Happy New Ear!

and New Year too .. for my new year's resolution, thanks to Kathryn Borel Jr. (author of Corked! - a Memoir of Wine and Existential Dread" -- from today's National Post (why I subscribed to the NP is a story for another blog entry"

I would do a link to her book but I can't find one. If it's as good as this quote, I want to read it.

Says she:

"Don't trust all your feelings right away ..

I have a long and explosive history of experiencing a large scale feeling, trusting that it is correct and making twisted life decisions based on what turns out to be a mere impulse, as opposed to a real emotion. Like most significant things, big life truths or important feelings tend to take a bit of time to reveal themselves in full... I now generally squash the impulse to make public -- or private -- proclamations of big feelings. I mix the truth with a little time and light and measured discussion and see if it holds as steady as I thought it did in the first place. And then I act."

I think she's a bit further ahead of me when it comes to this particular skill .. I expect this will be hard work for me.

Those Weak Female Politicians ...

Here's one of the stranger paragraphs I've seen in a long time:

From The Globe and Mail, today, "Pakistan: Former PM's Lobbying Trips Leave Little Time for Family" by Brett Popplewell:

(preceded by several paragraphs about her rise and fall from power as the only woman to have governed an Islamic state in the modern era)

"Though she's comfortable wielding the powers of a world leader, she's not without her weaknesses. It's said her personal library in Dubai houses four shelves devoted to self-help books. A lover of Ben and Jerry's caramel fudge ice cream, chocolate cake and meringues, she keeps her impulses in check by switching from one diet to another. Although, for treat, she enjoys lunch at Harrods, London's famed department store".

Maybe that's why I never had the desire to go into politics ... my weakness for Ben and Jerry's obviously deems me unqualified for the halls of power.

Opting back in

Well, I am becoming a member of North American (read:consumer) society again. I now have my own apartment (haven’t moved in yet but that will happen next Monday), I am now typing this as I wait for Cogeco Cable to go through their exceedingly long voicemail message that explains that I am liable for everything and they are liable for nothing. I cannot get exit this message because if I hang up they will not hook up my cable and internet, which makes the fifteen minutes I’ve already been on the phone signing up rather pointless. It is very, very, very boring. So I am updating my blog at the same time.

Living by society’s rules is really complicated. It has been much easier with no home and wandering around from place to place with no bills but my Visa card to pay so that I can do more travelling. I like being a gypsy. I am going to miss it.

Fuck … this message isn’t over yet … pardon my profanity. I don’t like businesses which waste my time like this. I don’t need them to read a whole contract to me OVER THE PHONE!

So I’ve put down the phone and let the recorded message blather on.

Even though I’ve opted back in, I’m still undecided about how much to do it Okay, an apartment for now is the way to go. For now. Until I can establish an intentional community with likeminded people. It will happen but it's a few years off. And I don't know where it's going to be yet. And I have to have communications services. I will have to do that even in my intentional community Shangr-la. Some things are inevitable. But I don’t have to shop at Walmart or at the mall. I don’t have to buy into consumerism to the degree that I used to think I had to.

I’m thinking that I want to buy little, and bank my money for travelling. Forget RRSP’s – at my age it’s not going to do me much good. I was listening to one financial advisor on the radio who pointed out that in order for most Canadians to live the Freedom 55 lifestyle, they’d need at least half a million dollars in RRSPs when they retire. And the average Canadian RRSP savings is $40,000. I think I’m just going to have to take my chances and trust grace and luck to get me through my old age. And thank god people in Ontario don’t have to retire at 65 because I’ll be working until I drop dead.

Update -- Fifteen minutes later. The annoying dial-a-contract message is STILL going. So I hung up. Wonder if they'll tell me I can't have cable now. My god, read me House of Commons proceedings instead. It would be a lot more interesting compared to this. Hope this telecontract thing doesn’t become a trend. If the pollution and wars don’t get us, these big corporations are going to bore us to death.

Tonight’s contacts with the big wide world of North American commerce has reaffirmed something that I already knew … that I don’t want to deal with big corporations any more and will do business with ordinary people except in cases where I can’t avoid it.

