Happy Birthday, Jesus, I Got You a Suppository for the Pain

Kidding. I didn't get you anything. I know, I know, it's been years since I bothered with your birthday. But in fairness, I don't bother with anybody's birthday, not even my own kids'.

And don't get me started on Facebook. Geez Louise. Grow up, Facebook friends.

But back to real life. I tapped out with shopping about two decades ago. I had planned on making a cowl by this Christmas for one of my three kids with the $126 worth of wool I accidentally bought a couple of years ago, but I got a job between the time I bought it and learning how to knit.

How the hell do people work and live? I go to work in the dark (because it's Ottawa and winter) and come home in the dark, shelve my to-do list pretty much as soon as I cross the threshold, and go to bed to work on my book of New York Times crosswords for five or ten minutes.

I do my reading on the bus commute to work. Middlemarch is my current read and I highly recommend it if you're a "reader". It's really quite funny and you'll learn a lot of political history you forgot from your degree in history.

Luckily for me of sixty years but little pension I actually enjoy this job. It's super hard (for me, not my twenty-something mentors) but I figure instead of learning physics or algebra I'll learn how to do it. Also, the people are fun and pleasant to be around and so good for the soul.

Build brain cells AND pension AND relationships.

One of the great ironies of life here in Canada where we continue to lack equity is that the more opportunities we have to make money, the more money we will continue to make. So I promise to whine less going forward (as they say in government meetings, not about whining less but about going forward) because I've led a relatively charmed life and it's unseemly and embarrassing to me now, how much I've whined over the years.

And on the internet, too, which is forever!

Bear that cross in silent suffering I have not.

Okay, one more whine. Well not really a whine, more a public service announcement for you men out there reading this. On Sunday, I passed a kidney stone. So hear it from me - I pushed out three good sized babies, and when our healthcare professionals tell you men that passing a kidney stone is comparable to having a baby, know that they're lying.

Passing a kidney stone is exactly a grabillion times more painful than having a baby. I even had a doctor who looked and acted like he'd just stepped off the set of Grey's Anatomy, and nurses who also looked and acted like they'd just stepped off the set of Grey's Anatomy, all of whom assured me that passing a kidney stone wasn't dangerous, just painful, and I still thought I was in danger of going into cardiac arrest from the pain.

Oh, I just remembered, I thought I was going to die giving birth to my first child, and, in fact, asked the doctor if maybe she was overlooking my possible death from cardiac arrest due to the pain.

Okay, never mind, men. Know this instead - that suddenly, the pain will go because the stone has passed or dissolved or whatever the living hell your kidney has got up to with it. But unlike with having a baby, where we forget the pain so that we go on to have more babies, the memory of the pain in passing a kidney stone will linger, and, if you're smart, you will fill that prescription for suppository pain relief. It will barely put a dent in the pain but you'll be more comfortable inserting it at home than in a hospital washroom.

Anyway, here's what I learned about life at sixty this past Sunday - it's all about access to pain relief - and that, at the very least, should be equal for everybody.

Merry Christmas.

Against Her Better Judgement

Is the opinion piece below hate speech?

Ask Me Anything (Just Not That)

This Reality

Dear "the Left": Climate change alarmists, so Greens - and they won't say this out loud so aren't you lucky you dropped in - equate more money for Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat with more drives to the mall for disposable house and home filler-uppers and kid-amusers made on the other side of our polluted planet by people of much fewer means.

And everybody pretty much knows they're right, including Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat.

Conservatives know this, too, they just don't care.

Petty Business

So, I wasn't going to blog about it but I've changed my mind because it's too important to not, but the past month or so has been one of those awful nightmares chez moi caused by the incompetence (and hopefully not but possibly the corruption) of the sorts of people who can threaten to cost us money we don't and shouldn't owe.

It took an incredible toll on my health and well-being. I lost about five pounds and I can't afford to lose even one. It was the anxiety caused by being put in that situation. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, and it was all happening at a time when I'm learning how to do a difficult new job.

Fortunately, the people in my new workplace are understanding of this sort of thing, the situation I was put in being not so different from the situations of people they try to help.

But it got me thinking about all my co-citizens who find themselves in these situations every now and again and how soul-destroying they can be. For two weeks I felt like I could jump out of my skin, it was so frustrating. I'm recovering, but slowly, because I'm sixty and shit like this takes a higher toll on us when we're older than it does when we're younger.

It felt like a trespass into my home, that's why the fight or flight response I experienced. And I don't know if there's a gender divide here or not but I'm pretty sure I felt it stronger than did my male partner. It was a threat, I felt threatened, hence my reaction.

Anyway, the world is awash in corruption, we're all witnessing it writ large 24/7 thanks to the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States. But it's what we do to each other down here in Joe Sixpack and Sally Housecoat world that can have more devastating effects on our health and well-being, I think. The whole nightmare brought to mind a man who killed himself because he was being hounded by a collection agency for money he didn't owe. We had a similar problem years ago. The previous holder of a phone number we inherited owed money and I remember actually being lectured by one of these harassers that he was looking out for the taxpayer. I asked, "By harassing people who've inherited the phone number of someone you allege owes money?" And he actually said, "Yes!"

