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.

Litany for Dictatorships

For all those beaten, for the broken heads,
The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning city of our time ...

For those taken in rapid cars to the house and beaten
By the skilful boys, the boys with the rubber fists,
—Held down and beaten, the table cutting their loins,
Or kicked in the groin and left, with the muscles jerking
Like a headless hen’s on the floor of the slaughter-house
While they brought the next man in with his white eyes staring.
For those who still said “Red Front!” or “God Save the Crown!”
And for those who were not courageous
But were beaten nevertheless.
For those who spit out the bloody stumps of their teeth
Quietly in the hall,
Sleep well on stone or iron, watch for the time
And kill the guard in the privy before they die,
Those with the deep-socketed eyes and the lamp burning.

For those who carry the scars, who walk lame—for those
Whose nameless graves are made in the prison-yard
And the earth smoothed back before morning and the lime scattered.

For those slain at once. For those living through months and years
Enduring, watching, hoping, going each day
To the work or the queue for meat or the secret club,
Living meanwhile, begetting children, smuggling guns,
And found and killed at the end like rats in a drain.

For those escaping
Incredibly into exile and wandering there.
For those who live in the small rooms of foreign cities
And who yet think of the country, the long green grass,
The childhood voices, the language, the way wind smelt then,
The shape of rooms, the coffee drunk at the table,
The talk with friends, the loved city, the waiter’s face,
The gravestones, with the name, where they will not lie
Nor in any of that earth. Their children are strangers.

For those who planned and were leaders and were beaten
And for those, humble and stupid, who had no plan
But were denounced, but grew angry, but told a joke,
But could not explain, but were sent away to the camp,
But had their bodies shipped back in the sealed coffins,
“Died of pneumonia.”  “Died trying to escape.”

For those growers of wheat who were shot by their own wheatstacks,
For those growers of bread who were sent to the ice-locked wastes,
And their flesh remembers their fields.

For those denounced by their smug, horrible children
For a peppermint-star and the praise of the Perfect State,
For all those strangled or gelded or merely starved
To make perfect states; for the priest hanged in his cassock,
The Jew with his chest crushed in and his eyes dying,
The revolutionist lynched by the private guards
To make perfect states, in the names of the perfect states.

For those betrayed by the neighbors they shook hands with
And for the traitors, sitting in the hard chair
With the loose sweat crawling their hair and their fingers restless
As they tell the street and the house and the man’s name.

And for those sitting at table in the house
With the lamp lit and the plates and the smell of food,
Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars
And the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly
And the woman goes to the door with a stiff face,
Smoothing her dress.
                            “We are all good citizens here.
We believe in the Perfect State.”
                                              And that was the last
Time Tony or Karl or Shorty came to the house
And the family was liquidated later.
It was the last time.
                              We heard the shots in the night
But nobody knew next day what the trouble was
And a man must go to his work. So I didn’t see him
For three days, then, and me near out of my mind
And all the patrols on the streets with their dirty guns
And when he came back, he looked drunk, and the blood was on him.

For the women who mourn their dead in the secret night,
For the children taught to keep quiet, the old children,
The children spat-on at school.
                                              For the wrecked laboratory,
The gutted house, the dunged picture, the pissed-in well,
The naked corpse of Knowledge flung in the square
And no man lifting a hand and no man speaking.

For the cold of the pistol-butt and the bullet’s heat,
For the rope that chokes, the manacles that bind,
The huge voice, metal, that lies from a thousand tubes
And the stuttering machine-gun that answers all.

For the man crucified on the crossed machine-guns
Without name, without resurrection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons—John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody—oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
                                      This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die,
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light fails and the terrible blood streams down.

We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon’s teeth.
Our children know and suffer the armed men.

By Stephen Vincent Benet
 

I took this photo Friday morning I think.  As you can see my lilacs are very overgrown, but I'll wait until they're done blooming to trim them.  What the photo doesn't show is all the wood scattered around.  Both the fort and shed are works in progress.

We took Jack to Elk Island National Park on Saturday and had a long walk there.  He did well and didn't bitch or moan about the walk.  Progress.  He even had a good time and thought the frog was cool.

The next photo is for Mr. Pudding who always so kindly posts photos of Northern England.  This is northern Alberta, or at least a small part of it.  You can see the beaver lodge in the photo.  Every single slough in the Park has at least one, but sometimes three or four, beaver lodges.  The place was originally called Beaver Hills.  

We had a good walk and survived another Saturday with Jack.  He doesn't stop talking or asking questions, which in theory sounds so good.  He curious.  Yes, he's curious, but it's also very intense and mentally draining.  It feels like teaching someone for twelve hours straight, which I suppose it is.

Yesterday he visited his mom.  She has no vehicle, and her sister was sick, so my hubby picked her up and dropped her and Jack off at the swimming pool.  Apparently she forgot to bring her bankcard, so she couldn't feed Jack.  Hubby picked them up at the pool and dropped her off at her apartment, and took Jack out for lunch.  Not sure how they got into the pool without money, but maybe she has a low income pass.  I don't know how she thinks she can take care of him.

