Unforgettable

Last weekend will forever be unforgettable for me.  Granddaughter and I spent it at the gorgeous 'Fairmont Palliser Hotel' in downtown Calgary and it was just the two of us to celebrate her 10th birthday.

Everywhere we went, I told the servers it was her birthday, which resulted in a special dessert with a sparkler on the top.  In other words, she was suitably spoiled.  

Dinner

One of several cakes

A little healthy food

Aerobic moves

Beautiful

Bedtime

This is was a special grandmother/granddaughter weekend she may forget, but I never will.    

Dear Diary

Well, B arrived back from Houston last evening and the laundry is already overflowing.  Away for three weeks visiting his daughter, son-in-law and grands, he returned with a workload I had not missed in the least.

I used to go too, but as you and I both know, Diary, his daughter and I are estranged, which means my step-grandchildren no longer know me.  That's a shame, my friend, because I am worth knowing.  We are estranged because she had the colossal nerve to bring her evil mother to our sacred, family cottage -- the cottage we shared as a blended family of six for 25 years.  (See "How could you," July 29, 2018)

I was understandably enraged.  That's when we fell out.

This is how I am now portrayed -- the wicked stepmother.

Of course, it's all about money.  The mother has lots, we don't.  That's the draw she commands.  Ironically enough, much of her money we had to give her in the divorce and custody settlement, even though she is the millionaire!  How we kept paying support when we had the kids the majority of the time, I will never understand?  "That's the judicial attitude," our lawyer said when I asked why she didn't pay us child support.

I raised this daughter.  Remember, Diary, how I went to battle with the Ottawa School Board to make sure she got her bilingual high school diploma?  They were saying she was a credit short, so I dug around and found a summer school credit, which they gave her, which ensured she got her diploma.  And that diploma?  That diploma got her the job at Disney in Florida the Hyatt Hotel in Calgary, where she met her husband.  The rest, as they say, is history.

None of that would have happened, had I not intervened.  You know, Diary, my anger is also rooted in hurt -- that and a touch of self-pity, I admit.  But that didn't stop me from insisting B visit his grands in Houston, a visit I also paid for.  And speaking of money, do you think it's right for B to give her hundreds of dollars for his keep while he is there?

I don't either.

The fact is, he will never see his grands again because a solo trip to Houston at his age is now out-of-the-question.  And daughter's maternal inheritance rules out any chance she will visit here.  That's pretty sad.  Wonder if she'll come to his funeral?  Probably only to the committal in Ottawa -- as long as it coincides with a visit to Mummy.

Well, he's back and our "normal" is returning, which reminds me, I better get at that laundry! 

Back to the future.

   

 

     

Rack and ruin

Today is budget day and we're in for a very, depressing treat.  In a series of pre-budget announcements, the government (the "govern" part of this word is misleading) has dumped out billions on ludicrous expenditures like:

• A renter's bill of rights
• $1 billion for school lunches
• $6 billion for infrastructure
• $15 billion for construction loans for apartment buildings, and
• $1 billion for child care.

And this doesn't include the billions already thrown overboard during their disastrous eight-year tenure!  When questioned by a parliamentary committee, claiming the new defence spending estimates were aspirational, Minister Bill Blair said, "These are not aspirational, they are funded costs we will be deciding in the next weeks."

Huh!?  They still have to decide, so of course they remain aspirational.

Here's who will be delivering the budget:

Our Toenail-picker-in-chief, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

The always-classy Freeland.

While Freeland and Trudeau are pouring money down hopeless holes in other countries, this is how they have left 24 Sussex:

The Official Home of the Prime Minister -- a derelict dump.

Would the Americans ever tolerate their White House in this shape?  Would the Brits allow Number 10 to sink this low?  Obviously, that's what these goons think of Canada:  Nothing.

In other news, Tesla is laying off 10 percent of its staff because sales of EVs have slumped.  All I can say is, hahahaha!  I've been saying this forever.  They're too expensive and the batteries -- if you can find somewhere to charge them -- are not reliable:

Elon Musk is no dummy.

Same old, same old

Failing grade.

Taking children into care in this province has only resulted in many dying of drug overdoses.  The minister of child and family services, Searle Turton, should hang his head in shame.  So should the minister of Indigenous relations, Rick Wilson, because of the 47 deaths from overdoses in care, 35 were Indigenous youth.

Sad, sad story.

Children are taken into care because of neglect, abuse, malnutrition or drug-addicted parents.  But at least they are alive at the time they are apprehended.  Taking them into "care" means many end up just plain dead.

Cindy Blackstock, head of the child and family "caring" society, should resign.  She claims child welfare is her primary concern.  Really?!  I don't buy it.  Her organization gets millions and you can bet her salary is at least six figures while so many native children suffer in squalour and distress.  (But that's another issue.  Where does the $30 billion a year given to native leaders go?)

