On Alberta Separation - so long and thanks for the fish

I'm so tired of hearing about and following the Alberta Separatists movement. I stayed here 35 years longer than intended because I fell in love with a 5th generation Albertan (8th generation Canadian) who could not see living anywhere else in Canada. 

I've always been aware of the movement and I'm sure my view has been shaped by the grade school notion of Alberta being the bible belt (not the bread basket) then a religion course during my university studies that revealed just how hard Alberta residents embraced all the wierd sects that spawned at the beginning of the 20th century. You can see that history with the Mormon Temple. It's telling that during the pandemic, smaller communities responded by self-isolating instead of taking any preventative actions - straight line to being the cause for Canada losing it's measles free status. It's happening again with Prosperity Alberta - ignoring the realities like oil companies enjoying record production, profits and exports due to the TMX pipeline (Liberal project) and recent trade deals (Liberal project) at the same time the Alberta Calling promotion that wooed people from across Canada with a $5000 payment resulted in crushing public services and garnered a high unemployment rate.

Don't get me wrong - it's been great! After a rocky start on graduating from tech school, we managed to be a bust cohort that was too young to be forced offered early retirement yet too old to call a new hire - that golden 3-5 years of experience. And we both did well by the companies we worked longest for, him helping develop one of the most successful chemicals for treating oil and me by helping make a workplace health&safety program easier for workers to participate that was adopted as far away as Poland. Obviously we both had supportive management along the way but we're also collaborative.

And the community we settled in is pretty great as long as you ignore the lack of a view🙂. I know young people get wierd about where they grow up, especially if they haven't moved around so grade one groups can end up being a lifetime millstone, but it was a good move for us. The inability of people to do things outside their clique is annoying but if you just keep showing up, you eventually meet people and make friends. Just like any (Alberta) city - the counsel is juggling services and tax base with little assistance of Alberta municipal support. Luckily our health and education services are through Saskatchewan.

About Saskatchewan. A great province with a diversity of primary resources - Ag, potash and now aluminium. Somehow a better balance of rural independence and community. No one thinks twice about joining the Co-op or using a credit union and TeleMiracle is still going strong showcasing Saskatchewan talent and raising funds.

Here's the thing with the Separatists - they have a grievance held since Alberta was established. The land should have been stolen from the indigenous - as opposed to treatied in bad faith - and Southern Alberta at least should have been a US state. At the kitchen table kids learn how Canada has done them wrong by having accountability for Federal funding. Owning land won't save the farmers as climate change (gasp) results in faster drought cycles. 

Digression - those byo-electricity data centers will not employ many people once built and using natural gas will add to pollution and drive up electricy and natural gas prices for everyone else. Small towns will be hit the worse because they don't have industrial parks to create a physical buffer with residential areas.

Anyway, the home we'd planned on staying in until pretty well death is no longer that. Watching our parent age has shown us it's better to move while we can make that decision than wait until the decision is made for us. We'll be taking our retirement wealth elsewhere - luckily we never trusted boom times and our house is not our primary asset. Will Alberta separate? I think it's unlikely in my lifetime but those separtists will always be there. It's like the Epstein Elite supporters. They'll be working in the background to undermine any progress and be ready to step in once Albertans get complacent about being Canadian.

All to say - hey move here and buy our house when it goes on the market. It has solar panels/EV charger, an urban orchard and green house. But don't get attached if you're Canadian or have Canadian values like accessible healthcare decoupled from employment that doesn't consistently result in overwhelming debt, vacation days as part of employment, over time (Alberta change rules to companies being able to avoid overtime pay but straight time off in lieu), universal taxpayer funded education and an independant judicial system.

Early Morning Thoughts

The other day I was at a meeting. There is always a thought exercise after doing our land acknowlegement. This time it was think of 3 things. One to continue, one to let and one to invite. A lady in my group wanted to invite faith and I asked her if she meant more church attendance or something different. She does amazing work with families...I should let her know of my admiration...so I was unsure. She meant leaning more on God to get her through adversity and using her catholic upbringing for strength. It seems we travelled the same journey of doubt in the RCC version of worship  but ended up in different belief places. 

Or did we.

I decided as a teen that if there is a God there is nothing you can do to sway it in your favour; the addition of God to the Christian commandments and virtues was just a way to make people feel like they're being watched because leaders always look for ways to control behaviour. Risk and chance determine how your actions pan out. There's no genie to pray to and get rewards. Reducing God to a slot machine by throwing money at it's purported representatives seems disrespectful to theology. 

