Less than a month ago Mom was still walking pretty good albeit with a walker. Today she is in hospital in the stroke ward unable to get those legs to carry her very far. Before she fell last week she was doing exercises daily and going up and down the stairs preparing herself for our January trip to Calgary. She was really looking forward to it and I use it now to encourage her to get up and try walking.
None of the doctors know for sure what brought this on exactly, it could be her congestive heart failure or a mini stroke but until they do more tests they wont really know, in fact they may never know for sure.
I hope that none of you ever have to spend any time in a hospital in Ontario, let me tell you it's not pleasant. The nurses attitudes have changed dramatically in the last few years and their actually quite snarky. Elderly patients lives don't mean much. An example, the lady in the next bed was unable to eat (couldn't swallow due to a stroke) and the daughter insisted on a feeding tube. She was told that maybe since her mother was 83 she should just "let her go". Somehow I didn't think that was the hospitals decision to make. Twice today Mom needed to go to the bathroom and both times waited more than 30 minutes for assistance from a Nursing Assistant. Nurses no longer do that kind of thing apparently and there is one NA for 30 patients all elderly and stroke sufferers. This is of course all blamed on cutbacks from the same government who instituted a new health tax over a year ago and collects billions. Of course that money goes into general revenue and instead of hospitals improving their actually getting worse. But the thing that really really got my goat tonight. We have a family friend, who is Filipino and when she came to visit this evening as the NA was helping my Mom, she asked Mila was she here to take care of Mom. Both Mila and I looked at her with amazement and said no, she was a friend visiting. Does being Filipino automatically make you a health care provider? Mila said she was actually asked the same question the previous evening when I wasn't there. I think I have to straighten that out very quickly, I find it insulting.

This orchid is called Dancing Lady and was given to me by good friends when I was unable to dance. In fact, I was lying in a hospital bed at St. John's Rehab recovering from hip replacement surgery. It bloomed about a month and it has taken me two years almost to the day to get it to bloom again. Quite a challenge that was since I am not terribly good with orchids, in fact I have killed a couple over the years.
This couldn't be a better week for it to bloom since I am in quite a mood. The better half left for Greece on Monday for 6 weeks and I'm meant to go in four weeks to join him and visit with my mother in law, who is not in the best of health. Unfortunately, my own mom, who lives with us, took a tumble Monday evening and is not in great shape either. So now my trip is in the air, not sure what will happen.
But at least I have the lady to look at and cheer me up.

Today, with the news that four more Canadian soldiers have been killed by a suicide bomber on a bicycle in Afghanistan I am reminded once more of why we should not be there. Not that I don't think the fight against "terrorists" is noble, just that I think it's a fight we can't win. Why? Well mostly because they don't fight fair do they, when they send in suicide bombers that also target their own people. And since western armies fight with morals against them we haven't got a prayer.
The other part of me has been wondering for a while whether it's worth it. This is a country were the residents for the most part and the Taliban will do anything to protect their opium crops and trade, which is their main sourced of income. How can we possibly fight against that. They loose a hundred fighters and don't even blink, while we loose a few and cry, not that I'm not crying, don't get me wrong. I do cry, just a different outlook on life.
How different? Recently I have started reading Aljazeera on line and came across this little gem read it and see the mentality of what we are fighting. When mother's drug their babies so they can go to work or have peace to do their housework were in big trouble there. They will never willingly give up their way of life, why bother.
I know in my heart that if we leave the Taliban will be back and as before girl children will not be allowed to go to school and women will be less free but is that really our problem? The terrorists will train there again to fight us again on our soil but will they really bother us in good old "nice" Canada. Maybe Jack Layton is riht, who knows.

