CANADA DAY CELEBRATIONS CONTINUE

People ask what is a memorable event in your life ?

I would have to say this week end, is one of the most important and carries with it, a lot of mixed feelings.

On the one hand we have our Canada Day Celebrations with new beginnings with a newly married, future King and Queen of England .

In the US they have the US Independence Day Celebrations.

In my family it is a week end of great personal sorrow because I remember it as the week end my Dad died and with being left to do a very difficult job of getting my Mom out of hospital in the months to come, because she lay down to die beside my Dad for three days before the neighbors found them. She had her bruised leg infected, was bereft of her Parkinsons Medication which resulted in the seizing up of her body and the hospital did not offer her much hope for survival.

But her fight to survive for my benefit, was strong and she lived to see another 4 years.

It was not an easy thing to lose two members of your family at the same time and I was thankful she decided to stay behind.

My Dad died of Diabetes. He went out to cut grass in the heat and could not get back to get his medications on time.

My Dad was a prominent member in our Family. He was full of life and living and because of him I have many fond memories growing up.

It was typical of him to come and say there is a sale on water melons. Lets go get one.

I'd think, the gas alone to get to that place would cancel out the sale, but he would be so full of excitement, I hated to mention this little fact.

And then at 84 and blind in one eye, he would teach my younger son how to drive a two wheel bike. I would shudder watching thinking, he is going to lose his balance and fall and break a hip.

Sure enough he fell and got up and brushed himself off laughing that he fell.

He was always like that. Never complained at what life threw at him.

He was affected by the same joie de vivre, as all Quebecers were of his time.

The French were poor but had a good healthy positive outlook on life and there was always something to enjoy and laugh at, every day.

My Dad was the street he lived on and I remember the neighbors coming out in tears to say good bye, when we finally sold our house and moved to the country.

Life and movement was moving away.

Retirement didn't stop him. Every summer he would sit in the car with my Mom and drive across the whole country to British Columbia and I would ask him why he didn't fly. His response would be that he wanted to see his beloved country.

He was a very proud Canadian and couldn't get enough of the sights and smells of this wonderful land.

So I found it fitting that my Dad should go out with a big bang and this he succeeded in doing.

He made his mark because now we celebrate his passing with pomp and fireworks.

One of his expressions, when he would love something was

.......Ummm Beautiful! Just like my wife!

He would make every head turn to see what his wife looked like and then agree with him that yes indeed, he had a beautiful wife. lol

He left me with an everlasting feeling of guilt for not being there, to help him in his hour of need but one night in my sleep, the phone rang and I answered it and heard his voice so happy and cheerful.

Just by the way he said HI!!! Up lifted my soul..

and then he was cut off, probably by heavens' gate and

I woke up and thought with a tearful smile, yup, that's my Dad.

He found a way to break the rules to send me a message that everything was ok and he was happy.

He somehow knows how much I suffer over this and found a way to send a message in just one word, to set free my heart of the guilt he left me with.

I feel much better but I still cannot forgive myself.

My Dad was what the Quebecers call - la tete carre. Square head, because he refused to leave Quebec after 700,000 people left. He said it was a big mistake to do this. His family was chased throughout Europe during the war and he was damned if a little group of people were going to do this to him again. He was established, rooted and staying no matter what.

For the rest of us who had to live with constant harassment from the French radicals,at work and on the streets where very language was legal except English, the official language, we decided it was easier to leave rather than take up arms against a few bleeding hearts who didn't realize that life was about moving forward and not living in the past.

War survivors knew what moving forward was all about.

Life is short and must be spent living and enjoying, not fighting.

Its not as if the French did not have themselves to blame for their problems at that time. Their education consisted mainly of religion as opposed to the English who had a very hard school curriculum.

My parents tried putting me into a French school but they refused me saying I was not Catholic.So they rejected foreigners.

Then when we had a student exchange program in 7th grade, we went and spent two weeks to a French school, singing songs and going to mass while the French kids were crying in our English classes because they had too much school work to do, which they had difficulty coping with.

My Dads' views were no different than one of my favorite of all people, Lawrence Hart ,QC, a lawyer who believed the same thing. He came from an old established Montreal family. His grand mother he said, owned half of Mount Royal but had to give it up because of taxes. He was afflicted with polio and he remembered riding over his grand mothers' mountain, on her horses.

So this week end brings back many memories for me and keeps repeating every year, as a time for both joy and sorrow.

My Dad found his freedom this week end and left with a beautiful display of fireworks and historical significance of new beginnings, on this continent, he loved with all his heart.

It is also now a memory of Lady Di's birthday and William and Kates' visit here, so every year we have something nice to add to the memories.

One of the things I remember about my Dad is that he liked me to give him his haircuts and if I wasn't there to do it, he would let his hair grow like a hippie till I showed up to do it.

