I've been busy since we got back from Jasper, end of school mostly.  The evenings are lovely, so there is soccer in the back yard now.  At least if I fall in the back yard, someone can help me get up.  We've had a ton of rain, one night we had four inches in a few hours and basements were flooding.  Fortunately our sump pump kept up and no flooding.  I don't need one more thing right now.

The zinnias I started from seed in March are all blooming, next year I'll plant more.  They are such an easy plant to grow and I'm a huge fan of easy to grow.  Work continues on the shed and it looks beautiful.  I'll take a pic when it's all done.

I took the dogs for walks this morning before it got too hot.  The pond is full and the ducks are happy, so are the pelicans, but I didn't get a good shot of them.

My best friend has cancer.  She has a type of cancer called multiple myeloma.  It's a rare type of cancer and only accounts for 1%-2% of all cancers.  She doesn't like to call it cancer because she'd rather not have cancer.  Fair enough.  I think most cancer patients have some kind of denial to help them cope with the day to day crap of living with cancer.

My friend had a stem cell transplant, seven years ago I think.  It worked well but she has to stay on chemo until the chemo no longer works, and I imagine at that time the the multiple myeloma will come back with a vengance.  It's not a nice type of cancer, none of them are really.  There is no cure, only treatment.

Here's the thing though, you don't die of multiple myeloma per se.  You die of pneumonia, or kidney failure, or sepsis.  Multiple myeloma grows in our bone marrow, plasma cells are transformed into cancerous cells and their growth crowds out the normal cells that help us fight infection, so our bodies are overwhelmed with an infection, unable to fight back.

The kidney failure comes into play because of a protein produced by multiple myeloma called M protein, and too much calcium in the blood; combined, these two things overwhelm the kidneys and cause damage.  There's too much calcium in the blood because multiple myeloma causes bone lesions and a breakdown of bones.

I did mention it was not a nice type of cancer.

Anyway, I called her two days ago and she had just gotten out of the hospital.  She had pneumonia, ended up severely dehydrated, delirious, and very sick.  She was fainting and hallucinating. This is the second time she has had pneumonia in the past 18 months.

What I haven't told you, is that she is supposed to call me when she is sick, so that I can check on her, take care of her, etc.  She didn't do that. Her daughter calls everyday to check on her, and her daughter was concerned because her mom wasn't making any sense.  The daughter then called her auntie to check on my friend and that auntie (my friend's sister) took seven hours to get to my friend's house.  She only lives thirty mintues from her sister.

An ambulance was called, my friend was shipped off to the hospital where they fixed her up with antibiotics and lots of fluids.  She could have died, at home, alone.  Another day and she could have gone into kidney failure or developed sepsis.

I read the riot act to my friend.  I told her how people with multiple myeloma die (she knew).  I explained that I will always help (she knew).  She hates asking for help but I think this scared her enough that she will ask for help.  My friend has spent her whole life taking care of other people and doesn't know how to accept care, yet.

Her daughter now has my phone number and I have told her to call me whenever she has concerns about her mother.  I have the daughter's phone number, and next time I am at my friend's house, she's giving me a key so that I can get in without breaking a window.

In two weeks my friend and I are heading out on a road trip to Vancouver, to visit our respective daughters, a trip we've been talking about for years.  Why do we put things off?  Life, I know, it's busy.  But things can get too late.  I don't want this trip to be too late.  

This first photo is a pitcher that I made in my last pottery session.  It turned out much better than I thought it would and I love the colour.  It's not very big, not big enough to use as a jug, but maybe I'll put flowers in it, or just admire it.  Strangely enough, it also matches the colour of some of the pillows on the couch.

The next photo is a utensil holder that I'm working on.  It's quite large, which made it much harder to work on, and I used grass seed heads to decorate it.  I like how it's turning out.  I've been having problems with cracking, and spoke to my instructor.  She told me to cover it loosely with plastic and let it dry more slowly, so I'm doing that.  Have I mentioned how impatient I am?

 

I had made another larger pitcher, it was the size of a teapot,  but it cracked as it dried.  The beauty of clay is that you just smash it, and rehydrate it (as long as it hasn't been fired yet).  So I did that and haven't lost any clay.

I don't feel like doing much today, my legs are a little sore from my workout yesterday, so I tried to build a mug.  I worked on it for a good hour, but it wasn't working, so I smashed it too, and will try again another day.

It's good practice for me.  I can make something, smash something, and then try again.  I watch pottery tutorials and I want so bad to make the same beautiful things, and then remember that these people have years of practice behind them.  Patience grasshopper.

