The things you do for your friends' kids' college fund...

So I had heard that medical tourism was the up and coming thing and then my mate Caelen started his own company in the sector.

So it must be true.

Caelen has had a successful surf of the internet for a number of years now, and like all success, it is borne out of hard work.

So he asked for a mention, as it will help with his internet ratings.

The more money Caelen has, the more money Denali and Meeda have in their college fund, so I am happy to oblige.

My only question is: why are there no Venezuelan breast implant clinics on the site? They are recognised to be the best in the world and thousands of Americans (continental rather than stateside) travel there to have their boobs done every year.

A trip to the beach in Venezuela is a very interesting experience, if you are interested in implants of any kind.

And a trip to Reva Health Network is also a very interesting experience - check it out for all your cosmetic and other medical needs. If you don't live in Canada where we have FREE HEALTH CARE FOR EVERYONE.

Thanks to the NDP.

Memories are funny things, but not as funny as self-help books

The Monkeys are here of course. By that I mean accentmonkey and her husband, Mr. Monkey. So there's been a lot of sitting around in the sunshine (after work for me) having a beer and shooting the breeze about everyone and everything going on in Ireland.

Nostalgia rules.

And then out of the blue yesterday, a friend of mine from college turns up on Facebook. We figured it out last night; I hadn't seen her for over six years.

She hasn't changed ONE LITTLE BIT.

She has a converted ambulance called Bessie that she camps in.

Of course she does. I expect nothing less than a converted ambulance.

Except maybe a converted fire truck.

I'm sure that's on the To Do List.

Tor always had the best To Do lists.

I wonder whether Albert the Stationwagon and Bessie the Converted Ambulance would get on?

Probably, their owners always did.

Anyways, it brought back a lot of memories of an apartment we shared on the North Circular Rd in Dublin way back in 1989/ 90.

The other hippie chick in my life, little sister, sent me a book for my birthday. A self-help book. I don't usually read them, but as it was a gift I did. It's called The Monk who sold his Ferrari, by Robin Sharma.

I am now very conflicted about said book.

There were a lot of very inspiring quotes in the book. None of which were written by Mr. Sharma, of course. The bits he wrote were very badly written. The premise of the book is that

1. We are all walking around with an illusion of the world created by the fact that we had to conform to our parents (and thereby other people) in order to feel loved.

2. That blindness prevents us from accessing our true selves, and consequently we all hurt and do nasty things to each other.

3. When we strip away the illusion and see the world as it really is, and re-invent our innocent pure selves, the Universe will reward us with abundance.

4. This takes a lot of effort: meditation, yoga, reading, journalling, massage, diet, walks in the countryside will all help to keep us healthy and work through the anger. Going to seminars is helpful too. (I assume Mr. Sharma does seminars).

5. Most people can't do this, but those who can live 'the biggest life possible'.

Mr. Sharma was a little sketchy on the details of the biggest life possible, but it involved appreciating nature and the people in your life. And service to mankind.

My problems with these books is that the people who are the main characters are always highly successful businessmen who have a crisis of health which leads to a crisis of conscience, and then realise (with the help of a shaven-headed guru who drives a Ferrari that they don't own) that if they are nicer people, they will get to keep their money and have a shiny soul as well.

I would like to read a book about a woman who works in a call centre in Windsor, for example, who goes home each evening to three kids, a useless husband and a mother with Alzheimer's, who gets totally fed up and leaves. When she opens her heart to the universe, she ends up being the next Martha Stewart (in income terms) and finds peace sailing the world in a flashy yacht that she doesn't own.

But it never works like that in those books.

I should write the anti-self-help book.

It would help me work through the anger.

Anyways, I opened my heart to the universe last night and the universe responded by dumping two inches of rain on my yard this morning, and made me get up at 5.30am to drive Himself to work so I could have Albert for the day.

I didn't even get to admire the sunrise, as it was too foggy.

Container ship with George's Island and tall ship in the background, Halifax Harbour

It's all about perspective, isn't it.