Could God be your personal saviour? Sure but what does that mean? In spite of the Church selling dispensations in the middle ages, I don't agree claiming belief is a get out of jail free card for exploiting others. Growing up in the Catholic sphere for me meant recognizing my life is an example to help each other live our best lives. I can see the point of confession, it's an admission that you feel something lacking in your response to life and provide a focus for improvement. I can see reaching out to God because it can help you focus on a problem and possible solutions as well as give you strength to persist.

I struggle with feeling too fortunate in a world with so much sorrow and have never understood people who revel in other's misfortunes. 

My let go was to recognize when there is nothing I can do.

Thoughts on Turning 65

 

I've hit that last landmark year for our culture! Growing up it was 5 for starting school, 16 for driving, 19 for being able to drink. Then there's the informal ones like 21 for drinking in the States and 26 for getting lower insurance rates. 

Being shuffled into the seniors box has been a drawn out process; anywhere from 50 for golf, 55 for restaurants, 60 for municipal discounts. In spite of being assured there would be no CPP for me after paying into it for my entire working life, here I am on the cusp of getting it deposited into my account every month. We are very fortunate to not need any of the low income or disability supplemental funding. 

So did I/we get here as intended? Definitely on the financial end. We made a "Freedom 55" plan in our early 30s and hit that mark due to a lower key lifestyle. I retired at 58 (spouse at 55) to a debt free life. I think we pretty well hit our health goals. We have all our teeth😁and I'm on no daily medications but I do have mild tinnitus and annoying eye floaties. I did regain activity levels after my accident although I shifted away from impact and ankle twisting sports - a convenient out for pickleball.

What now? We've been watching neighbours and family navigate their 80s so we're looking ahead there. We'll be moving out of our house eventually but where is the question. In the mean time I'm looking for more volunteer opportunities. I like to have an anchor activity most days. 

I started this blog when I was 45, in spite of being a very poor at journaling. Life has actually changed very little here although the population has gotten more diverse. Income inequality is more visible as there are lots of high end vehicles like BMWs and Cadiallacs but like everywhere, there's homelessness that long term residents are trying to shuffle away. The City has tried to maintain free/low cost activities to build community as it goes through boom and bust times as an O&G town. I feel like truth and reconcilation is progressing as schools include indigenous liasons and activities, Treaty 6 and Metis fly along side Canada and provincial flags and city events include smudging ceremonies. How does this translate? I don't know. 

The curse of interesting times...

I retired from a US mulitnational operating in Canada and live in the most US of provinces🙄 Now I'm reading a CMV on Reddit  about how long it will take for relationships to normalize once the Trump administration is in the past.

I remember the first time a US colleague said something about the US protecting Canada with their military. As a poite person I didn't laugh their face. How big would our military have to be to go up against the country with the largest military in the world? More than our population for sure. Perhaps Canadians aren't really aware that the purpose of protecting Canada is simply to prevent military fallout on US soil in the case of a threat via the north pole. Or maybe I'm just cynical.

I am surprised just how active Canadians are being - and I don't think it's simply that only Canadians can harass our political reps. I hope it's us standing up for us and seeing the yellow vest->freedom convoy->CPC movement for what it is and recognizing the things being Canadian gives them. The Buy Canadian movement seems to truly be grassroots. Some people are hard core, canceling services. Some are medium buying only Canadian made products and cancelling US vacations but I think most of us will just be more circumspect in our purchases, buying US goods only if they are unavailable from anywhere else in the world.

I don't think the US will ever have the same soft power they had. You could say it's the aged politicians holding onto power but it's been shown their constitution is not robust and their checks and balances are meaningless should the leader choose to ignore it as he is. Canada also has gaps that relies on the politician "doing the right thing". I think we're all seeing that the "right thing" is like "common sense" - it needs defining.

Aging Parents #BoomerLife

I read an article the other day about people choosing to retire in their homes rather than going to retirement facilities or care homes. I know my Dad loved his house and didn't want to leave it. Fortunately, he didn't have to. Our neighbours are in their mid-80s and make noise about moving but instead end up changing their yard to make it easier to manage. Like us, they live in a raised bungalow so everything you need is on the main floor.

The in-laws', very reasonably, don't want to leave their home. We don't want them to either but it came out that bills weren't being paid and there was forgetfulness so options had to be explored as none of us live in the same city as they do. They need companionship and a housekeeper more than medical care so that's what was looked for. Despite their hometown being a huge draw for retirees, there are surprisingly few service options...like 1. As part of the service, the elders get audited by Alberta Health Services (or whatever they become) to see what reimbursements they are eligible for.