Today she's pissy because she wants him for overnights again and all of the guardians have said no.  She's sleeping on a mattress, on the floor of her apartment, her one bedroom apartment.  Hubby said the place is filthy and messy, with the scent of cat pee heavy in the air.  

When the fire broke out at her old apartment, Gracie was sleeping, at 1:30 in the afternoon.  She went back to sleep because apparently, the fire alarms often went off.  But then a lot of fire trucks with sirens showed up, and then someone was banging on her door, and a fire fighter had to go into her bedroom to wake her up and get her out of the apartment.  That's what concerns me, and the rest of us.  I don't know why she couldn't wake up, but usually it's drugs and alcohol for her.  Jack is not safe with her, still.  I doubt he ever will be.

Jack will be saddled with her for the rest of her life.  We'll have to teach him that you can love toxic people, but you don't have to let them drag you down too.  Took me many years to learn that one.

The reason cottonwoods poplars are called cottonwoods.  Apparently the indigenous people used the cotton seeds for a variety of things, including stuffing in bedrolls.  I love cottonwoods.  In the springtime when the sticky cottonwood buds start to come off the trees, they have a particular scent that says spring to me.  Those buds also stick to everything, especially shoes and floors, leaving yellow resin behind.  We had two huge cottonwoods in our backyard growing up and my dad hated them because of the sticky buds, the cotton fluff, and the catkins.  My dad was often at war with nature. 

 

The wild rose is the Provincial flower of Alberta and is everywhere.  All of the flowers are blooming right now.

 This dogwood was trying to escape through the fence.

Jack asked me today why he couldn't spend more time with his mom/tablet.  I told him that his grandma and I had decided that he wasn't safe with his mama right now for overnight visits.  I told him that when there was that fire in her apartment building, she slept through the fire alarms, all of the fire truck sirens, and didn't wake up until a firefighter came into her apartment and woke her up.  He knows about not being able to wake up his mama.  He said okay, and left it at that.

Jack has decided he wants to be a famous soccer player and win the Stanley Cup.  I know.  I explained to him that all professional athletes start training when they're his age, or younger;  that they give up holidays to practice their sport, and practice their sport before and after school usually.  I don't know if that put him off, or spurred him on.  He was upset this afternoon because he couldn't practice soccer before supper because we have early suppers on Wednesdays for his swimming lessons.  I can't see how playing soccer with a 62 year old grandmother would really help his chances of making it to the big time, but he wants to practice with me, and it's good exercise for me, so there's that.

The last day of pottery was this morning which makes me sad.  I still want to make things and I'm thinking of buying a chunk of clay for the summer.  We'll see.

I stopped by work yesterday to say hi to everyone.  It was nice to see my work family.  I miss them but not the work.  I don't miss dying patients.  I know not everyone is dying, but there is so much death and grief in that building that it feels like a weight some days.  I'm okay without that weight.  Eventually I will have to find somebody else to help or take care of, because that's me, but for now I'm good.  I was a good nurse and I cared for my patients very much; I like to think that I relieved some of their suffering with my skill and humour.  Working at the cancer hospital was good for my soul.  It allowed me to be kind and compassionate on a daily basis.  Plus this

Charlie and I on a walk around some wetlands.  He was busy eating salad/grass.  

Silver buffaloberry has the tiniest little flowers with the most lovely scent. The flowers are easy to miss.

 Some irises I found on my walk today.

I worked on Jack's tree fort this past week and managed to get all the floor done.  I had to take apart the old shed and then cut the boards to the right length.  I got to use the mitre saw and the power drill.  Have I mentioned how much I love power tools?

The fort still needs railings and a roof but Jack likes it.  He's planning on installing wifi and a fridge:)

I only had two minor injuries during the whole demoliton and construction, a bruise on my hand when a piece of wood jumped on the saw, and an abrasion on my forehead when the shed hit me while I was pulling it over.  To add to that, I fell in the downstairs bathroom the other morning and gave myself a goose egg on the side of my head.  There was a lot of screaming and crying, but just the goose egg really.  Scared the shit out of my hubby and Jack.

My last pottery class is on Wednesday.  I'm going to miss the classes and the ladies.  I glazed a bunch of stuff this morning and have two things left to glaze that require a lighter touch, so they'll be done on Wednesday.  It takes two to three weeks to get our stuff back.

The wind has been blowing for what seems like months, although it's only been weeks.  Not a gentle breeze either.  The other night there was an alert that said the winds could reach speeds of 130km/hr.  Thankfully we didn't get those winds, but the wind wears me out eventually.

Really not a lot going on.  The house is clean, laundry is done (although not folded), bathrooms are clean, and supper is prepped.  Just in time to pick Jack up from daycare.

TACO= trump always chickens out (on tariffs)