We drove out to Elk Island National Park this afternoon, in the hopes that Jack would fall asleep and have a nap because he and poppa are going to some car races this evening.  Jack did fall asleep for awhile.  The weather was perfect and the sky was so blue.  There was a large flock of coots feeding in the water and while we sat and watched them, sandhill cranes flew overhead, calling out as they flew.  It was quiet and peaceful.  A boon for the soul.

Jack enjoyed it too, something which always surprises me, because usually he likes action and noise.

 This summer has been one of the hardest of my life.  I'm feeling depressed but functional.  There's lots of stuff going on but that's not for right now.  Next week we have court and we see the child pyschologist.  Life continues on.

Hospital pillows are not comfortable, but they still go missing, so we write on our pillows, in the hopes that they will be returned to our department.  Some nurses have taken it a step further and given us something to laugh about, which I so appreciate it.

 

I'm worn out.  Charlie, the new dog, is shedding at an alarming rate.  After some research online, I decided it may be because I'm bathing him too often. I'm bathing him so often because the off leash dog park that we go to, has a mudhole filled with water, and he stinks when we get home.  He stinks in the car too, so I'm also washing the dog blankets in the car and the towels used to clean him.  I'm also using the wrong shampoo for Charlie.  I have never seen so much dog hair in my life, ever.  Even roomba can't keep up.  Jack seems to be sensitive to all the dog hair and he's congested and red nosed.  So there's that too.  I've washed all dog blankets in the house and even cleaned the furniture to try to reduce the amount of dander in the house.  Jack doesn't need to lose something else he loves.

I guess it's time to find another dog park or keep him on his leash while at the dog park.  Sigh.  It'll be better once the snow flies but that's a couple of months away still.  Today it's hot as hell with a high of 33C, which is too damned hot.  I took the day off because we had too many nurses at work.  When I came back home, I took the dogs to the dog park before it got too hot. There was an older woman, older than me, who had a young lab on a leash.  Charlie wanted to play and the woman was not happy with Charlie or me.  Charlie still has very limited recall and I haven't done anything all summer to train him, so this is on me, but it's been a kind of shitty summer with everything and the thought of training a dog makes me want to cry.

Jack is doing well which is nice.  His aunt and uncle, who take him on weekends, went to Lebannon and Dubai for an unknown length of time.  Not sure when they'll be back.  And Jack's other grandma is leaving this week to go to Toronto, so no help with him this long weekend.  Sigh.  His behavior is much improved, and his anxiety has decreased.  He never asks for him mom which is sad.  But he is still so active that he wears us out.

Gracie went into rehab yesterday, so she'll be good for awhile, until she's not again.  Her mom was able to serve her the court papers for day to day parenting before she went into rehab, and she accepted them.  I even found my son and served him.  He does not seem to care at all, and thought we already had day to day parenting of Jack.  My son looked much better than when I saw him in January.  He was sober and clean.

So housework, vacuuming and laundry are about all I've been doing for the last week and I'm fucking tired of it.  I'm not a fan of housework but I dislike a dirty house even more.  So I'm tired and bitchy, sleeping in the basement with a four year old boy who kicks all night.  

Things I'm thankful for today.

NOTHING!

Photo courtesy of Pat Kane/ Reuters

The north is on fire. Yellowknife has issued an evacuation order and the hamlet of Enterprise has burned to the ground.  Twenty-two thousand people plus, are on the move, heading south.  We are 1500 km south of Yellowknife and some people will be coming here, while some will continue even further south to Red Deer.  The evacuation centres between here and Yellowknife are already all full.

Fires continue to burn on Maui and the death toll there continues to rise as they find the bodies left in the burned wreckage of Lahaina. 

The Premier of Alberta, Danielle Smith, has put a moratorium on all new starts of renewable energy projects in the province.  This is where I live and I can tell you the majority of Albertans do not support this nutjob.  

It feels like world is burning and nobody gives a shit.

Suncor, a large oilsands company, has a new CEO.  His name is Rich Kruger and he had this to say.

"“We have a bit of a disproportionate emphasis on the longer-term energy transition,” Kruger said, adding that while lower emissions energy is important, it is not what is going to make money for shareholders today."
 

Basically, fuck the future generations, lets get rich now.  I am livid!

On a happier note, I filed the papers for day to day parenting of Jack today and just have to serve his parents.  Detox won't let me serve the papers and I don't know where my son is right now; things will work out though. The woman who helped me at the Alberta Court of Justice was so kind and helpful; it made the day so much more bearable.  And the best news is that the other two guardians, the aunt and the other grandma, both support our applications.  When the other grandma texted me that information yesterday, I burst into tears at work.

I still feel overwhelmed and shaky but I'm okay, whereas so many are not right now.  I'm thankful that Yellowknife is evacuating before the fire hits the city.  

I'm going to channel my inner Yorkshire Pudding.  A field of canola northeast of the city.

Exaltation of The Holy Cross Parish, Skaro.

 Broadmoor Park.

Deermound dog park with a very grumpy grandchild who was up and awake at 4am.  

The asters are blooming, fall is coming.

Grief is a strange creature, even when you know it's coming, it's still so painful.  You would think that the last two years of grieving for the man who was slowly leaving us would have been enough, but no, the grief that I feel this week is fresh and painful.  I also thought, he's my father in law, I've only know this man for seven years, it won't hurt as much, but none of that mattered.  The fresh grief arrived on Monday night, my body slowed down, I kept crying, everything became more difficult.  My poor husband is overcome with grief.  His back seized up and now he's sick.  Grief will not be ignored.  It insists it be dealt with, one way or another.

The grief my husband and I feel is complicated by his fractured family, who all hold their anger close to their hearts, as if that's all they have left of their family.  We were made to feel deeply unwelcome by my sister in law when we last visited my father in law.  She threatened to have me removed from the room, my sin, touching her father.  The funeral will be no different and we have decided to remember Art in our own way.  My husband made peace with his father in the past year and so did my brother in law.  Attending a funeral where nobody will awknowledge us will just cause more pain, not attending the funeral will mean that we are as awful as the family thinks we are.  There is no way to win this, except to care for ourselves. 

I'm learning to trust my gut, to believe what I feel and to understand that another's anger is about them, not me.  My sister in law can hold her anger as close as she wants; I know that it will only keep others away.  I've seen it in my own family and I've experienced it myself.  It seems that anger keeps you safe, it's big, it's scary, and it feels empowering.  But what anger really is a fortress of solitude for a person to sit in, by themselves, nursing old wounds.  Anger pushes everyone away and ultimately destroys relationships.  It's not how I want to spend my remaining days.  

RIP Art