A time of dogs & more

 An early childhood memory is of the local public library in this city. My regard and love for animals started when I was very young, and I borrowed all the animal books - dogs,  cats, horses etc gradually, a few at a time from the one small corner of the children's section of that small room. My early foundations as a Peta member had begun.

A favourite old book was Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight. The hardcover copy had 10 or more full page coloured illustrations throughout, and each of these pages had a thin attached protective paper tissue, almost transparent, in front of the illustration, and I'd turn the tissue page over carefully, marveling no one had ripped it.

When I was around 10 years old, my parents drove to a farm nearby where we got a beautiful collie puppy. She was with us for several years, living free in the orchards around the houses as dogs did at the time. My father liked collies, too, as his relatives back in Russia had several of that breed.

Later, when I was married, my husband & I brought 2 collie puppies home, a year apart. This time, the dogs had pedigrees, and we agreed to show them at dogshows. The lineage of the dogs was partly Dunsinane of Scotland...the same area as the King Macbeth of ancient times.

This all happened long ago. I loved the dogs and have fond memories. 

In my last blog entry I talked about my mother, sister, and relatives. My bro-in-law has apologized, my sister is forgiven and on good terms, and mother is declining. She enjoyed a great mid 90's birthday 🎂 party recently, with several people in attendance. My goal was to keep her at home until her natural passing, but as her doctor advised me, sons & daughters think they can do homecare, but it becomes impossible. Soon, this year, I'll have to place my mother in longterm care, until her natural passing. The care I give her is not going to be enough soon. Her needs are beyond my capabilities.

This all reminds me of Lassie Come-Home. I cried reading the book when I was young, as the impact was immense. Lassie makes the trek from Scotland to England to come home, based in a true story. The boy, when Lassie has to leave to a new residence, says something like "be a good lass and don't come home no more." 

It's going to be a hard time when I have to place my Mom in longterm care. We both tried as long as we could to be together. ❤️ 

Family Day...except

 I think those who read my blog entries should know if & why I'm giving mixed vibes lately. Happy Family Day in Canada except...mine is falling apart at the seams, but Mom and I are still quite fine together.

Mom's mid 90's birthday 🎂 is mid April. Her twin sister died 12 years ago, around the same time as my sister died, both from different cancers. Mom is a brave, adventurous, trusting Aries ♈️. My father, Alex, died 31 years ago, of cancer. He also was Aries, brave and strong. I miss sis and Dad a lot. All of us 3 daughters had our natal moon in Aries, so I really understand the sign. ♈️ We had no brothers.

I'm taking care of Mom full time and her needs are becoming quite constant. She goes to adult daycare one day a week. I love Mom and I vow to take care of her until she dies a natural death. Everyone else, all rellies, who lived in Kelowna have died or moved away. Mom still visits friends here. 

Dad, Alex, was from Russia, a well known fam there, and he moved when he was a child to Canada with my grandparents, part of an extended family which many were killed before they left Russia, but only a few survived. I know a lot of stuff I can't say and Dad was protective.

Mom is also Russian heritage but born in Canada. The main point of this blog entry is my sister and bro-in-law did a MAID with his father in Toronto 2 years ago. Medically Assisted Induced Death. There was nothing seriously wrong with his father. He was rich and this son and my sister never saw eye to eye. I am religious in the way I believe God decides when we die and I'm strictly 100 % opposed to MAID. This man was having lunch at the CN tower one day, on a boat 🚢 with fam the next day, and then dead. They say he wanted to die as his wife died 3 months prior. 💔 I don't believe it. He was convinced and it's tragically sad to me.

I've tried and tried to have good vibes with my sis and bro-in-law, but 2 years later they see nothing wrong with the MAID in Toronto and I can't trust them with Mom. Today sis and I had another argument in which her husband on speaker phone told me to "F off, you bitch". He has not spoken to Mom and I in 2 years, though I tried to make peace. Now, it's over and I cannot try with them for my sister's sake, for my mother's sake, I just can't keep trying.

So..that's how MAID is affecting families in Canada 🇨🇦 on Family Day. I was at the point of putting Mom in a nice respite home for 10 days in May, so I could go to Hawaii with my sister. My Mom can't travel, brave as she is, because there's incontinence now etc...but I won't air my dirty laundry in public so to speak. My father's side of the fam were always royally discreet, my Mom's side not so much!

Today, instead of helping me, my sister texted she is going to Waikiki with her husband instead. 😑 I texted I hope a riptide takes you out into the ocean and you don't return as there's no coming back from this rift.

That's the story of MAID and Family Day today. No one knows anymore in the obituaries who died by what means. It's awful.

 Have a good one. Let love ❤️ and faith guide your most important decisions. God bless.