It always horrified me when he would travel thousands of miles this way, to get a haircut. lol

The picture above is of my first born son only a week old. He was born with hair but seemed to have lost it and looked like a bald eagle. His Grandad was so proud to hold him as his namesake.

Have a wonderful day Canada. :)

The Fedora Hat

Reading Westras blog today, I remembered my own Dad.

His country house still stands and his fedora Hat is still hanging on the hook where he left it.

His boat and trailer is still in the garage.

Our scenic wall paper is still in the family room reminding us of all the nice pictures and times we had beside it.

I think , a time will come when it must come down but then I think, there are too many memories

here and the paper should be repainted and refreshed.

All the trees we planted together are tall now but his garden suffered because no one takes care of it and neighbors are

not what you expect.

They come in and help themselves to the flower bulbs and fruit trees robbing an unprotected property.

My Dad had a car standing there he kept to give to one of his grandchildren

and the neighbors came to ask me if they could take the hub caps.

I told them no. How arrogant of them to even ask, I thought . They replied, well we are nice.

We asked, but we could have taken them when you were not here.

This is where you learn what people are really like.

These are the same people who grazed on my parents garden and did nothing for themselves.

My parents worked and had plenty to share.

Now they ask when will you come and have a garden again? loll

I keep my Dads place because he built it and his last wish was for it to be passed onto his grandchildren because this was the only

Heritage he could leave them of himself. And so I keep the hat and glasses and some other things of his I want to frame and hang on the wall

For posterity.

Children don’t understand and not living there, we hardly made any memories for them out there.

Nevertheless, its our family place and we will return to it once the time is right.

Maybe we will make some memories, enough for them to want to come out there before we die.

The town however, took pictures of my Dads place and put it on record as his place being one of the first older homes being built there.

My Dad has become a part of the fabric of the towns beginning and growing.

He was well respected.

We have a few more years left before our second son goes off on his own and then I guess we will pack up the ship and head on

Back to the green green grass of home where we belong.

Back to my parents garden and big trees we planted. Back to the franklin stove we can here crackling in winter.

Back to the deer who visit us and the birds and other little critters like he fall ducks red and orange forests and winter ice fishing.

Back to the Appalachian mountains and the French language and the Richelieu River I swam and water ski id on.

Back to the Iroquois and Samuel de Champlain.

My Fathers house is rich in history and heritage. The life he was robbed of by war and politics he regained and made richer

By the life he led in anew country, as a young man,husband, father and grandfather.

He left a nice legacy and we should never forget it.

We try to instill values in our children to carry on and hope for it to live on when we are gone.

Now You Know!

Thinking In Spring

Nervosa went to a psychiatrist. "Doc," she said, "I have a problem.
When I climb in bed, I think there's somebody under it.
So I slide under the bed and then I think there's somebody on top of it.
All night I am either climbing into bed or under it and I am going insane.

The psychiatrist answered OK I'll schedule you for three times a week and in about two years we will know why you feel this way


"Great! Thanks.How much do you charge?"

"A hundred dollars per visit."

"OK I'll go sleep on it," said Nervosa.

Six months later the doctor met Nervosa on the street. "Why didn't you ever

come to see me again?" he asked.

" A bartender cured me for ten bucks, much cheaper and faster than you could have."

"Is that so! How?"

"He told me to just cut the legs off the bed!"

Now that's what I call thinking outside the box lol
---------------------------------------------
This Dude seems to be envisioning a paradigm consisting of a certain way of viewing reality through concepts values and practices.
It's either that or he is trying to find out the answer to EVERYTHING, which by the way I found out is 42 according to a computer which did a 7 million year analysis of the world. lol

I had no room to put another guy in the next stall which might have been in a totally different paradigm.
Can a paradigm be equated to a cult? Why do we speak of paradigm shifts?

ALL IS GOD or ALL IS ONE.

Or maybe the Dude just drank from the decaf pot lol

Maybe I should watch LOST. They must have the answer. So far it just seems to be all like a dream.

Hairy Mail

MR POSTMAN

AND YOU THOUGHT I WAS KIDDIN???

He must also be going through the change of life like Marge Simpson.lol

Wat you see, is wat you get.

You can luv im

You can hate im

Or luv to hate im

As Stevie Wonder says:.

Things Dad Will Never Say

1. Well, how about that! I'm lost. Looks like we'll have to stop and ask for directions.
2. You know, pumpkin. Now that you're thirteen, you'll be ready for unchaperoned car dates. Won't that be fun?
3. I noticed that all your friends have a certain negative attitude. I like that!
4. You want a car....let me get it for you.!
   
5. Here's a credit card and the keys to my new car. Go crazy!
6. What do you mean you want to play football? Figure skating not good enough for you, son?
7. Your Mother and I are going away for the weekend. You might want to consider throwing a party.
8. Well, I don't know what's wrong with your car. Probably one of those doo-hickey thingies.