It's pretty hard to pressure one's offspring to do something especially when said offspring is incredibly busy (like traveling and such) but I had a plan.
You see, he lives in Calgary, Alberta and we, (that would be the better half and my Mom) live in Toronto. So my plan was deviously simple actually, I told him that we were coming to celebrate his birthday January 22 next year and it would be good if the house were ready to receive us. Now the pressures on. Problem is he lives in the hottest real estate market in the country and getting certain materials is proving to be difficult. Also, this is a major renovation with an addition, new kitchen, bathrooms, wiring, plumbing etc. You get the idea. Nevertheless seeing as how it will probably be my Mom's last trip (mobility issues), and she absolutely goes ga ga over the Rocky Mountains, I know every effort will be made at the other end. On this end, Mom's exercising daily and practicing going up and down stairs in preparation for the trip. I'm pretty impressed with her actually, she's been doing it for three weeks now without me reminding her.

I know I'm old enough but that is really my middle grandson. He's 19 and I have another one 21 and the baby at 16. Now this guy is on his way to Toronto from Wild Rose Country, that's Calgary to those that don't know.
He's hitchhiking his way across the country and last I heard he was in Winnipeg. We are all looking forward to his arrival, especially his great-grandmother.
Oh to be young again. I did some hitchhiking in my day but not in Canada. When I was 16 I lived in Germany for 6 months with my grandparents and hitchhiked from Wiesbaden to Berlin. I wasn't alone though, I had a girlfriend with me, you know, safety in numbers. But still, that was over 40 years ago, different times, safer I think.

I remember exactly where I was when this happened and I never want to forget. It is in the forgetting that "they" will be able to do it again. We must now remain vigilant to protect our democracy forever against Islam.
The photo I really wanted to post was The Falling Man but I didn't think anyone wanted to see it, so just read the story here. I did watch the documentary on CBC last week and it was very hard to watch but it is something we must not forget.

When I was selling real estate in the I used to go to the odd seminar. One particular speaker stood out and made me think. His name was Bob Proctor and he always said the 95 percent of the people just "tiptoe through life" and the other five percent know what's going on.
Terrorism doesn't exist here, no one wants to hurt us, were too nice aren't we? We're Canadian, not Americans so we should be safe. We are living in a dream world boys and girls and we better wake up although in my opinion it's way too late. Read this article it's an eye opener.
Now that I stay home because of a disability, I have too much time on my hands and worry too much about the state of the world. I joke around that maybe I should order my Burqa and how many shades of black does it come in but maybe I really shouldn't be joking about stuff like that. It is a distinct possibility that the world will one day be different than it is now. There is some interesting reading to be found on this blog.
Is it possible that we are reading the Muslims all wrong and they really don't want to live here in the west with us in peace? Are they really intent on taking over one country at a time?

When the offspring and the "girl" were tooling around eastern Ontario last month they stopped in at a few garage sales. This is what they found for me.

After a little playing around it ended up in bits and pieces.

After a little more playing around, you know, paint the sucker and rewire it looked like this. Not bad eh.

I know it's just a funny little lamp but I collect two things, milkglass (which this lamp is) and lustre ware which is kind of a shiny ugly orange stuff from the 50's, really retro. I can't help myself and someday the offspring will have the job of getting rid of it all. Poor boy.

The news these days is pretty depressing so I'm always looking for something to make me chuckle. This past long weekend there were over 500 charges for speeding on Ontario highways, but this was one of the best excuses I have ever heard. Check it out and smile.

The saddest part of the year for me is closing the cottage for the season. This year were doing it earlier than usual because the better half is going to Greece soon and I didn't want to do the closing myself. It's a lot of work bringing back all the accumulated food stuffs we didn't use and shutting down the water. But we did have one big blowout weekend with lots of fish caught.

There were twenty two Perch, one four pound Bass and three one pounders in that net. Lots of work to clean but man, what a feast.

The best part of the entire weekend in my mind was the fact that we were able to take Oma for a boat ride. Now considering her really poor mobility (she has no strength in her legs any more) I was able to get her to walk down to the lake. The better half and his buddy got her into the boat and off we went. Her smile made the entire excercise more than worth it.

All in all, it has been a pretty good summer. There was a short visit from the offspring and his "girl" and visits to other people's cottages where I didn't have to do much except eat and drink but now it's over for another year.