Thursday, October 18, 2007
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Hobson's Choice
So today is Throne Speech day. For all you paddies, Throne Speech day is the day the Canadian parliament goes back into session (no, they haven't gone back to work yet - and they wonder why Canada is not competitive), the Governor General (a lovely Haitian lady called Michael Jean) reads out a speech written by the government (ie Stephen Harper) about all the work it's going to do for the next year.
Then everyone tries to jostle into a position whereby they can cause an election without actually getting blemt for it (as over 70% of Canadians don't want an election).
But Queenie, if there's an election, then the government won't get to do any of the work in the speech.
I know, boys and girls, I know.
Problem is, politics in Canada is staffed with people who have degrees in political science, as opposed to people who have degrees in economics, or sociology, education policy, or public administration. Consequently, they like to have elections.
Hobson's Choice Day: another year of Stephen Harper talking about carbon sequestration rather than wind power, or another effing election.
Grrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Then everyone tries to jostle into a position whereby they can cause an election without actually getting blemt for it (as over 70% of Canadians don't want an election).
But Queenie, if there's an election, then the government won't get to do any of the work in the speech.
I know, boys and girls, I know.
Problem is, politics in Canada is staffed with people who have degrees in political science, as opposed to people who have degrees in economics, or sociology, education policy, or public administration. Consequently, they like to have elections.
Hobson's Choice Day: another year of Stephen Harper talking about carbon sequestration rather than wind power, or another effing election.
Grrrrrrgh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Saturday, October 13, 2007
A poem for Jim
This is a poem posted in honour of the memory of one of my favourite people, who has gone Home after a long illness, to be with his wife and friend.
Jim Loftus
Husband to dearly missed Eileen, father to beloved Nabla and Roisin, father-in-law to Allan (and Shane), grandfather to Dara and the babies, godfather to many, including my brother Baz (of which I was always insanely jealous)...
History teacher to me and hundreds more, including the wonderful students in Nigeria he never forgot and often told us dreadful Irish students about (little birds with their mouths open, they wanted to learn so much)...
Good friend to the Queen Parents and dozens more...
Intellectual, wit, anarchist in his own way, owner of the greatest book collection I saw before I went to Trinity College library, crossword fanatic...
Trivial Pursuit cheat (not that he ever needed to)...
Mentor to me always, mostly with a grin at my naivety/ stupidity/ whatever, always with a kind word, a witty comeback and sound advice...
The subterfuge we both descended to in order to get in a round for each other, subterfuge I never won...
Wearer of red socks, pipe-smoker, dog-lover (Juko, Scamp, Flop, Fiddler)...
Clareman, no, Kilfenora man...
A man with stars in his eyes, the soul of a poet and the pointedness of a swordsman.
Goodbye Sir James. Sir.
My life is emptier for your absence.
My soul is better for your influence on it.
I'm sorry I crashed your car when I was three.
It wasn't Nabla's fault.
Honest.
It was mine.
Say hello to Eileen and Mr. O'Neill for me.
Tell Eileen I miss her dreadfully still.
Tell Mr. O'Neill I still can't call him Jimmy. And I still can't sing Pythagoras.
I'm sorry I didn't know the last time I saw you was the last time. But we had a nice chat in the kitchen that night didn't we.
A poem for the end of the century
By Czeslaw Milosz
When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.
Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?
To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."
"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."
To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?
Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity
Jim Loftus
Husband to dearly missed Eileen, father to beloved Nabla and Roisin, father-in-law to Allan (and Shane), grandfather to Dara and the babies, godfather to many, including my brother Baz (of which I was always insanely jealous)...
History teacher to me and hundreds more, including the wonderful students in Nigeria he never forgot and often told us dreadful Irish students about (little birds with their mouths open, they wanted to learn so much)...
Good friend to the Queen Parents and dozens more...
Intellectual, wit, anarchist in his own way, owner of the greatest book collection I saw before I went to Trinity College library, crossword fanatic...
Trivial Pursuit cheat (not that he ever needed to)...
Mentor to me always, mostly with a grin at my naivety/ stupidity/ whatever, always with a kind word, a witty comeback and sound advice...
The subterfuge we both descended to in order to get in a round for each other, subterfuge I never won...
Wearer of red socks, pipe-smoker, dog-lover (Juko, Scamp, Flop, Fiddler)...
Clareman, no, Kilfenora man...
A man with stars in his eyes, the soul of a poet and the pointedness of a swordsman.
