The New Vagina Post

If you are like me, you will have been drawn in by that title. Be warned now that it is far too much information but it is interesting all the same. (If you are a boy don't read this and skip to the next paragraph.) Most of you know that I had surgery 8 weeks ago.  And almost most of you know that I use a Diva cup for when Aunt Flow shows up. Up until now I was forbidden to "put anything in there" . It turns out I have a new vagina. That is all I have to say about that.

This week I have been busy and have not been blogging. I am so far behind in reading posts I just have to start from today. Let me know if anything drastic happened in your life this week so I can go read the post. That includes but not limited to births, deaths, marriages, being arrested and/or incarcerated, broken bones, strains, stitches, hospital stays, murdering or falling out of a tree. 

Well, the party I voted for got in for my constituency but not for the province. There is no point going into how disheartened I am. On election day I did volunteer which was actually fun. A few funny stories. There was a little boy about 2 that came in with his grandparents so they could vote. He thought they had told him he was going on a boat. Poor little dude. That will probably stop him from every wanting anything to do with voting for the rest of his life. Imagine being 2 and thinking you were going on a boat then having your heart crushed while your grandparents vote. They were lovely people and I bet they took him for ice cream to soothe his heartbreak. There was another guy that freaked the fuck out when I took his yellow voters card. That is what I was supposed to do but he didn't like it. Maybe he thought I was going to mug him, I don't know.  Even though we had the lowest voter turnout in years I could not believe the diversity of people that vote. Business people, doctors, Hell's Angels, drunks, first time voters, veterans, pregnant women due that day, women with newborns that had a Cesarean and could barely walk, old hippies, young hippies, surfers, teachers and minorities.  There were people that turned up with no identification. The most amusing thing is how stereotypically polite Canadians are. Most people thanked me twice, once when going in to vote and then again coming out. Volunteering is definitely something I will do again.

My step-daughter's baby is due in ten days. Going to be a grandma really soon! Please pray or send good energy. If you have been reading my blog you will know why. We are quite worried. Worried but excited. 

Sad Cat Diary

Mother's Day

My mom with my sister, me and my brother.
1980

In honor of our Mothers

who have passed away

Another Mother's Day is here,
And I still miss having you near.
You were the best mom you could be,
And I never once doubted your love for me.

I could spend each Mother's Day in sorrow,
Crying and wishing you were here,
But instead I choose to celebrate your life,
A life I still hold so dear.

I know you'd rather see me smile
Than stand here with tears in my eyes.
So I'll do my best to honor your memory,
And you'll live on as long as I am alive

(OK, I will cry a little.)

Over the last few days I have spent, what seems like hours and hours in our yard. My body gets sore and tired quickly so I do the work in short bursts and then come in and rest. That said, I have loaded up 4 garbage cans of weeds. And as always with weeds, there are still a lot more to be done. I don't even know what I have done exactly but here are a few pictures.

This old toolbox was at the thrift store last week for a price of $20.00. Who would spend that amount on an old toolbox? I went back today and it was still there but without a price. The lady at the till gave it to me for $5.00 and I knew it needed to be loved by me. I brought it home and made it into a planter. 

This little box was also there. It looks like it must have been a high school student's woodworking project. Now it is a planter! 

A better view of the thrifted wheelbarrow, that is now...a planter!

My trusty gardening gloves. 

Chives.

Our yard. Another thing I did was built up the bed behind the swing with more large rocks and soil. Not sure what I am going to plant there yet. 

Today I also spread out the compost on this bed. Strawberries are already coming up and we will plant vegetables soon. 

And now I am tired and will go to bed but won't be able to sleep. 

My Low Self Esteem - Lite

"It's that all my life...everybody seems to be doing or catching on to things a second faster or better than me."

That is a quote from the move, Sister Act.  That movie came out in 1991 and when I heard Sister Mary Roberts say it it was if things I had been thinking about myself my entire life were finally put into words. Since then I have grown and no longer have that bottomless pit of low self-esteem but the more things change the more they stay the same.

