

7…… Rinse, repeat.

Round up of events

Up at 4:30 yesterday, fed myself and Jeff breakfast (bacon scrambled eggs), then fighting with two different printers to get the order of service printed out. Got to church around 9:30, discovered we had a plethora of sound people (after my initial fears) but my karma must have just been to the spot remover, because there wasn’t a single feedback squeal all morning.  I hug them all, those sound sound people.

Lots of people out to church and we had a lovely service talking about how it is normal to be afraid of change, and we have had had a lot (as in far too much for this cowgirl), and we’ll be okay, but we have to stick together and be nice to each other.  I know, a hopelessly Pollyanna-ish take on events, but accurate, and my goodness people were thankful to have everything brought up to date.  We did our absolute best to neither minimize nor dramatize the financial and volunteer crises facing our church.  The minister was in the congregation, which provided some reassurance that the board is coping with this crisis as a unit, which never hurts.

It will be okay.

Then I took Sue to lunch at the Amelia, then I bought lemons, then I made lemonade, then I took it to Tom and Peggy (with special guest Joe, squee, whom I haven’t seen since he made his wife so spectacularly rotund) and I watched them pour concrete and then beat a hasty retreat.  Then I came back to my place and apart from a half hearted attempt to throw food into the microwave for Jeff, Katie, Keith and Paul (had them all over, heart full of happy) I didn’t do another thing for the rest of the day, oh, except take the awning down with Paul’s help.  It was full of insect eggs, so just as well.  Either moth or katydid, I’d have to look it up. I looked at the wind and sky and determined it was time to get the awning down before the weather got wetter or windier.

Now, for nautilus3, a flickrset of Birds of BC. I only know about this because Paul found a dead bird and took pictures, and be darned if I can identify it.  I may need to call on experts.

Eddie let me cut all his nails and he hardly struggled or wailed, and he made no attempt to bite or scratch.  The same cannot be said of Margot, who popped her claws into me the last time I trimmed her.  I guess Eddie is finally getting over his antipathy to me.  If, and only if, I’m sitting on the downstairs couch and Jeff’s sitting there too, Eddie will let me scritch him.  Sometimes.

Finally made it to the Orange Room

It’s a restaurant / bar in New West I’ve known about for some time but I’ve never been.  Véronique and I had a bit to eat and a little something-something to drink, and it was very yummy and convivial.  I am hoping at some point to get custody of the church website, currently her bailiwick, so we worked through my extreme rudeness in asking for it when I wasn’t really authorized by the Board to do that (sorry!) and how any handoff will be handled in this ‘real life’ we keep hearing about.

I recommend  the Orange Room; pricey but really nice and comfy.

We also talked about some trends in second wave feminism which includes a culture war with transpeople, which I had been dimly aware of but not really up on, and candidly it’s appalling, but it’s hard for me to entirely sort out how icky it is because I’m not in possession of some background.  Anyway, I need more reading material, so I asked for it.  I do think gender essentialism, unless you’re talking about the mechanics of getting and bearing children, needs an enema.

Katie has moved into a place with the help of her father.  I came home and the top mattress off my bunk bed was gone – so that’s done.

Canoe trip

The minister, Rev Katie, sponsored a church fundraising trip via canoe. We took the “Cranberry Lady” out onto the Fraser, and there I saw:

  1. Gillnetters working.
  2. More raptors and birds of prey than I can ever recollect seeing in one day.
  3. A LOT of dead salmon.
  4. A LOT of very bloated, unable to fly seagulls.
  5. The rotting backsides of businesses facing onto the Fraser.
  6. Kanaka park.
  7. A convivial bunch of fellow church goers including the 17 year old grandson of one, (who’s a bible believing Christian, but I don’t hold that against anybody I know in meatspace), whom I got seated with, and who regaled me with Red Dead Redemption stories, seeing as how I was the only one in the canoe who had clue ONE what he was talking about.  And I know who Linkin Park is.
  8. My lunch.  Rev Katie makes insanely good potato salad.  It wasn’t on her resume, but YUMMERS.
  9. What it’s like to paddle on the Fraser when you’re paddling upstream and the tide is making.
  10. Monster homes with monstrous docks.

I am a little stiff and a little sore today, but nothing like I expected, and I’m feeling a little giddy today from the exercise.  Blessed be!

Lexi’s partay

I got filled up with baby loving.  Neville’s little girl is SO cute I immediately went into Gramma mode and stayed with her almost the whole evening.  Jeff jammed, but Lexi’s forgiveness took the form of an entire container of leftover chocolate (dairy free!) cake.

It was lovely driving home in Ziva with Keith, roof down and the delicious summer breeze blowing over us.

Also yesterday, breakfast with Sue.  Jeff and I later we watched Ahlaam, the most remarkable semi-documentary I’ve ever seen.  Highly recommended, but wrenching.  War, heroism, mental illness and the bombing of Baghdad.