(I am unusually crabby today … probably because I woke up annoyed because my body was telling me it was 8:00 and the clock said it was already 9. I'm also bitchy because somebody decided to make daylight savings time happen 3 weeks early. Daylight savings time is not supposed to start when the snow is still on the ground. It ain't natural)

I really must be careful …. this last 18 months has been a welcome holiday from frustration and cynicism. The challenge is to maintain that spirit … and to discover how I can opt out spiritually while opting in to those things that I need – like services of big companies that do phones, internet and rent apartments. And to enjoy the good things about Western society without letting the not-so-good things drag me down.

It's truly a spiritual challenge, it is.

The History of Podsafe Music

I am finishing my doc about Indian community radio and have a few segments that are naked of background sound. So I did a search for Indian Podsafe Music. Didn't find much except for one enterprising rock band named Parlay who are everywhere in Google search land.

I did find a reallllllly funny site that you have to see called The History of Podsafe Music

This is the comment which instigated the item coming up in Google:



"The first evidence of podsafe music was discovered in this cave drawing in central India. It depicts the mirth and disdain of the fertility goddess after attending a show by an unsigned band. Squirting milk from her breasts was not only a prehistoric version of throwing a tomato, but also indicated the band members' inability to get women."

Click on the site to get the full effect. And the other four significant eras of podcast history.

"A Model Wife and Mother"

I love this statue.

I'm sure you all know who this is. If not, let me give you a clue ... one of the reasons why I love this statue is because of her name. When I was in India, a number of people said to me "oh, Victoria, you have a very important name". And yes, I guess it is. After all, she was the first and only Empress of India.

The most amazing thing about this statue to me is the inscription:

VICTORIA
QUEEN AND EMPRESS
A MODEL WIFE AND MOTHER

It was dedicated to the Queen by the women of Hamilton in the early part of the century.

Queen and Empress --- yes.

But ... a model wife and mother ????

I guess it depends which model you're looking at. Model wife she was. She loved Prince Albert. In every sense of the word. Prince Albert, despite being regarded as her social inferior, was her closest advisor. When he died, she went into mourning and wore black for the rest of her life. By all reports, she was a woman deeply in love and a woman who deeply loved.

As far as the Model Mother part ... by all reports, that's stretching it quite a bit. She was the mother of nine children, but allegedly thought the act of childbirth and all things associated with it to be deeply disgusting. And she once referred to babies as being ungainly as little frogs. Deeply maternal she was not. Allegedly, anyway.

All that aside, what I find ironic about this statue is the juxtaposition of those words, Empress, Queen, Wife, Mother. It makes me wonder what statement was being made about ideal womanhood. Was it not enough to be Queen and Empress?

Or maybe it was an attempt to humanize her and minimize the distance between her and her loyal subjects in Hamilton?

Well, without reading too deeply into it, the statue just plain makes me smile. Partly because of the absurdity of it, partly because it's so damn dramatic ... I wouldn't describe her face as severe, but she is not a woman to be trifled with. "Mom" is not the word which comes to mind when gazing upward at this woman with sceptre in hand and a lion guarding her feet.

I like it because it's a great piece of art, a great piece of history. With a really great name.

Not for Sale

What an odd little island this is. Still on Denman Island. Funny how each of the islands has its own personality. Went over to Hornby Island yesterday which was much different from Denman, which is much different from Cortes, Gabriola etc. I have now been on six of the Gulf Islands and the contrast between them is striking.

Denman and Cortes are really hardscrabble little places where you can tell how much people are struggling. Hornby and Gabriola are more gentrified. We won't even talk about Saltspring, which is positively suburban.

All of the islands are getting rapidly bought up by people who have much more money than the people who have lived here for twenty or thirty years. The islands have been a haven for back-to-the-landers, draft dodgers, artists and anybody else who wanted to escape. And they're not all taking kindly to the influx of city folk who are waving large bankrolls in front of the islanders. It's a big temptation when you're offered half a million dollars for a place that you might have spent $50,000 on. Even for the people who don't sell, it's changing the community.