Jack is now done school for the summer.  He starts grade one in September.  He's growing so fast.  He even mentioned it this morning.  He told me that soon he would be as tall as me.  Not quite, but he is growing.  Right now he spends every possible moment outside.  He has a tree fort, wood, nails, and a hammer.  Of course he has hit his fingers, but he's getting better.  He's also helping poppa build the shed.  Last night he was on the shed, either drilling holes, or screwing in screws.  I wasn't paying attention, poppa was.

It seems awful that Gracie is missing all this, but she never calls or texts to see how he is.  I know she is messed up, but still, it boggles my mind.  Jack is her child.  Or course my son is even worse.  He never sees either of his sons.  

That's it for now.  Life goes on, despite all the fuckery from t-rump.  

On the Yellowhead highway, not far from Jasper.  We're home again and had a good time.  The hotel we stayed in had a pool which is Jack's favorite, so we swam every afternoon before supper.  His swimming is improving and I got a chance to exercise my shoulder, and body in general.  It was hard with the three of us sleeping in one room and I think all of us were happy to get home and sleep in our own beds.  

Jack had a great time and kept saying it was the best day ever!  Everyday:)  I tried some hiking with him but rediscovered my instense fear of heights.  I tried going up Old Fort Point, the stairs were fine, but the height was too much, along with the cliff, and the Athabasca River roaring along at the bottom of that cliff.  

I'm not young anymore, and I'm definitely not safe on my feet anymore.  Uneven footpaths throw me off and leave me unbalanced.  It didn't feel safe and I had a six year old with me.  I started to cry and Jack held my hand as I explained I was afraid of heights, and he took care of me, all the way back down.  

I tried taking him to the Athabasca glacier, but he said it hurt his legs too much.  It wasn't that much of a hike, less than 2 km, and only one steep spot with tons of people walking the path.  I took him back down, and went back up by myself which was nice, no place to fall off of.

Despite Jack being impulsive, he did a good job and respected the scary parts of Jasper.  We did point out that the river would kill him if he fell in.

We drove to the Moberly Homestad on Celestine Road when we were in Jasper.  We hadn't been there since before covid and didn't know there had been a fire there in 2022, but everything was coming back.  The Moberly Homestad was home to Metis families that were forced off the land when Jasper National Park was formed.  It's a beautiful valley with mild weather and must have been a wonderful place to live.

 

So we're home and I sold my condo finally.  Yesterday the buyer was jerking me around, but everything got sorted out finally, and it sold for $100 over list price.  Long story.  I'm just glad it's sold and I won't have to worry about it again.  Now we just need to get hubby's house sold and we'll be down to one house to worry about.  Blogger is now doing some weird shit with my paragraphs, so I'm going to stop.

Me and Jack.

Pyramid mountain.

 Athabasca River.

After the fire.

Athabasca Falls

Saskatchewan River.

Wildflower.

Sunwapta Falls.

 Icefield parkway.

We're spending a week in Jasper with Jack.

And this was our storm last night.
 

Nonviolent resistance courtesy of Debby.  She left a link to an excellent article in her response to the first comment.  It's so easy to forget the things that we've learned, at least for me.  It's also easy to forget about nonviolence when faced with so much anger and hatred and fear.  But there are people, much better people than myself, who were able to use nonviolence to force change.

The most well known nonviolent resister is Mahatma Ghandi who used nonviolent resistance for more than thirty years, first in South Africa and then in India.  His movement forced the British to return India to Indians and self rule.  In the United States, there is of course Martin Luther King Jr. who led the civil rights movement to end segregation and ensure equal rights for black people.

The list is endless when it comes to noviolent resistance and goes back hundreds, if not thousands of years.  We remember the names of the men and women who led those movements, Nelson Mandela, Henry David Thoreau, Lech Walesa, Martin Luther King Jr., Alice Paul, Anton Sakarov, The Suffragettes, and Leo Tolstoy to name a few.  

The Singing Revolution in 1989-1991, led to the restoration of independence of Lativia, Estonia, and Lithuania from the USSR.  The Rose Revolution in 2003 in Georgia, brought about an end to Soviet era leadership in that country.  The Carnation Revolution in Portugal in 1974, The People Power in the Phillipines in 1986, The Velvet Revolution in Czechoslovakia in 1989, The Peaceful Revolution in East  Germany in 1989, and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004.  These were all nonviolent, peaceful protests, and they were all successful.

The thing about nonviolent protests, is that they don't even require a huge number of people to make a change and they are twice as likely to be successful.  The article, backed by research, suggests that only 3.5% of the population is required to participate for a campaign to be successful. Here is Erica Chenoweth talking about nonviolent resistance at a TED talk.

The best thing about this, it gives me hope, and it gives me a way to have my voice heard in Alberta, because right now we have an autocratic Premier who is pushing her own agenda, and that of a very small minority of Albertans.  I am not a violent person, not a screamer, but I want change in Alberta, and the world if I'm honest.  This gives me a pathway to do that that works in accordance with my own beliefs.