Having read some Campbell diary extracts...

... I have a whole new respect for my Taoiseach.

Poison 'em all, indeed.

Hahahahahaahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!

I'd love to have seen Wally Kirwan's face when he said that.

I am really looking forward to reading this book when it wends it way over here.

Teenagers.... sigh...at least I've stopped throwing up

I appear to have stopped throwing up. Our neighbour came in today and said the throwing up was probably due to the passing on of a nasty little virus from his kids.

Bloody kids.

Not those ones particularly. They're lovely kids.

Just kids in general.

Kitty called looking for money today to go on a shopping trip to St. John, and when we wouldn't give her enough (ie more than $150 which we scraped together at a day's notice) she swore at her father. Then she called back and when I took a strip off her for being an ungrateful little hussy, she swore at me.

So we reduced the amount we are giving her by fifty dollars. To teach her a lesson about ingratitudinal swearing.

Then her mother called to say that we were a pair of selfish layabouts and so she was going to go after alimony (from me, apparently, I don't ever remember having a lesbian marriage with a psychopath, but I've done stranger things when I'm drunk so maybe) and swore at Himself a lot about how we were living high on the hog (whatever way you say that when you're a psychotic Quebecoise), and how that was all going to end soon.

I told Himself I had that possibility checked out by the greatest legal minds in Nova Scotia as soon as I realised he was divorcing a psychopath and it was okay, my millions are safe from her.

Pennies can be millions too, boys and girls, it's all about perspective.

So now we are both sitting here relieved we have stopped throwing up finally (no small measure for Himself who had to not throw up into his oxygen mask at work all day) but kinda sad that there's all this swearing going on about money.

Honey catches flies better than vinegar.

I very much hope that Kitty will learn that one of the days, when she's a little more mature. Of course, I'm one to talk - I wrote a lofty, patronising message on her Facebook wall for all her relations and friends to see, and deleted her as a friend so she can't swear at me online - so I don't think maturity is the issue.

It's all about perspective. My parents went short to give me things and so when Kitty was here, I did the same and we went short to give her things, and because her mother would never dream of doing that, the fact that she had clothes and shoes and bags and books and money in her pocket when she got home meant that I must be rich.

Anyways, we have transferred the child benefit back to her mother's name, as Kitty seems to have settled down a bit too well at home, so hopefully the federal machinary will creak into action at some point and she will calm down and stop forcing her daughter to extort money out of me.

What hurt the most was Kitty telling me that she didn't have to take any (of my) crap from someone that wasn't even in her family.

I suppose that's why she forgot my birthday last week.

It doesn't hurt because it's hurtful - well, forgetting my birthday was actually kinda hurtful. That's the downside of Facebook - if you forget you just don't care, do you!! But she's just a teenager, and her hormones are in control.

It hurts because it reminds me of all the hurtful things I said to my mother when I was sixteen.

At least I get to apologise nowadays though. Two weeks of it in August, as the Queen Parents make their second royal visit to Nova Scotia.

Hooray!

A year in review

I should do this now, because I will be busy later.

But I don't really want to do it.

Himself will be up in a bit, though, and then it will be all go, all of the time until tomorrow.

2006 - 07 - What have I achieved?

I can't even remember most of it, what happened? Let's see...

I moved house and found this place, which is great and which we love.

I sold some of my photo cards, that was pretty cool. Making money from something creative is very cool. I will do more of that next year.

I went to Ireland. That was pretty cool too. I will do that again soon of course.

I parented someone for a number of months. That was not cool. That was difficult. My mothering style is a sarcastic version of my mother's. Which would have probably worked if I was mothering me, but I was dealing with a whole different kettle of fish.

I also learned that there is nothing wrong with saying that X, Y or Z is a pointless piece of marketing-driven shit and that the child involved should walk away from it now. Right now. The ensuing absence of said piece of marketing-driven shit is a learning experience for them, not a privation. Parents need to re-assert themselves against the forces of advertising. Starting by ignoring it themselves a bit.