Today I went to a training session on being a volunteer for as an Information Officer for our upcoming election. Trust me when I say it sounds more important that it is. First of all I was late because I got lost.  I had to go to the tourist bureau to ask for directions.  Twice.  Anyway, the session is going on and there were about 25 people there. The instructor was talking so fast. Everybody is knowingly nodding. And then there is me. "What page are we on?"  It also seems like everyone has known each other for years. My introvert self is hiding and hoping nobody will ask me a question that requires an answer to prove I know what is going on. We broke into groups and I went into my 'make them laugh' mode. It always works! But then the instructor comes along and ruins my perfectly fun time. I bungled through the answer. Meanwhile everyone else in the room has finished the quiz and I am still wondering what page we are on. Thank god for the woman beside me that had been an Information Officer before and showed me what the hell was going on. But yes, every person in the room had it figured out before I did. One thing that is good is when I figure things out it usually sticks with me for years. 

It has been such a long day. My body is exhausted. It feels the way you feel when you have just gotten over the Flu. I fell asleep at 8:00 but beloved came to bed and his snoring woke me up. I haven't missed my mom like this in months. But, I am so happy with her tree. It makes me happy that I have somewhere I can go to and sit and think about her. Since she was cremated and by her request her ashes have not been spread so I have had nowhere to go.

Today I cried and cried. It is a difficult thing, this being human. In our culture we do not like death and the emotions that go with it. We are told to be strong and, "never, never, never stop". It is bad to sit down in weakness and cry. Even the day after the bombings in Boston they were talking about "moving forward" and "healing". WTF? No! It is a horrible thing that happened and healing takes months or years. Sometimes healing never happens. I am sure for the families, there will never be an absolution or healing. 

We are broken vessels. We are broken from abuse, we are broken from parents who did a bad job, we are broken from teachers who told us we were stupid, we are broken because magazines told us we were fat, we are broken from churches that told us who god is and why we are bad and would never meet his standards.  We are broken from rifts in our family and friendships.

The bookstores has shelves upon shelves of books to make us better and fix our brokenness but usually only make us feel worse. Last week I picked up a book by a woman who had gone through an episode of depression for a year and is better now. What about the people who fight it everyday, the broken ones who get up every morning wondering if this will be a Black Dog day? A lot of us will fight depression for the rest of our lives.

Anyway, I am rambling.

My mom's death has left me broken. Her not being here hurts. Maybe just for today I will accept that I am broken and be OK with it. It is a good idea for all of us. We are broken and we don't need to be fixed. 

It is time for me to go back to bed.

Oh, mirror in the sky 
What is love? 
Can the child within my heart rise above? 
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides? 
Can I handle the seasons of my life? 

 Well, I've been afraid of changing 
'Cause I've built my life around you 
But time makes you bolder 
Children get older 
I'm getting older too...

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today my mom would have been 67. My day started with tears. It seemed they were there before I even woke up. I decided I need to do something today to make the day a remembrance of her so I went to the nursery and bought a new tree. This one is a Magnolia tree. 

My daughter added her sparkly rock. Unfortunately  you can't see the sparkles in the picture. I added the blue marbles to signify our tears. There have been a lot of them. 

My son has loved frogs since he  year old when he received his first frog. He added some of his favourite frogs. One is a frog with wings and the other croaks when you walk by it.

I added two candle holders  My mom loved to sing and sang lead in a woman's chorus. And she loved family. For her, the hardest part of dying was saying goodbye to her beloved grandchildren. Her happiest times were when she was spending time with them.

Every birthday needs balloons. I had purchased 4 but one accidentally blew away.  Maybe it is in heaven now. I just hope when it gets there she knows it is for her. I am filthy in this picture because I just finished planting. As my mom used to say, I look like the Wreck of the Hesperus. Bonus points to you if you had a parent of grandparent that said this silly saying.

We all filled out a card for her and I left it at the tree. I miss my mom every single moment of every day. 








Happy Birthday, Mom. 

Gardening and Grief

"Life is so very difficult." That is what Norbert said to me when I asked how his day was going. When I pressed him as to what he had done he told me that was his own personal private business. He yawned and went to sleep. My suspicion is he did nothing today. Again. 

It is a bit of a sad week. My mom's birthday is tomorrow and my nana died 9 years ago on the 6th. Her death doesn't pinch like my mom's death does but I sure do miss her. She was a great Nana and she and I were very close. When I think of her now I do not think of her in death but in life and all the fun we used to have.