Goodbye Sir James. Sir.
My life is emptier for your absence.
My soul is better for your influence on it.
I'm sorry I crashed your car when I was three.
It wasn't Nabla's fault.
Honest.
It was mine.
Say hello to Eileen and Mr. O'Neill for me.
Tell Eileen I miss her dreadfully still.
Tell Mr. O'Neill I still can't call him Jimmy. And I still can't sing Pythagoras.
I'm sorry I didn't know the last time I saw you was the last time. But we had a nice chat in the kitchen that night didn't we.
A poem for the end of the century
By Czeslaw Milosz
When everything was fine
And the notion of sin had vanished
And the earth was ready
In universal peace
To consume and rejoice
Without creeds and utopias,
I, for unknown reasons,
Surrounded by the books
Of prophets and theologians,
Of philosophers, poets,
Searched for an answer,
Scowling, grimacing,
Waking up at night, muttering at dawn.
What oppressed me so much
Was a bit shameful.
Talking of it aloud
Would show neither tact nor prudence.
It might even seem an outrage
Against the health of mankind.
Alas, my memory
Does not want to leave me
And in it, live beings
Each with its own pain,
Each with its own dying,
Its own trepidation.
Why then innocence
On paradisal beaches,
An impeccable sky
Over the church of hygiene?
Is it because that
Was long ago?
To a saintly man
--So goes an Arab tale--
God said somewhat maliciously:
"Had I revealed to people
How great a sinner you are,
They could not praise you."
"And I," answered the pious one,
"Had I unveiled to them
How merciful you are,
They would not care for you."
To whom should I turn
With that affair so dark
Of pain and also guilt
In the structure of the world,
If either here below
Or over there on high
No power can abolish
The cause and the effect?
Don't think, don't remember
The death on the cross,
Though everyday He dies,
The only one, all-loving,
Who without any need
Consented and allowed
To exist all that is,
Including nails of torture.
Totally enigmatic.
Impossibly intricate.
Better to stop speech here.
This language is not for people.
Blessed be jubilation.
Vintages and harvests.
Even if not everyone
Is granted serenity
Friday, October 12, 2007
It's nice to be reminded sometimes...
Himself is sick.
There we were, home at last on Friday, lazing around in the afterglow of a good week's work done (on Himself's part anyways), thinking about how we were going to spend the rest of the evening (after I had finished reading my Nordic detective novel - God knows, you can't get a word out of me when I'm tucked up reading one of them. And the library filled one of their 'don't know what to read?' wheelie units full of them and entitled it Snowy Death for my delection this week, saving me from even having to ferret them out), when suddenly Himself is throwing up into the toilet (I do love a man who throws up into the toilet. I went out with one who insisted on throwing up into the sink all the time and was then too sick to clean it up) and is lying in bed all hot and feverish and s-i-c-k....
I wiped him down with a damp cloth all Florence Nightingale-like, and resisted the urge to give him a whatchamacall it with it (I am not too up on the male dressing room lingo but you know what I mean).
No?
Well, I know what I mean and it's not as bad as it sounds.
Oh no, since I started typing he's arisen from the feverish near dead and is up and at the tomato soup!
Let's hope it works.
There's nothing worse than throwing up tomato soup.
After reading this out to Himself, he concurs.
It'll kill him or cure him.
Well, he can't be that sick if he's laying into soup and bread.
He was probably just making room for it, after his enormous Chinese takeaway dinner that Andy the big boss bought for them all for being such great workers.
Now we're onto the 'maybe it's the sludge that is killing me slowly' conversation.
Maybe.
I must check whether the company has paid up it's workers' compensation payments.
I am JOKING!
We are both just bone tired I think.
Today's exciting news is that it rained.
Proper rain. Sheets of it hurling itself against my office window. The clouds low over the harbour and the oil tankers and the Post-Panamax cargo ships looming out of them with a suddenness that is entertaining when you are desparately looking out of the window because the pile of work on your desk is so soul-destroying you would rather look at the rain.
With a 90kmph wind that skitters the water uphill so it looks like a river has jumped out of the harbour and is disobeying the forces of gravity on the slopes of the hill upon which downtown is piled.
I love when it rains like that. People stop and say: 'does it rain like that in Ireland, eh?' And I say: 'oh yes.'
'Most days.'
Their faces are a picture.
The other exciting news is that we bought a GPS unit. From a bloke in the AirForce base. For $75.