I read a lot of books. Much more manageable, books. Pop em on a shelf until you need 'em and then pop 'em back when you're finished with them.

I sold books for the first time so we could buy dinner, and a hole did not appear in my universe.

I managed not to blow my SSIA money on anything. (Did anyone else notice that piece in the IT about how everyone paid off their credit cards with their SSIA money, cutting debt by EU6 billion or something in one month - scary!!)

Yet.

I bought Albert the Stationwagon, and sold my car in Ireland.

I continued to pay some of my mortgage in Ireland as well as my rent here, on a pitiful salary. I have got to sort this out. This year's challenge.

I moved in with someone and it worked despite the slam dunk of a teenager right from the start, and we still get on. That's pretty cool.

I completed my immigration process and am now waiting for a decision.

I bought a new camera and took lots of nice photos.

I learned how to bind books.

I learned how to use a barbeque.

I planted a vegetable garden.

I lost my beloved fish and got the phish.

I learned whatever effing lesson about money Saturn is trying to teach me and am now anxiously waiting for 2nd September when he goes away for a bit.

I managed to keep this blog going.

I bought a bed.

I furnished an apartment for less then $1,000.

I guess I did okay.

I wonder what next year will bring?

It's not how old you are, it's how you are old

So my Google interface told me today anyway.


How apt, it being my birthday weekend.

I have a love hate relationship with my birthday.

I hate my birthday. But it is my birthday. So I get all sniffy if people don't mark it. But I get all sniffy if people do mark it because I find it embarrassing to be the centre of attention.

I am a pain in the ass about it, basically. Needy-needy in all the bad ways about it.

Who cares, it's MY birthday.

Speaking of, I am having a barbeque this afternoon to mark my birthday by feeding other people (that I can handle, being a Cancerian), and two guests have already emailed me this week to say, hewm...naaahhh... don't know if I can be arsed, maybe I'll come, type out all the instructions again for me in case I'm REALLY bored and decide to turn up.

The fuck I will.

Listen, petaleen (as Nabla says when she's mad with me), if you don't care about me enough to pretend that you are very busy doing some dreadful domestic chore, so you are terribly sad that you're maybe going to miss my birthday, then you have no business coming to my home to eat my food if there's nothing better on offer.

I am completely astounded at the rudeness of it.

Not the not turning up part, I've been doing that myself for decades.

The openly, cheerfully, candidly admitting they can't be arsed part.

What, do they think I am stupid? Do they think I have no feelings?

Of course they are younger than me, so that's probably why they think it's okay.

Us oldarses know better....

Thirty seven.

God how boring that sounds.

Some Potery for Ur Edification

I just took a notion to read this today. It reminds me of a lot of things... reasons why I came to Canada mostly...

The Fisherman
By WB Yeats

ALTHOUGH I can see him still.
The freckled man who goes
To a grey place on a hill
In grey Connemara clothes
At dawn to cast his flies,
It's long since I began
To call up to the eyes
This wise and simple man.

All day I'd looked in the face
What I had hoped 'twould be
To write for my own race
And the reality;
The living men that I hate,
The dead man that I loved,
The craven man in his seat,
The insolent unreproved,
And no knave brought to book
Who has won a drunken cheer,
The witty man and his joke
Aimed at the commonest ear,
The clever man who cries
The catch-cries of the clown,
The beating down of the wise
And great Art beaten down.

Maybe a twelvemonth since
Suddenly I began,
In scorn of this audience,
Imagining a man,
And his sun-freckled face,
And grey Connemara cloth,
Climbing up to a place
Where stone is dark under froth,
And the down-turn of his wrist
When the flies drop in the stream;
A man who does not exist,
A man who is but a dream;
And cried, 'Before I am old
I shall have written him one
poem maybe as cold
And passionate as the dawn.

It's not raining in Nova Scotia

Happy Canada Day, from the Bear Falls' frog