Doesn't she look cute.

It's unconscionable that such highly-paid ministers and community "leaders" are not doing their jobs.  Shame, shame. 

 

What was that all about?

The solar eclipse yesterday left me completely puzzled.  What was all the fuss about?  It was the so-what of the year here.  I mean, it was only a 40 percent eclipse in this region and I noticed nothing.  That may have been because I was sitting in a restaurant having lunch, but still, there was really nothing to see.

This was what happened in Cochrane and Calgary:  Nothing.

Before the event, it was plastered hysterically all over the media.  A million people flocked to Niagara Falls and booked every hotel room in the area just to see it.  They packed parks, set up campers and trailers and picnicked with lawn chairs everywhere.  Why?  I couldn't have cared less.  Cloudy days have been a lot darker here.  I'd rather watch a beautiful sunrise or sunset, but then again, what do I know?  Apparently, I was the odd woman out, but that's usually the case with everything I do or write.

Another annoyance is the ad campaign to get everyone to buy a KardiaMobile kit.  All over the airwaves, this pitch is to get us to fork over $99 for a device that will let us track our heartbeat anytime we want.  Who wants to?!  Are we supposed to whip out our device at a party to check our heart rate?!  I mean, either it's beating, or it's not.  If it's beating, great!  If it's not, you're dead.  Either way, who cares?

Let's add a couple of other irritating ads to the list.  The first that springs to mind are those ubiquitous pitches for 'Sure Health'.  G-d!#$%%#@!!!!!  I hate that guy!!%#%$#@!!  I first blogged about this in 2018.  2018!  And that jerk is still on the airwaves making me crazy!%$%#@!!!   

Right up there with him is Kurt Browning flogging the 'Chip Reverse Mortgage'.  I used to love Kurt.  Now I hate him.  He too has been yapping at me from my screen since 2018!!  Please, buddy, just stick to skating.

So, those are my rants for the day.  I feel better.

 

Weird topic

Still not taken seriously

Not sure how we got started talking about it, but a young server at the local 'Joey's' in Calgary told me about how she had been raped.  Maybe I have the look of a kindly grandmother, but she told me that the worst decision she had made was going to the police.

What did the police do?  They had to charge him, but didn't really take her too seriously in the process.  After an entire year of living with debilitating anxiety, the case was finally heard.  The outcome?  The judge dismissed it because she had been at a party and had admitted having had a few drinks.

So, the rapist got walked with a smirk on his face.  "The judge made it seem like it was all my fault, that I had asked for it," she said.  Having had something similar happed to me when I was 20, 56 years ago, I totally related.  So, with all the "#metoo" clamour nothing has changed.  The girl is always at fault and the perpetrator gets away with it.

Can you believe it?  Yes, I'm sure you can and it's a sad, sad state of affairs that a lovely young woman like that was basically kicked to the male-dominated, judicial curb.  

Mothers keep protecting your daughters.

     

Then what?

After you do your environmental duty and dump your gas car, then what?!  I mean, who's going to fork out $50 or $60 K for a Tesla?!  The latest is that Tesla is actually cutting production because they can't get lithium for their batteries.

Duh?!!

And if you're dumb enough and rich enough to buy one, where are you going to charge it?  Alberta is experiencing rolling blackouts because there isn't enough supply to run a measly, little province of 4 million frigid souls.  My question is, what is Marie-France Samaroden, vice-president of grid reliability operations for the Alberta Electricity System, doing?  She must be getting a huge whack of dough and yet she can't figure out the meaning of the word "reliability".

My other question is why the rebate?  If the idea is to get people to buy less gas, why are we getting a rebate at all?  Doesn't that cancel out the incentive to use less?

Duh?!!

During the January cold snap, grid alerts and rolling blackouts were also the norm, as Albertans faced days of supply uncertainty.  If you can believe it, four -- yes four! -- natural gas-fired power plants failed because of "cold-weather" issues.  People, this is Alberta.  It gets cold here!  Time to freshen up your reliability chops, Ms. Samaroden.  

"We do our best to forecast and look forward as to what the supply will be, but there's always forecast uncertainty and operational issues that occur," she said by way of excuse.  Isn't that your job?  To figure out good, old-fashioned supply and demand.  What are you paid again?  

Laughably, the much-lauded windmill generators didn't work because guess what?  There wasn't enough wind to spin them in farms all across the province!  Hahahaha!

Useless most of the time.

Said Premier Danielle Smith, "The province's electricity system has been built completely backward.  It gives renewables an outsized role in supplying Albertans with power.  We should be able to rely on a certain amount of baseload power and then have another way of approaching the issue of intermittency."

She's right, of course.  But try telling that to the incomprehensibly thick federal minister of the environment, Stephen Guilbeault.  Nothing like having a convicted felon running the energy needs of an entire country.

Felon-in Chief, Stephen Guilbeault.  An outrage.