The picture to the left if the tree my husband planted for me a year after my mom died. The damn deer came and destroyed it. We were hoping the tree would come back but I think it is done. If you can see the garden frog by the sign you will see that his eye is chipped. My mom was walking through the garden centre beside her work one day and bought him because she felt sorry for it and knew nobody would want it.

We planted some lavender today.  Have I mentioned that lavender is my favourite? This is Spanish Lavender.

This old wheelbarrow was sitting in a scrap heap at a thrift store so I grabbed it and planted Marigolds. You can see in the background there is more lavender, but a different type. There is also Trillium that is from my husband's mom's garden. I never met her because she died 3 months before my husband and I met. 

I also weeded. A lot! Two huge garbage cans full. I just weeded last week and I am not really sure where all the weeds came from. We are slowly winning the fight with the invasive ivy. Today I pulled a lot out that was between the neighbour that taps and our yard. 

This is our other cat, Sheldon. He is 17 and his interests are sleeping and eating. And eating. He likes to pretend that he is old and feeble but if you throw a cat treat he moves like a fucking cheetah. He loves to eat. He also likes to pretend he can't get on the bed but we decided that we weren't going to help him anymore then all of a sudden he could do it. He wanted me to tell you that he likes to eat and would not turn down cat treats is you want to bring him some. 

Sheldon resting on our swing. I scored the swing for free. Sheldon will spend the summer here. He will not move if someone else wants to sit on it. 

Other than my arms being scratched up to bits from weeding it was a good day! 

 Bluebirds of Happiness. I will thank you for not mentioning how filthy my window is! 

A Middle of the Night Post

It is 2:42. And yes, I am awake. Last night I had my bath and by 8:00 I was so tired. My daughter, the poor lamb was curled up in a ball on her bed with cramps and had fallen asleep. I ran her a hot bath and gave her some ibuprofen and went to bed to read but I couldn't hold up the book. My C-Pap was on and the light was off so I guess I decided to just sleep. And yet again, it is the middle of the night and I'm awake. oh well

My great great great grandmother.

Yesterday I went to our family history library and eeeeeeee! I had so much fun! The people there were as excited as I was about geneology as I am. It was cool because I was able to teach them some things about doing a search but they were able to teach me even more. I had always been under the impression that the library and the archives were housed in the same place. It turns out not to be the case. And they turned me on to more resources for checking my family's past. In the field of geneology I am considered to be advanced, just a step down from expert but I am always, always learning new things. 

OK, I have had my toast and milk and I am going to try to go back to sleep. 

Hot flash a few minutes ago so I have taken my laptop outside to post. A mosquito flew by and I killed it. I deaded it!  Don't mess with a woman having a hot flash!  Incidentally, and you can ask my husband, I have a super power when it comes to killing mosquitoes. There was once when I killed something like 18 in one night. I can just grab them out of the air. Lighting fast speed. zinga! Dead. I think it is one of the reasons my husband married me. 

This week (the 5th) would have been my mom's 67th birthday. If I sit and think about it I feel sad. Very sad. So I don't think about it. Maybe that is how we get through grief. Just trying not to think about it. The thing is, it isn't her birthday or Mother's day or Christmas that get me really sad. It is having a hot flash and dyeing my hair purple and she is not here to share it with me. It is the everyday stuff. The things I *do* think about. Her birthday is easier to put aside. But the small stuff. That is the stuff that gets me. The hardest part is not having a woman in my life. You know, a woman who is part of my tribe. I think that is the reason I love blogging. You are all part of my tribe. You, oh wise women. I sure do love all of you. 

Now I am freezing again and wrapped up in my robe. Still outside. 

It was a fruitful endevour at the library today. Aside from the multiple street people using the computers for the free internet it was a good trip. Today I found the year that my grandfather came from England. I knew he was born there but up until today I had no idea when or how he got to Canada. It turns out he came here in 1926 and landed in Halifax. How he made it to British Columbia remains to be seen. This may seem so insignificant but this is gold for a genealogist. Tomorrow I am going to go do some more research and see what turns up.