And we're next - though not for a couple decades with any luck. What will services look like for us? 

Thoughts on the 6 month Moratorium on the Alberta Renewable Energy Projects

This moratorium is living rent-free in my head even though I am definitely not on board with companies getting to set policy by default. Communities should be able to appeal to the government to regulate the industry - even though it's an industry that I support. I expect they're so used to O&G demanding provincial funding that they didn't realize energy companies could thrive without it and by the time they did - welp a hard brake is a good way to get rid of competition. The UCP is all about perception. The perception they're helping rural communities while forgiving debt owed to them by oil companies. Allowing leaks into the waterways feeding First Nations because they're pretty isolated. Air pollution is no big deal because it's mostly invisible and by the time it's noticeable the polluters can create all kinds of plausible deniability. 

These complaints are from southern Alberta. In Medicine Hat, Smiths's riding, there's a turbine quite close to a road on the edge of town that people regularly see. People who are heavily invested in being Gas City with the accompanying low utility rates. Imagine having a turbine this close to a road you regularly drive on... Plus in Alberta, wind farms have lots of turbines. It seems the standard is lots at different angles so only a few are active at a time. But the perception is the possibility of ALL of them running at the same time.

6 months is actually not long to review material and provide a report and any new regulation will take longer to implement. If Smith's stand on COVID is any indication, the sources they look at will cite a bunch of misinformation so it will be a quick hammer smash making it onerous to comply with new rules. Projects in the planning stages are easy to relocate. This isn't like oil where there are physical constraints - you can do solar anywhere. The US has a big push on and even SK has a range of projects coming online. I hope the Solar industry that remains is ready to capitalize on distributed solar in urban areas because rural projects are likely to be dead until O&G decides to enter the game.

10 years ago today - life changing incident

 

10 years ago today, Fred had left town for a week at an isolated work site and I was looking forward to a week chilling with the dogs. The weather was going to be good, and month-end at work meant a structured week full of "stuff" which I enjoyed. It was not to be. I was hit by a car while walking across the highway at a controlled intersection. When I regained consciousness I called work and Fred's work to let them know what happened - you can use a cell phone without moving your head and neck!

I wrote about the incident as soon as I got out of the hospital and 10 years is long enough to assess the long-term effects. We can start with work. I didn't return to work until October with some restrictions. However, I feel like the lucky one. My Plant Manager at the time started having health issues so July 31 was my last routine day at work. I met up with him at a clinic and he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer after that visit. He transferred back to the US and passed away very quickly. I reduced ladder climbing a lot as most locations had been changed to stair access and could do most of my job until my planned retirement date. 

We didn't move as desired because, with the O&G downturn our home lost 30% of its value while our desired location rocketed in value. On the upside - housing is affordable here. One thing that would be hard to match? I can easily walk to the vet, dentist, preferred coffee shop and gym. The city continues to change. There are a LOT more pedestrian-controlled intersections - including the one where my incident occurred - and new trails for bikes and people are being built all the time. There are lots of activities, albeit not on the scale of big cities, including Pride events and Indigenous recognition.

But what about the long-term physical effects. I changed a lot of my activities and stopped spontaneous sports through work after a mud run. I am relieved I don't have to think of running as a pass time - I had a love-hate relationship it. I gave up golf and no longer play any racquet sports, since we used to play squash I could see us trying pickleball or me playing with others. Post-injury, I switched to spin for my cardio challenge but since COVID have given that up. I've been doing Zoom or outside workout classes and don't feel like buying a spin bike. Yoga was impossible to return to as I had to do a lot of adjustments due to uneven abilities. Total flexibility never returned - I'm not sure if I could have done more to get there. While I've been aware of my injury all along, recently it's been stiff all the time. My balance is off but is it age or injury? Can't tell but I'm looking for a resolution to that. I'm also pretty sure I had a longer-term brain injury than recognized. My appetite didn't return for years plus it's always hard to tell if the reaching and not catching words is simply aging but I feel like I've gotten better so...

...that's it. I learned what "you will have arthritis in that ankle" means🙂and don't grumble or yell at the sky too much.