You know, that makes it run or something. Just have it towed to a mechanic and pay whatever he asks.

9. No son of mine is going to live under this roof without an earring. Now, quit your belly aching and let's go to the mall.
10. What do you want to go and get a job for? I make plenty of money for you to spend.
11. Father's Day? Ah, don't worry about that. It's no big deal!

Family

The families in the past were different from what we have today.
Before people needed large families because of the high mortality rate and because life was difficult and if you had no family, it was hard to build something in life.
Today family is frowned upon.
They tell you not to have too many children.
They tell you to take the easy way out by divorcing for irreconcilable differences.
They tell you to throw away the old people as well as children
They tell you social services has all the answers
They tell you society owes you for your problems.

They tell you many lies about life and people are buying into it.
They tell you, you have rights to be and do anything and everything you want.
You are there to fill your own emotional physical psychological needs and no one elses.
What they don't tell you is how self destructive all their ideas are and that
what they are doing is actually experimenting with a new society, where they finally got people of all races colors and languages to live together, on one piece of property.

Because of their ideas, companies leave, unions are bereft of meaning,governments fill up with more self serving people who sit wasting time in petty arguments because they have no other ideas on how to resolve things and they'll be damned before they give some one else a chance to. They are willing to sell anything for a vote from any member of society, promising anything, legal or illegal.
Ethics morals and values they say, are hog wash.

What is troublesome is that they promise to make illegal things, legal for a vote.
Laeders in Canada are frowned upon but we give awards to people supporting leadership in the US which is very interesting.

People fear law and order and any effort to establish some is frowned upon.
People don't know what to rebel against.
They are into rebelling for rebelling sake.
Words become more important than actions.

All these things affect families and families are struggling for their rights to exist.
Families, to function, require some form of law and order but if society destroys this inside the family, then the family cannot function anymore.
This is what we are seeing inside families today.

No one is home to hold down the fort. No Mother or Grand parent or Aunt or Uncle.
People just go their own way and do what they want for themselves.

We discuss relationships and needs.
We teach not having to "settle" for things in life.
but you know, many people found lots of happiness in "settling".

People in war conditions, settled for what they had.
People living in poverty settled.
Kings and Queens settled.
People learned to respect and love, for the right reasons and not the wrong.
Actions spoke louder than words.
Actions revealed character and character told people who you were.

Families were treasures. Words like honor meant something and no one needed contracts in those days.

The weaker families become the more society will turn to self destruction because no one will care about anything but themselves.

Evidence is seen everywhere. Recently, the police had a bicycle run to raise money for charity. The money was stolen from the car.
The Canadian Mint is missing Millions of dollars in gold.
Real Estate hires inspectors to inspect new homes. Once the inspection passes they take everything out of the inspected house and put it into another new one to pass inspection, thus selling the other house with many unforeseen repairs for the new owner.
The fraud and corruption list and ID theft, is endless.
Nothing is sacred and no matter where you look, it's all the same.

Families play an enormous role in life. They build trust,good character,teach the true meaning of love, loyalty and honor and this then is taken outside the family into neighborhoods, jobs, government, health and new families.
If the role of family is destroyed, then not much hope will be left to hold onto anything else.
If the country wants to experiment, then this is what they should be experimenting with. Building families just makes the most sense.

I had a family living a few houses away from me.
It was a mixed family She was a beautiful young white girl with two boys, from a huge, muscular, black man, who wore a thick pure gold chain around his neck.
The older, 2 1/2 year old boy, used to run away from his home to play with Nick.
He got into the habit of coming in quietly and stealing things from our home and then he broke what he stole in hisback yard.
I was very sad when his Mom brought back a mandolin in pieces.
It was nothing but my husband brought it from Russia when he went there on a business trip so the fact it came from there was meaningful.
Anyway, he also got into the habit of coming over and peeing on my front door. I would ask him why he did that and he'd tell me to fuck off.
His Mom used to go to a club for exercise and entrusted her baby and the older boy to me for a few hours a day. She seemed lonely, with not too many friends, so I didn't mind.
Young people sometimes need help.
I felt she did.
One day the Dad came over and accused my older son for damaging his son's eye.
My older son was almost 18 with a 2 1/2 yr old baby brother himself.
Now why would he do that? He was never there anyway.

The man went on to tell me I didn't know who he was and he would never do that to my child.
I assured him the worst thing that would happen in my home to his son, was that he would be picked up and taken home to his Mama.
In my house it's a sin to hurt any baby. The very idea was outrages.
This opened up a conversation. I told him his son peed on my front door everyday and told me to f off and he seems to behave worse when he(the Dad) is home.

I told him ok, you can fight me, you can fight my son, my husband, but your son is a little boy talking like a big man with that language he obviously learned from home.