Here on Denman, some of the local folks are doing their own form of "Hell No, We Won't Go". Mixed in with "For Sale" signs throughout the island are "NOT for sale" signs. The real estate company advertised has names like "Bananarchy Realty - Pimping the Planet One Acre at a Time". It's very funny. I'm going to go out today and get some pictures of some of the more unique ones (though they're ALL unique).

I can see what they're trying to protect. It's real tempting to stay here and never go back. This morning I went out into the yard and there were two does and four fawns grazing about ten feet away from me.

Yesterday we went to Hornby Island, which is a little more gentrified than Denman. It has a GREAT nude beach with clean, fine sand. Almost ended up walking 8 miles from the ferry terminal because of it, though.

We lost track of time and didn't catch the ferry until 7:15. By the time we got back to Denman it was starting to get dark and there wasn't much traffic to hitch a ride with. Fortunately we met a nice man who was out for a night time walk and we explained we were out on a VERY long walk. So, in typical island fashion, he offered us a ride.

The islands are really good for that kind of thing. Sure hope they can preserve that spirit in spite of encroaching development.

Oh, and did I mention there is a cougar and a bear and cubs on the island? Sure glad we got that ride ... "lions and tigers and bears, oh my!"

Killaloe with a View

My travellin' buddy and I arrived at Denman Island last night. Accommodations are slim pickings on the Islands this weekend since it is the long weekend.

We found ourselves a little guesthouse called The Denman Island Guesthouse. It's somethin' else. The Killaloe reference in my title is to a little place in the Ottawa Valley where time has stood still, and the Denman Island Guest House is also in that category.

How to describe it .. I will post a picture when I get back to Vancouver so you can see for yourself. In the meantime, here goes. It's a 1912 farmhouse that hasn't really been updated since that time. It's kind of like the house of an eccentric old uncle where everything in it has landed there over a period of time with no thought to planning and design. Or maybe it's like the summer cottage where all the outdated furniture from the main house has gone to die.

I expect a power struggle with my companion tonight over who gets the better bed. Last night he suggested he might need the bigger bed, I said I wasn't giving up that easy and we flipped for it. Tails I win. I did. Then again, because I snore (shh, don't tell anybody), he may just decide to go for one of the dorm rooms.

The house also has a brand new hot tub, which is becoming a theme throughout this blog isn't it? And a glorious view of the mountains of Vancouver Island. I think I'm going to have fun here for a couple of days. And it's only $20 a night, so the price is right too.

It also has a cafe with good coffee and yummy sounding food. And internet access, so I'm having my coffee, blogging away and enjoying the morning.

Waiting for the lights to go out ..

I'm leaving Hollyhock and Cortes Island this morning and over to Denman and Hornby Island. The power is going to go out any minute .. new power line going in across the water from Vancouver Island. So I don't have much time.

It's been a blast. Tour of the island yesterday, where people are still mad because somebody painted a yellow line down the middle of the highway ("I'm paying for both sides of the road so I can drive wherever I want") Typical rural community with the usual squabbles between people but they make it work.

Did yoga this morning. Yesterday was better .. hit the wall so had to ease up on myself. think I'll go jump in the hot tub for one last time before shoving off.

Wonderful time. I'm coming back.


This is The Sanctuary -- the place where the meditation happens.

Oh My God! It's the God Truck!

I remember saying to a friend before I came out here, "But is the God Truck still around?". And today I found it.

This one is probably more accurately called Son of God-Truck. Because it's not exactly the same. The old God-Truck was like a .. say, probably a three ton truck. The signs on it were made of wood and it was mounted on the bed of the truck like an A-frame. It looked like a cross between a sandwich board and an evangelistic little camper. You could take it into the rainforest and sleep in it when you're done proselytizing.

Son of God Truck looks like a camper van from one angle, and a monster truck from another (puny little monster truck, but the monster truck all the same). Stylistically the two are very similar -- if it's not the God Truck guy himself with an updated image, it might be his kid. To paraphrase a friend of mine .. "this is not indeed the God-Truck, but the God-Truckness cannot be denied".