We ain't never getting lost in the woods again, nosirreebob.
Not that we ever did. But now, we can get out of the car, plot it on the GPS, break through the tree cover and go where we please.
We can get lost deliberately.
Hooray.
I think.
Which reminds me of another ex of mine who used to get lost on the mountains deliberately for the fun of it.
But who despised people with GPS units.
It is so nice to have a boyfriend who understands that I hate to
a) get lost in the woods for no effing reason, and
b) clean up other people's hurl.
Now if I could just get him to stay away from my nice tomato and basil soup that I had planned for later!
There we were, home at last on Friday, lazing around in the afterglow of a good week's work done (on Himself's part anyways), thinking about how we were going to spend the rest of the evening (after I had finished reading my Nordic detective novel - God knows, you can't get a word out of me when I'm tucked up reading one of them. And the library filled one of their 'don't know what to read?' wheelie units full of them and entitled it Snowy Death for my delection this week, saving me from even having to ferret them out), when suddenly Himself is throwing up into the toilet (I do love a man who throws up into the toilet. I went out with one who insisted on throwing up into the sink all the time and was then too sick to clean it up) and is lying in bed all hot and feverish and s-i-c-k....
I wiped him down with a damp cloth all Florence Nightingale-like, and resisted the urge to give him a whatchamacall it with it (I am not too up on the male dressing room lingo but you know what I mean).
No?
Well, I know what I mean and it's not as bad as it sounds.
Oh no, since I started typing he's arisen from the feverish near dead and is up and at the tomato soup!
Let's hope it works.
There's nothing worse than throwing up tomato soup.
After reading this out to Himself, he concurs.
It'll kill him or cure him.
Well, he can't be that sick if he's laying into soup and bread.
He was probably just making room for it, after his enormous Chinese takeaway dinner that Andy the big boss bought for them all for being such great workers.
Now we're onto the 'maybe it's the sludge that is killing me slowly' conversation.
Maybe.
I must check whether the company has paid up it's workers' compensation payments.
I am JOKING!
We are both just bone tired I think.
Today's exciting news is that it rained.
Proper rain. Sheets of it hurling itself against my office window. The clouds low over the harbour and the oil tankers and the Post-Panamax cargo ships looming out of them with a suddenness that is entertaining when you are desparately looking out of the window because the pile of work on your desk is so soul-destroying you would rather look at the rain.
With a 90kmph wind that skitters the water uphill so it looks like a river has jumped out of the harbour and is disobeying the forces of gravity on the slopes of the hill upon which downtown is piled.
I love when it rains like that. People stop and say: 'does it rain like that in Ireland, eh?' And I say: 'oh yes.'
'Most days.'
Their faces are a picture.
The other exciting news is that we bought a GPS unit. From a bloke in the AirForce base. For $75.
We ain't never getting lost in the woods again, nosirreebob.
Not that we ever did. But now, we can get out of the car, plot it on the GPS, break through the tree cover and go where we please.
We can get lost deliberately.
Hooray.
I think.
Which reminds me of another ex of mine who used to get lost on the mountains deliberately for the fun of it.
But who despised people with GPS units.
It is so nice to have a boyfriend who understands that I hate to
a) get lost in the woods for no effing reason, and
b) clean up other people's hurl.
Now if I could just get him to stay away from my nice tomato and basil soup that I had planned for later!
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Bored with my blog
Yes, I am officially bored with my blog. Don't want to talk about politics or the environment; don't want to tell you all any more stories about domestic bliss, or wilderness camping, or work, or discuss my innermost feelings or anything.
Maybe it's the fact that someone advised me recently to do something positive with my spare time as my blog was really depressing and was probably depressing me.
I was a bit annoyed about that.
I didn't think it was depressing. I just thought it was normal.
Anyways, going to bed to read my uplifting book about the Armenian massacre of 1915 and think about
a) what we could do legislatively to eradicate poverty (they don't ask for much in work do they)
b) think about a whole new rant stream that is positive and uplifting and worth blogging about
c) maybe go to sleep at some point.
Had a nice trip in the grand tangier wilderness on Thanksgiving weekend.
Can't be arsed putting up the photos yet. Will do sometime.
Good night.
Maybe it's the fact that someone advised me recently to do something positive with my spare time as my blog was really depressing and was probably depressing me.
I was a bit annoyed about that.
I didn't think it was depressing. I just thought it was normal.