Stories and New Years

An Arctic front is on the way. Wind was cold blowing through my jacket on my walk to my Jeep in the mall parking lot yesterday.

I'm thinking of a walk in winter, beginning of 2020, when everything was on lockdown. 🔐 The airport was a ghost town. The condo where I lived,  and owned, was covered in snow ❄️ and weather so cold outside. I had to fix the Jeep due to a substantial leak. This leak was in the same place as once before  and I knew to put some of the pooled liquid on a paper towel and taste it before I called the mechanic. I'm a widow and I don't generally like asking any random men for favors.

I drove to the shop several miles down the highway 🛣. Diagnosis was a water pump, same as before, which was doubtful I thought, but I left the Jeep there, took a city bus 🚌 to the closest stop, a mile from home, and walked to the field on Indian land. Shops were all closed because of lockdown, so I couldn't go for a coffee anywhere.

Long story short, the Indians hadn't broken a path through the field for good reason. Snow was thigh high in drifts, and every few meters I had to stop and catch my breath. My heart was pounding from exertion. In one spot, I saw cougar tracks. I wished I hadn't taken the field route. 😕 I could have been very easy prey. Finally, after  mile, I saw the roofs of condos where I lived, down the hill. I was never so glad.

At home, I took off my boots 👢, full of snow. An hour later, the mechanic called to say the Jeep was fixed. The return trip was easier, as a bus stop was one way on the highway,  outside the complex, at the bottom of a hill.

Weeks later, the leak reappeared under my vehicle. I took the Jeep into a dealership a few miles, in Kelowna. Turns out thermostat housing was the problem, and they fixed it. Two sessions of water pumps replaced beforehand and one lifelong memory of my winter trek in the field. It was like Leo DiCaprio in the Revenant, only no Academy Award!

The moral of this story is listen to the stories of your elders, as I do. Kids now aren't even interested to ask questions. They think they could look up everything online. Not so. Life lessons are not like that. Tell your kids stories whether they want to listen or not. Listening is polite, builds character, and just may save their lives one day.

Happy 2024! ❣️ 

Remembering my love

 For several days we've been in a firestorm here where I live. Mom and me are fine. I chose to live below the forest tree line a long time ago, long before the big fire which happened 🔥 exactly 20 years ago. 10 years after, I was with my lover, Roger, for a wonderful summer ☀️,  when we sat at the beach and looked at the treeline recovering, and now he's been gone more than 4 years, gone from Earth to heaven. He was a dream when we met almost 50 years ago, and he's a dream again. 

Beautiful, French speaking, "Rojay". We were teenagers. I was married to your friend. We held on to our love. It consumed us. I think about our summer 2013, when we tried again. You were a boy angel, an original Greenpeace member, idealist, true, and I miss you.

I'll remember you always, as a boy, when we met and as a man...on those hot August nights🌙. God bless. 

This beautiful world

 Some thoughts, maybe inspired by dreams, regarding our lives on Earth.

Crop circles are not only on fields. They are on water, in forests,  on rocky places. Maybe alien, maybe natural energy patterns, all unique, like snowflakes.

Fractals are the basis of larger patterns.  We are prehistoric, back to an era before great discoveries, before the annihilation. We don't even know what sex is. We have less understanding than plants or animals. 

We should be driving in noiseless hovercraft, at various heights from the ground, no accidents. We should have no surgeries with knives. We should have energy sources like sonar and light to build things, like Merlin built. We should not have the effort of blasting through air with anything. It should be graceful and in harmony with the elements.

We should not be killing anyone or anything.  We should look to our creators for help whether we look to God, aliens, or any truth. We will be saved when we try harder,  when we learn to love and survive. Amen 🙏 

Victoria Day Long Weekend

 Time is nothing. Years go by. How did I get older? I thought I had infinite ♾️ days to live my beautiful life. That's all I ever wanted, and I've reminded people, told new people "I want a beautiful life." 

It's not easy, but I'm not losing focus. I'm setting it up. I know it can all end. "People plan, God decides" is my saying.

I'm still with Mom. She was 94 in April. My help is very limited but I cherish our times. Sometimes I'm so tired, I collapse into bed. Her memory is going away, each week. 

I love ❤️ you, my thoughts of my lover. I must be strong. Life is a precious 🎁 💝 gift. We don't need wars at all. Wars make things so difficult as we evolve. People en masse need so much strength.

Lammas greetings

 At Lammas-Tide when I will marry

Hawaiian ginger I shall carry

My bouquet at Lammas-Tide

When I become my lover's bride 👰‍♂ ✨️ 💕 

No, it has not happened yet, and you know why, my love. All up to you. The romance is real, but intense, and more than fate or destiny, more than magical charm. 

You can't be lonely. We should try to take a leap of faith. I'm doing all I can. It's easy to be true. I ❤️ you.