Rhubarb Pie experiment

We have a couple rhubarb patches so pie and crisp are mainstays during the summer. We have a pastry rhubarb pie recipe but lately we've been trying graham cracker crusts so it was decided to do a streusel crust for the top. To the Duck Duck Go! I found a crust that seemed reasonable on Crazy for Crust and Streusel recipe on Sugar Spun Run. I'm really putting this here so I can import it into my recipe app🤞🏼 I'm using metric weights where possible because I trained as a chemist and it's just way more reliable. I'm using cups and Fahrenheit because I'm Canadian😁 

I find our oven runs cool so you may want to drop the temperature 25F.

RECIPE

Graham cracker crust

154 g crushed graham crackers

50 g brown sugar

2.5 g cinnamon

pinch of salt

99 g melted butter.

Combine and pack well into a 9" pie dish. Bake at 350F for 10 minutes then let cool

Filling 

4 c rhubarb cut into 1-2 cm pieces

2 tbsp flour (60 mL)

3/4c white sugar

2 eggs

1 tbsp melted butter/margarine

1 tsp lime juice - or lemon if you have some cut)

Mix flour and sugar then set aside ~1/4 c. Mix eggs, butter and the rest of flour/sugar together. 

Streusel

78 g flour

50 g golden sugar

33 g white sugar

pinch salt

42g unsalted butter/margarine melted

Mix dry ingredients well. Drizzle melted butter into dry ingredients and cut in to make chunks. Do NOT mix them together into a paste.

Assembly

Preheat oven to 425F

Sprinkle reserved flour and sugar on the cooled crust then put rhubarb into crust. Pour the egg mixture over the rhubarb then sprinkle the streusel top as evenly as possible. Place a cookie sheet on a lower shelf under where the pie pan will be then place the pie in the oven. Bake for 15 minutes at 425F then lower the temperature to 350F for 25 minutes.

Serve cool.

Let me know how it tastes as this is a fasting day so I couldn't taste as I went. Should be fine though...right?

Thoughts on Social Media

I've been thinking about social media quite a bit lately. While I've been on Twitter, User groups, and Blogger for a long time, I didn't really get into social media until I was invited to join Google+. It was so cool. Like a HUGE BBS with an opportunity to meet lots of different people. And posting links and different media was seamless.

Unfortunately, G+ tech writers didn't like it for reasons (I believe the phrase was ghost town) and was not easily monetized for Google so 👋🏽 Where would people go? A bunch of platforms but the link seemed to be Twitter. I jumped to Diaspora because...I got an invite. Twitter is making changes that make people want to leave and instead of an open-source they're going where they're invited - BlueSky. And because they're people they want everyone there so they can have content.

And I get the invite thing - people like to fit in. An invite implies you'll have a community where you can be assured you'll fit in with someone. If it's the right place it's easier to initiate conversations because you get a hint of the tone of the place and have common terms of reference.  And you have access to casual help if you need it.

Speaking of help - no wonder people are willing to trade their personal data and being marketed to for ease of use. I want to be in a community where I know I will get casual conversations I can enjoy while expanding my horizons beyond personal experience but...distributed means you have to find all the linking pieces. I like where I am on Diaspora but I'd like to be on Friendrica because it links better with Mastodon and I can use one app for both. I've heard you can autopost between the two. Ideally, I'd like somewhere easily store photos for sharing that would be separate from personal ones and that would self-delete.

Or I can just use separate apps on my phone since that's how I do most social media anyway. Much easier to look for an app for Mastodon than do all this blending - or is it. I would learn that. 

Renovations - updating the fundamentals

 

While updating the bathroom is fun, there are more serious decisions to make about fundamental maintenance. Our home is over 20 years old and while we built the best we could afford at the time, as our furnace, windows, and water heater age, it's time to take advantage of the Greener Homes evaluation to include energy savings. Because heat pumps don't really work in our area, any upgrades other than windows won't earn rebates so we'll have to make do with saving on utilities.

One focus is the windows. While we went double-paned we didn't go high-end; with this being a rebate we do qualify for, we went for the best possible windows. We also replaced only the glass so we saved a lot on the total cost. For instance - we got a new bathroom window w/casing for $2K+ while a similar-sized window cost under $900 to replace just the sealed units. In the end, we got the triple-paned units that will reduce heat transfer and windows now have a much longer warranty. There should be no drafts and little condensation in winter. Cool.