The message has changed. No words about Jesus Christ coming to earth. Lots of political rambles, including the question "are you a sheeple?" Much railing about the evil media, evil oil, evil George Bush and a quote by (I forget his first name) Wolfewitz.

Guess these days he figures we don't have to talk directly about Satan ...

Good to see that quirky expression still exists in Vancouver. And that the spirit of the God-Truck is still alive and travellin' around.

Not a career option

It always helps to know where you stand when a chance for a job comes up .. do I apply or not? Would I be happy doing this kind of work?

Here is a no-brainer. I got an email from the "Defense Talent Network" inviting me (and likely hundreds of thousands of others) to apply for a job as a proposal writer. Ya, a job I could do, but is "Defense Talent Network" what I think it is.

Sure enough. How anybody managed to get me on a list to imvite to do work involving missile defence systems and ICBMs is a question .. obviously they don't know anything about the people they're spamming. Because if they did any research at all, they sure wouldn't ask ME.

fyi -- still on the road, heading up to Ottawa for a week. Back to Hamilton/T.O. on June 12, out to Vancouver on the 16th.

Inauspicious Addresses

Well, things in the clans Fenner/White are still sad, but we're starting to get our senses of humour back .. at least a little bit.

I am consoling myself by thinking about Nova Scotia and getting back there again and opening up my arts retreat/media institute. And giving Cindy a job working with me. Tony's studying Library Science and we're going to need a media librarian too. And we're going to raise chickens and puppies. And a horse or two. (No rabbits, though. They're pretty dumb. So are chickens but eggs are good.)

Got it all figured out how we're going to have a happy future. So I've been doing what I usually do every day, which is combing www.mls.ca (the online real estate site). There are some funny things to be found there.

Like, how's "0 Victory Road" for an address?

Don't think I'll move there. Or Lake Despair either (actually that's one in Northern Ontario -- Barry and I encountered that one when we were in a big 25 foot yellow Ryder truck with all of our possessions in the back. Right about the time we were convinced we were lost in the bush. That was the same trip we went 20 miles offroad in Manitoba, also in our 25 foot big yellow truck, because somebody told us there were buffalo back there.)

Ah, the sadness of life is oft offset by the absurdity ...

Car-free living

Wow, those cognitive distortion busting and anxiety management lessons I've spent so much time on are really coming in handy this morning.

I'm just laughing. There's nothing else to do about it (except for political action, more on that later). My insurance broker got back to me and told me they would insure me but would raise my rate from $77 a month to $425 a month.

I laughed at my broker when she told me. And laughed and laughed. The idea that I would give an insurance company $425 a month when I don't have to is just absurd. And said, I guess I'm going to be living in the city then and bike and bus and take cabs and rent cars when I want to get out of town. And then I gave her a lecture on how not having a car was going to keep us alive longer anyway. And how the insurance companies wouldn't be able to get away with this if more of us decided to give up our cars.

I was nice to her, though. Really I was. It's important to depersonalize these things a lot of the time.

And then I told her that, since I won't be driving anywhere I'll have lots of time to lobby for public auto insurance.

I'm just glad I have the choice in this.

The larger picture does bother me, though. My insurance agent is in South River, an area not known for availability of public transit. And an area where many, many people are barely scraping by just to support their families. One accident (and a minor one at that) has the potential to impoverish a family.

When visiting South River, I have heard many people refer to South River as the "welfare capital of the north". Well, hell if people can't afford to go to work, what choice do they have? I know, this isn't a problem that's limited to South River -- I am only using them as an example. And I'm not picking on my insurance agent because their only control over this is to go into another line of work .. But this was also heavy Mike Harris/Ernie Eves territory, and we know that neither Harris or Eves really cared all that much about the plight of the welfare mother who can't get auto insurance. And somebody voted them in. So in that sense all the South Rivers in the province and the people who voted for them are responsible.

As for me, I am fortunate that I have the choice. Maybe I'll move to Halifax and just rent a car every now and again to get out to the shore. Or maybe I'll move to Ottawa which is a cool city with great bike paths. I have options .. if I do decide to go further with this, it will be mostly for the benefit of those people who don't.

And of course to blow off some steam in a socially productive way.