He is going to go out and talk this way to other people, who will beat him up and what I want to know, is how many people are you willing to beat up and/or kill for your sons behavior?

He told me his Father told all the children in his family not to smoke and they never did in front of his face. He said this was RESPECT.

I told him this was not respect. Respect, is when your Father tells you not to smoke...you don't smoke. What you all did was cowardly..... lie.

I saw a veil cover his eyes as he thought about everything we talked about and as I was leaving he took my hand and shook it and told me he was honored to talk to me.

He left to apparently work in carpentry in another province.
A few weeks later we found out he was on the FBI's most wanted list for killing a man.
He bought the house under an assumed name and authorities caught up to him and arrested him and probably took him back to New York where he was from.

The family moved. The family was destroyed.Two boys and a young wife were left on the street to survive......

and as for us.... we were all shocked, not to mention betrayed, about who this man was and what he could have done to my 18 year old son, let alone to Nick, had he continued to believe we hurt his boy.

Now I have to believe there was God involved here because I know this man left his home having learned something, no one was able to teach him until our conversation.
You do not resolve things through killing and the definition of "respect", was not what he thought it was.
So we are living with words we attach meaning to but they do not mean the same thing to all of us.
This is why strong families are important. To destroy Family and God as we are doing today, leaves us little resources other than fighting and war.

What Perks Up a Bad Hair Day?

This boy should soon have a very fertile and thick head of hair lol
You know how they say talking to flowers makes them grow better for some reason?

Well my flowers must know I am in a, not so good a mood these days and they are speaking to me.

They bloomed all over the yard, all at once and really perked me up.

I mostly plant roses because of the slugs. They eat everything else.

The flowers said: " Don't worry Moma. Tomorrow is another day and till then, we are here to keep you joyous." lol

I don't know who gets more depressed.

The kids for losing or the Moms because they see depressed teens after they lose,

to whom they are not allowed to speak to lol

I still hear my own Moms voice saying : "Should everything be nice ."

I think she did a better job of keeping things nice than I do.

But then they were allowed to spank and keep order in the house in them days. lol

Every time I look out the window today, I feel soooo blessed with the sun and the flowers.

I even put my turkey in to cook earlier. lol

Need some wicked tips for the day?

Avoid cutting yourself when slicing vegetables by getting someone else to hold them while you chop.(Any volunteer Referees?)

Avoid arguments with the Mr. about lifting the toilet seat by letting him use the sink. They do anyway. Especially the visitors.

For high blood pressure sufferers: simply cut yourself and bleed for a few minutes, thus reducing the pressure in your veins. Remember to use a timer. or go give blood at the blood bank and get a cookie,

A mouse trap, placed on top of your alarm clock, will prevent you from rolling over and going back to sleep after you hit the snooze button. Or better yet, go ahead and snooze, Your job won't be there anyway.

If you have a bad cough, take a large dose of laxatives; then you'll be afraid to cough. Or wear depends. :)

You only need two tools in life - WD-40 and Duct Tape. If it doesn't move and should, use the WD-40. If it shouldn't move and does, use the duct tape. Note: Neither works under water.Use at your own risk.

Remember: Everyone seems normal, sick or gay....... until you get to know them.
If you are high.....you won't care either way.

If you can't fix it with a hammer, you've got an electrical
problem. Sometimes a little electro therapy fixes a lot of things.

Daily Thought:

SOME PEOPLE ARE LIKE SLINKIES; NOT REALLY GOOD FOR ANYTHING BUT THEY BRING A SMILE TO YOUR FACE WHEN PUSHED DOWN THE STAIRS.

Except when they learn to slink back up.

Oh, this has truly become a terrific day :)

My coffee is ready and so I will get to it.

LA CRÈME DE LA CRÈME TRAVIATA

Keeper Things.

A Keeper
Their marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave away. I can see them now, Dad in trousers, work shirt and a hat; and Mom in a house dress, lawn mower in one hand, and dish-towel in the other. It was the time for fixing things: a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, re-heating leftovers, renewing; I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But when my mother died, and I was standing in that clear morning light in the warmth of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes there isn't any more. Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away..never to return. So... While we have it, it's best we love it.. And care for it.. And fix it when it's broken... And heal it when it's sick.

This is true: For marriage... And old cars... And children with bad report cards... Dogs and cats with bad hips... And aging parents... And grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it. Some things we keep, like a best friend that moved away or a classmate we grew up with.
There are just some things that make life important,
like people we know who are special... And so, we keep them close!

I received this from someone who thinks I am a 'keeper,' so I've sent it to the people I think of in the same way.. Now it's your turn to send this to those people that are 'keepers' in your life. Good friends are like stars... You don't always see them, but you know they are always there!
Luv ya . All who read this. Know. I love you. and so do many more. You are not alone :)
You are never alone.