Water heaters are an ongoing maintenance issue. A lot of times they are run until failure which means dealing with a leaky heater. We don't do that but our water heater is well over a decade old so we're on the edge. We didn't go heat pump or tankless but did source an energy efficiency ng unit and our priority here was water waste. In Alberta, you are charged /m^3 for water and we find we waste a lot of water waiting for hot water to get to the kitchen so we're getting a hot water recirc. pump installed.  

The system update we're most excited for is our furnace. We have a mid-efficiency furnace and this is our opportunity to update to a high-efficiency unit and add a heat recovery ventilation unit. We've been having problems with humidity in the basement so it will be great to have better air circulation. Furnaces have been resized and fan sizes optimized to run quietly so it will be on most of the time without (in theory) using more energy. The HRV will seal the house better and replace all the exhaust fans. One cool thing we're getting is a UV light (replaced every 2 years) that will sanitize air as it passes through - great for allergens and microbes.

It's been a fascinating process and I'm happy to be able to support local businesses. I've used companies that did jobs for me when I was working or who've come recommended by others. Prices have been within our vague budget and wait time is pretty reasonable. 

When we built our home, maintenance was a fuzzy dream. Life passes quickly and owning a home for 20 years is no different than purchasing an older home - there has to be a maintenance budget. Luckily a lot of equipment has improved in efficiency without costing as much of a premium as it would have been when we first built.

Things living rent free in my head - I hate this!

You know what I mean. Much like how your hands move to the nearby bowl of potato chips without thinking my brain cycles through unresolvable annoying topics.

This is year 3 of not being able to go on our tropical holiday and this winter has been brutal. A month-long spell of weather so cold that outdoor activities were out of the question. Like many, I am done with this pandemic. We've limited travel to heading out to the coast for family emergencies and running to Edmonton for service appointments then coming right back home. I need to put on my selfish hat (and mask🙄) and get out in the community and do things...except I really don't want to run into convoy supporters and if I do any kind of group activity, that's likely to happen.

And speaking of convoys - what the actual f*ck is their problem. Vaccines were mandated for Federally regulated industries ages ago and trucking got an exemption that expired. Still, they can work across Canada unless the companies they want to access require vaccination. This would be horribly discriminatory if the vaccines weren't widely tested before being provided for free from a bunch of places you don't have to have an appointment to get. Booster, whatever. I really don't like getting sick so I'll take it. Other countries want me to be vaccinated to visit - okay, it's your health system. I could be sympathetic to anti-maskers - it does feel awkward to be the one out of step - but I have yet to hear news reports of insisting people wear masks to the point of assault but I do see videos of non-mask wearers spitting on people and trying to remove masks from people wearing them. From the start  (in the mid 2020s) it's seemed like people being thwarted who are not used to being told no. 

This thing with Trudeau is just irrational. He's a leader in a recently elected minority government.  During a pandemic, as a responsible employer, the Feds are reducing health risks by requiring vaccines - just like a lot of large companies. He got a vaccine supply and distributed it. He's mostly followed the recommendations of PHAC (mostly because wildly changing test requirements is...wild and quarantining was lax) and really left provinces to themselves when doing their pandemic response and vaccination distribution. There's been no Federally mandated lockdowns - all there have been is essential travel recommendations with no questioning of what people decide is essential. No mass testing like Hong Kong no lockdowns like China, just gradual lessening of quarantine and testing on arrival. I know this is mentally difficult - see the third year of not traveling thing - but in spite of hyperbole, this is not forever.

Finally the Emergencies Act. From the start, the CPC and their provincial counterparts wanted to provoke the Feds into doing something that could be used in the next election and I think they wanted it to echo the FLQ crisis and G7 head bashing. But it didn't. After weeks of having their lives further interrupted by the squatters, Ottawans got to see overwhelming numbers of law enforcement move stoically to contain their tormenters. Yep, that's my take. I can't imagine having people from another town set up a block party in my neighbourhood while the police look the other way. The Act has a limited term and any actions will be scrutinized by people hostile to invoking the act.

One reason I'm writing this is to force myself to check into background elements to ensure I'm being fair. I have a CPC MLA. Other than donating to the convoy, which according to its memorandum had the secondary aim of overturning an election, and decrying gun control the last thing she wrote about was to defend fertilizer use by farmers as part of resisting climate change initiatives. I agree that there metrics have to be reasonably set but, we've seen under Conservative-led (CPC, UCP, PC) government, it's a lot of talk and encouragement of making things worse by kicking the can down the road.