Anyways, going to bed to read my uplifting book about the Armenian massacre of 1915 and think about
a) what we could do legislatively to eradicate poverty (they don't ask for much in work do they)
b) think about a whole new rant stream that is positive and uplifting and worth blogging about
c) maybe go to sleep at some point.
Had a nice trip in the grand tangier wilderness on Thanksgiving weekend.
Can't be arsed putting up the photos yet. Will do sometime.
Good night.
Friday, October 05, 2007
Frittering a day away on Facebook
Scrabulous..... English graduate crack.
That's all I have to say on the subject.
CBC have done a week's worth of Futurism on their morning radio show, with William Gibson on yesterday talking about animated tattoos. You go Bill. Everyone else was talking about computer chips in their brain, but that's so Necromancer...
Nobody was talking about the environment of course. (well, Gibson mentioned it in passing).
Typical geeks.
When I am the divine Lady of all Creation, I shall force geeks to do organic gardening and off-grid living challenges in their spare time. Which I will force their bosses to give them as part of the new carbon neutralising taxation plan.
They (the geeks), being the people who are good at solving problems (as opposed to the environentalists who are mostly good at pointing them out) will of course become enthused with their new regime (as they do about most things) and work together in loose collectives based around the globe to solve all the problems related therein using technology.
Et voila... the future will be shiny, with a fun, easy to operate user interface and most importantly, carbon neutral.
Then the stocks in their companies will spiral into heady heights of success and then they will all buy the new gliding boats that they have invented to travel the world.
Everybody wins.
Why has nobody done this already?
Ohmygosh it's so nice to have a day to myself at last.
What will I think about today. I am determined to only think happy thoughts until next Tuesday.
That's all I have to say on the subject.
CBC have done a week's worth of Futurism on their morning radio show, with William Gibson on yesterday talking about animated tattoos. You go Bill. Everyone else was talking about computer chips in their brain, but that's so Necromancer...
Nobody was talking about the environment of course. (well, Gibson mentioned it in passing).
Typical geeks.
When I am the divine Lady of all Creation, I shall force geeks to do organic gardening and off-grid living challenges in their spare time. Which I will force their bosses to give them as part of the new carbon neutralising taxation plan.
They (the geeks), being the people who are good at solving problems (as opposed to the environentalists who are mostly good at pointing them out) will of course become enthused with their new regime (as they do about most things) and work together in loose collectives based around the globe to solve all the problems related therein using technology.
Et voila... the future will be shiny, with a fun, easy to operate user interface and most importantly, carbon neutral.
Then the stocks in their companies will spiral into heady heights of success and then they will all buy the new gliding boats that they have invented to travel the world.
Everybody wins.
Why has nobody done this already?
Ohmygosh it's so nice to have a day to myself at last.
What will I think about today. I am determined to only think happy thoughts until next Tuesday.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
It's been a while I know
But I've been not in the mood for writing.
First I went to Digby for a three day think in for work which obviously I can't write about because it is work and therefore confidential. Then I came back to Halifax for a night before going back down to Digby on the way to the island for the weekend. Which was a non-event of a weekend as I volunteered to babysit while Himself went out. Then I had to go back to work. Then today I went back down to Digby with Himself to watch him sign his divorce papers.
Which is some sort of closure on the whole thing and which we should be happy about (if happy is an appropriate word for the end of a marriage), except that I am reeling from some bad news from home. And I have a pounding headache and a fever. Which means that either I won't be going canoeing and camping this weekend, or I will be with the remnants of a fever and a heavy heart.
When is this year going to improve?
It's nearly effing over. Maybe that's when.
Anyways.... stay safe everyone... there's too much pain around at the moment for my liking.
First I went to Digby for a three day think in for work which obviously I can't write about because it is work and therefore confidential. Then I came back to Halifax for a night before going back down to Digby on the way to the island for the weekend. Which was a non-event of a weekend as I volunteered to babysit while Himself went out. Then I had to go back to work. Then today I went back down to Digby with Himself to watch him sign his divorce papers.
Which is some sort of closure on the whole thing and which we should be happy about (if happy is an appropriate word for the end of a marriage), except that I am reeling from some bad news from home. And I have a pounding headache and a fever. Which means that either I won't be going canoeing and camping this weekend, or I will be with the remnants of a fever and a heavy heart.
When is this year going to improve?
It's nearly effing over. Maybe that's when.
Anyways.... stay safe everyone... there's too much pain around at the moment for my liking.
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