But what do you do? Do you sue? Or do you go forward in life keeping in mind that you never know what struggles people are privately living and to be kind to everybody, including the people who cause us needless pain and suffering.

So we'll see what happens next. I certainly hope this nightmare is over and my body can heal. I'll eventually write about this in my next book, and I'll make it funny because as Tommy Sexton put it, "What is there to do but laugh?"

Let's Not and Say We Did

This is classic America right now - celebrities reading the Mueller Report.

It's the brainchild of Cheri Jacobus.

Yeah I don't know who she is either.

Montel!

She's Baaaack

Who else but JWR.

Now she doesn't want to give up her big office to a Liberal.

Too bad she's not Algonquin or she could declare all of Parliament Hill her territory.

Make it super awkward for PMJT.

A prince in his culture, a princess in hers.

And never the twain shall meet.

Except in Ottawa.

Yo, Guys Who Wanna Be Billionaires

You'll still be dead forever.

Hahahahahahaha!

Algorithms Gone Wild

I noticed a Facebook friend pointing out how it targets her with inappropriate clothing ads, all the stereotyped way from fairy princess costumes to dominatrix underwear.

As far as I can tell, she's a politically astute musician whose hobby is deep-diving into online propagandizing operations.

I don't even see the ads they're targeting at me. But hey, I'm at that invisible age so maybe they're working and I just can't see it.

Annnnnd, I'm Done

So I had a revealing experience yesterday when I went to purchase a new smart phone (because I recently paid off the tab on the one I have now and so the battery is dying faster than a speeding bullet).

The handsome young man in the store steered me towards the phone he claimed was the one he owned (which I only just now realized is probably total bullshit) and I thought, okay, may as well get a good one - NOT that I have any idea what's good and what isn't when it comes to these pieces of disposable crap we rely on more than ever for reasons which escape me.

Anyway, I wasn't quite ready to do the deed as I didn't have my dying phone with me or my account number of the company I'd be switching from (because I have no idea how to get my account number as I really don't know how to use my dying phone). The handsome young man wanted me to come back later because he was working yesterday, not today, and being a former retail employee (2013-2015 ladieswear at the mall - watch for my book "That Looks Good on You - You Should Buy It" - coming soon) I sympathized with his warm eyes and charming smile and planned to do just that.

Then I went to the nearby grocery store, did my shopping, got home around 3:30, and realized I didn't have time to figure out how to get my account number off my dying phone, let alone go back to the phone store and do the deed.

We were scheduled for a potluck downtown, 6-ish, and I still had cookies and a salad to make.

By the way, cab companies in Ottawa use dispatchers on the other side of the world now and so public transit had better get its fucking act together or I'm moving to Timbuktu - where the cab dispatchers live?

The thing is, I'm so glad I didn't follow through now because I realized last night that I don't want to have to learn how to make proper use of a smart phone. It's too much for me. I'm done, tapped out, topped off. I'd even get a rotary phone that jacks into the wall except that then I'd be a sitting duck for pollsters and scammers and I doubt anyone makes them anymore anyway because they're not disposable pieces of crap.

We're drowning in garbage and we all know why and I guess I can at least not replace a smart phone I never used as anything more than a rotary phone that I could fit in my bag and take with me to work - which reminds me to tell you that my past couple of G-workplaces haven't come with phones!

So I'm going to stay with the same company I'm with because they're not extortionists, at least (so not Rogers or Bell) and get a phone that just does calls and texts. And when I'm lost, as I am on occasion because I still leave home without necessarily knowing where I'm going, I'll just ask someone who knows how to use their smart phone where I am and how I can get to where I want to be.

Because here's where I'm at now, I would much rather depend on the kindness of strangers, than learn to use one more bit (byte?) of technology.

Prim and Proper

I was just thinking the other day that, for all we roll our eyes or shake our fists at political correctness, especially when we're censured for doing or saying something politically incorrect because of it, the insistence on it by the better citizens among us has really made our country so much better than it was when I was a kid and political correctness was just a twinkle in a Feminist's eye.

Apple Puke

I dare you to watch Apple's Christmas ad currently running on CBC and not be sickened by the treacle. Ugh. I think it's the worst ad I've seen on CBC since yesterday.

Remembering Peter Kent

Really? I'd be more worried if Trudeau WASN'T making fun of Donald Trump at international receptions and the like. I mean, it would be hilarious if he did it with Donal Trump sitting right there beside him, but, you know, weird.

Always remember, no wait, never forget, "Oh you piece of shit!"

Best line ever uttered in Canada's House of Commons.

But seriously, kudos to whoever took the video.

Very reassuring.

Double Agent Man

My theory now is that Donald Trump only pretends to be a money laundering traitor for the Russian mob while actually being an informant for the FBI on the real money laundering traitors for the Russian mob.

Christmas Comes Early to Ottawans

I was going to blog about how a lot of the men I've encountered on the internet aren't so different from Donald Trump, re his slanderous, bullying, and litigious behaviour, particularly towards women he feels threatened by, but then I learned on CBC that the straps for the bars on Ottawa's light rail cars that the average sized woman can't reach without hurting herself have arrived, so yay, eh, life is good.