Anyway, hopefully just writing it down will get everything out of my system. I think Canada's governmental COVID response was pretty good. Individuals got support, we had pretty decent movement and not huge swaths of deaths although there were some - it's a pandemic after all. I have to admit, I hope the Emergencies Act spawns some better financial laws that prevent money laundering and tax dodging so the Feds can focus on things like affordable housing in major centers and inflation.

The value of work as a distraction

My dad is dying.

It's a long slow process where he keeps getting medical interventions (valve replacement surgery, diabetes pills, water pills) that improve his quality of life for a little longer. He's at the age where many of this friends have already passed away, some a lot younger than him, so he has fewer resources. He calls when there are any setbacks just to vent or to hear me say positive things.

As icing on the cake, his wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. Luckily she's not where I live or they would have delayed her mastectomy as non-essential as hospitals clog with COVID patients pursuing immunity through infection.

I'll admit I've been lucky to have a couple decades of a relatively stress-free life. My mom's death fell along, to me, a predictable path. Since she told me she had cancer by showing me a diagnosis that said it had metastasized to her lungs, I felt anything over 18 months was a bonus. I was working on very interesting projects with a great boss so I could leave quickly as needed to fly home. She was good until she wasn't. She went from getting into a car on her own to go to an appointment to not being able to get out of the car then slipped into a final coma a couple weeks later. And my dad took care of the post mortem details.

This time around, I am still away but without the distraction of work along with pandemic living in an area with a ridiculous 4th wave where there is only ICU space because people keep dying and the knowledge of being the executor with some hard decisions to make. There is no distraction from death and a government intent on overwhelming the medical system to implement private hospitals. Bennie has something going on with his foot and has to wear a cone so he stops licking. It's harder to focus on the good things from being financially secure to having great weather. 

I think the problem is there's nothing I can control...I just have to get over it.

Sibling Tale

I just got back from visiting family and I feel like it's the first time I've had the opportunity to really talk with my youngest brother. Yep, it only took until he was over 50 and only happened because we were driving somewhere. Since I live away and am almost a decade older I don't think we ever really connected. I was either not there, bailing him out of trouble, or just being distant because he tried really hard to draw on common childhood experiences that weren't common. We didn't even grow up in the same house much less have the same teenage experience since he got to be an only child when the parents were more established. Aging not only puts that at a distance but also gives us other experiences to draw on.

He's always been a different type and has found an appropriate community in his apartment building. When we were younger he used to give away his stuff or shrug off "friends" stealing his stuff, which I have to admit was pretty frustrating as a bystander but has stood him well. He's gradually left those friends behind and found a community in an apartment building where he can walk to most services and has a short work commute. They share stuff and spend time socializing with their neighbours.

He asked about homelessness in my community and I said I don't think we have many. There are shelters, recovery centers, hotel rooms by the month, and most importantly, people aren't particularly anchored here. There also isn't gentrification which forces out long-term low-income residents.

In turn, I asked if he knew a lot of people who took CERB and what rent is like. He said he knew some and most knew to save 25% for taxes in the next year (so much for it being such a surprise to recipients). He's rented the same apartment for a decade so his rent is a lot lower than a newcomer as it's only been raised a few percent a year. As a result, moving from his place to a bigger place in the same building would double his rent and he doesn't really need the space. We also talked about work. I got stable in my late 30s and he did too. He works in lumber and worked his way up on the production side. 

It's interesting the different places we all are in that fifth decade. I'm done working full time and was able to save enough to comfortably live debt-free by staying where we are. Youngest brother also lives debt-free by keeping stuff rather than upgrading unnecessarily (I wish I was like this). Middle sibling was laughing that he's nearing retirement age and in more debt than ever as he's become a business owner. He's way more of a busy personality than either of us who enjoyed going to work to make money then coming home to do other stuff or nothing.

I guess my youngest brother and I have more in common than I thought.

The trial of aging...and I don't mean my aging

When I started this blog, I was 45 and feeling life was finally settling down and it really has. Aside from getting hit by a car the worse thing to happen to us is the passing of our canine companion. That's likely to change soon as our surviving parents are past their mid-eighties and deal with hearing/vision/mobility loss. It sure seems like life has changed to make things as annoying as possible for them and really shines a light on accessibility.

While we celebrate online accessibility, in no way is this seamless for seniors who don't have someone computer literate to help them. For instance, my dad decided he wanted to donate an old vehicle to Kidney Car - a group I'd never heard of. I had to search, make sure I hit the right link, fill in the information, etc. My dad is vision impaired to the point of near blindness and crusty. His wife is busy working and doesn't seem that good with reading comprehension. This took about 5 minutes to complete but would have taken him ages.

My dad can't easily dial phones so I thought I'd set up an old Google Home for him so he can just ask it to call people. Google seems to use Duo unless you just tell it the number. He doesn't have a cell phone or Google account. His wife doesn't have a Google account. His contacts don't use Duo. This is annoying. We're with Alexa (despite Jeff Bezos) and it just didn't seem as big a deal to set up.

The worse is his hearing aid. I'm pretty convince hearing aids are a big scam. Elderly people keep getting sold hearing aids for thousands of dollars that they use pretty inconsistently because they tickle or their voice echoes or some other reason. Dad's hearing aids came with a plastic remote, but he used his wife to change the volume because it wasn't set up and he didn't have the dexterity to press the buttons. The remote is poorly designed for elderly people with flat buttons that have no click or edge, one little nipple to landmark a programmable middle button that wasn't programmed (probably a good thing).

And I get it, old people are annoyed because things have changed but pretty well nothing is meeting expectations and they can't get it resolved. They don't seem to be able to answer questions and if you can't understand, they just get irritable. And service people have to learn to not to take things personally which can be hard.

We really need a diverse group of designers for all equipment and tools. It can only benefit all of us.

Canada Day 2021🍁

As a Canadian, I've never felt compelled to celebrate Canada Day in a particular way, especially since it's ALWAYS on the 1st of July and, unlike the US, most people don't take extra days to make a long weekend. Then there's the fireworks show - on the night of the 1st. It can be problematic to attend then go to work the next day. So for most Canadians, it's a day off with the hope for weather good enough to hit the beach or backyard and maybe a local event. For New Canadians, it's a way to celebrate beginnings in a new country.

Our community usually has a family-focused celebration with lots of activities. It's a great way to see how diverse our community has become. Recently we'd started going to the fireworks because we could walk to the event. It was amazing to sit close enough the ash falls on you and be part of the collective oohing and ahhing. Last year they were canceled and this year it's a drive-in event with Facebook activities. 

Also, this year is the driving home of how horribly our indigenous people were betrayed by the government treaties and how Residential Schools inform current indigenous communities. I can only credit the BLM movement with getting us past a collective shrug. One thing about Canada under the current government; dirty laundry is washed in public and apologies, with recognition of wrongdoing, are readily given.

But where do we go from here? Some places have canceled their Canada Day events - probably easy since this planning was in flux due to possible pandemic restrictions. Unless the celebrations were being held on a residential school site, this is performative. We should really be doing something and luckily we have input from indigenous communities through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission calls to action. 

In my (immigrant) eyes, the first step in stopping dehumanizing is admitting your system is biased against indigenous people so it can be stopped legislatively then the slow consistent education of people begins. To me, the minimum is

• children's remains being returned to their families. 
• complicit organizations must apologize for their roles in the attempt at cultural genocide. 
• projects going through treaty land must get band approval. Sure this might affect commercial viability but NIMBY should not be reserved for colonists and their descendants. 

We should elevate National Indigenous Day (or Pre-Canada Day) as a day of accountability and promote Canada's history up to the arrival of Europeans. A good bookend to the school year that starts with Labour Day.

Words - what do you mean by that?

I decided when I was in my teens that formal religion is a political structure that both soothes people in the face of injustice and provides a power structure for the powerless. I was pretty pleased with that so I just moved on with life…after all, I was a teenager. I tried to make knowledge-based ethical decisions and overall I don’t have any long term regrets.

But by not actually examining what that meant I was pretty stuck in conundrums.

Like, how I accepted colonialism. Not just in how Canada was settled but by how Israel was treating the Palestinians. I accepted the narrative that Jews deserve a country and it would include land around Jerusalem. I guess I expected to see in real-time how newcomers and the existing people would come together to make a new nation while forgetting that while Canada and First Nations started out ok treaties were twisted to expand power to the newcomers. I truly believed that after how Jews were treated in WW2 they would be more compassionate and inclusive (words I can use now to express by fuzzy expectations). After all, they’d been shoved in, essentially, reservations; demonized, vilified, and had their good stolen from them. I grew up I the 70s.

The other was how I accepted religion as a respectable political system. Since I grew up Catholic I had the example of Vatican City so Jews having a homeland seemed reasonable; after all, everyone had treated them pretty shitty during the war. But, not being Jewish, I didn’t get the entire narrative. The State of Israel inhabited empty land. This is typical colonizer talk for taking over resources and ignoring the people already using them but I hadn’t really thought of that. Even the 2 state solution based on religion – how could it not be when Israel is built on a religious foundation.

One thing social movements have done for me gave me words to express my thoughts in a common language that more people can understand without a whole lot of extra words. Not just in terms of political structures but religious structures.

Should police be a formal part of Pride (or any progressive) celebrations – no as they are part of a system that chooses to punish using a violent immediate response. If not now then in the recent past. Is structural racism a thing – there are structural injustices designed to keep poor people poor and biased people happy to categorize who to gets exploited in an attempt to boost themselves. Most of this happens to people who are easily identified as different so yes, racism.

 A lot is being made of high percentages of USians currently identifying as “none” and what that means. I think I am one. This frees me to use religious language on my terms. Am I spiritual – I do have a sense of wonder and appreciation. Do I think there’s a soul – I think we have a core personality that we recognize intuitively recognize that is a product of our body chemistry (hence body dysphoria). Is there a god – I don’t know and don’t think it matters as there is no convincing evidence even in terms of consistent rules.

All this to say…what Israel is doing is inexcusable use of colonial power against an indigenous population. There have been many hints in media of how the system is working – from expanding “no go” spaces to dismantling village solar systems installed by NGOs to teargassing farmers as they tend crops – Israel counters all criticism with accusations of anti-Semitism. They are finally doing things out in the open and … no religious judgment here, the Israeli government is violently authoritarian and stealing land from indigenous people.

Why do I argue more on the internet?!? ::shakes fist at the sky::

So today it was do Rev n Flow by Zoom. We stuck around after for a few minute chat and, naturally, the conversation turned to COVID. Even though I live in Alberta, our town is under Saskatchewan rules so we have in person classes of less than 8 people, I think outside groups of 10 and stores are open at a lowered capacity. Even though we're keeping busy, I think most of us are feeling a little flat. The instructor had mentioned lassitude and I said that or ennui. We're just tired of restrictions regardless of how mild they may be. 

One of the ladies went on about how the infection rate was false because people get more than one test. I bit my tongue. Then she said they weren't vaccines because they weren't from deactivated viruses. I said they used a target to focus the immune system. Then she said something about how these weren't really vaccines because they just hide symptoms and I said that's part of how vaccines work...A-N-D it was time to wrap up. The exercise lady is working out at home because she doesn't want to wear a mask - and that's great. At least she's not arguing about the rules. 

Even on social media threads I tend to get argumentative. I've worked quite hard to walk away IRL if I have no skin in the game. It's not job to educate them if they are spewing a whole bunch of misinformation; I look at their actions which is way easier in person. 

And it's not like I'm perfect so I can argue. A neighbour came over today to ask about Bennie. We've both been vaccinated so I asked him to come inside the storm door so Bennie could get a pat. I kept my distance and left the storm door window open but still...rules are no visiting between households. Other neighbours are having garage sales (we have nothing to sell) and almost everyone is wearing masks and, as far as I've seen, it's been a stream instead of a crowd.

Our numbers are included with the North West rates. It's been pretty flat so it's easy to get complacent since most of the people we know hustled to get vaccinated. But we've seen what happened in India. Variants are a concern.

Perhaps ennui lessens our ability to self censor or maybe it's just being away from a range of people. Fred's been expanding his hobbies and I just can't seem to get motivated. Maybe now that Bennie is on the mend that'll change.

Tip - don't eat corn cobs, they don't come out.

Pandemic 1 year on

March 14th was my last in person exercise class. I regretted attending a spin class and by Monday all other leisure activities were shut down. So it's been a year since I last attending an indoor class. That and wearing a mask inside public spaces is where my personal line for pandemic activities was drawn and that's well within the scope of local restrictions.

Crime Shows

Last night I watched John Oliver, the main topic was Tucker Carson. Then I watched Coroner, a CBC production with a diverse cast that is integral to the show. It occurred to me the plot of Coroner is why Carlson questions the value of diversity.

Footwear - the struggle is real

Shoes (and boots) are so tempting to buy. After all, you don't have to get undressed to try them on, there are soooo many styles and occasions for use. Until we both had well paying, steady jobs (~40yo) I wore cheap shoes (Woolco, Zellers then Walmart). I'm easy on shoes and have no foot problems. I'm still easy on shoes and have no foot problems but my purchasing style has changed. I had a lot to learn before I could really afford to make that change.