An ingrate

I have blogged about this before, but something turned up in our files that brought the scamming back sharply into focus.  I refer to my stepson, who has turned his back again on his father because we would not give him more money. (see "Grifter children", April 6)

In addition to the thousands we have given this person over 44 years, I came across this promissory note he signed in 2007 for an additional $3,700 to cover his share for a condo he purchased with his then-girlfriend.  Of course, he never paid us back a cent and by the way, this relationship went south for financial reasons.  She kicked him out.

 

Sorry the photo is so small, but his signature is clearly visible.  Oh and by the way, we had to pay a legal firm $500 to draw it up.  We also paid his $1,200 rent a while back and filled his empty fridge to the tune of $250.  And this does not include the airfares to visit us in Calgary, trips to Spain to visit his grandmother, Florida, Washington, Hawaii, restaurant and hotel bills....and on....and on....and on.

 

For him to have the gall to ask for yet more money was outrageous enough, but to drop his own father because he would not fork over is unconscionable.  So, I decided to out him and I hope these facts get back to other members of his family and his current girlfriend.

 

People who interact with him need to know the truth, ugly as it may be.        

Hoping against hope

I was hoping it wouldn't be a native perpetrator, but it was.  I refer to the couple arrested for leaving a 20-month-old baby to die behind a church in Edmonton.  They have been charged with second-degree murder. 

Joseph Crier, 26, the baby's father, has also been charged with assault, assault causing bodily harm, failure to provide the necessaries of life and criminal negligence; his 25-year-old female companion has been charged with the same offences. 

Here's what's gonna happen.

The rest of society will be blamed.  It will be some combination of the generational effects of residential schools, lack of money, Ottawa, foster care, group homes, government-caused poverty on reserves, a health care deficit and racism.  Not one native leader will step up to condemn the parents, it'll all be "Ottawa's" fault.  Oh, and while they're at it on your screen, they'll be demanding more money.  You watch, it'll happen.

Remember the Tina Fontaine case?  She was in a group home, left it unauthorized to party in the public thoroughfare and was later found dead in a ditch.  The parents, who lived in the same city, went on national TV to blame Canada for her plight.  National TV!  I would have been hiding in disgrace in the basement were my children taken into care because of neglect. 

Not long ago Fontaine's younger sister was also in the news.  Fifteen, she had disappeared without a trace, leaving her infant in someone's "care" and the dogs were out in all directions looking for her.  You could feel the implications on the airwaves.  Canada has let down another native. 

She was found three days later perfectly fine.  Another partying incident.

I'm sick of it.           

We are conservative

Actually heard an intelligent viewpoint on The Mother Corp.  And it came out of the mouth of a professor -- yes, a few of them have a brain.  When asked what a "Canadian" was, he replied, "A Canadian is a conservative."  Not a member of the Conservative party, a small-c conservative. 

I have to say I agree.  Even card-carrying NDPers, Liberals and Greens are conservative. 

That's why Terrible Trudeau's open-door, illegal refugee policies are unwelcome.  They threaten the reasonableness of the average Canadian by disrupting the status quo so prized by Canadians.  Canadians like things manageable and orderly; thousands of refugees arriving in noisy waves interrupt and disturb this.

Terrible has no clue what the average Canadian thinks because he is a trust-fund baby who has never held a serious job in his life.  No, a high-school drama teacher doesn't cut it.  His behaviour threatens to turn conservative Liberals off.  I hope Canadians overcome selfie-mania and turf the guy out.  Canada can't withstand eight years of this vacuous and empty-headed fool.       

The swim to Vancouver

Fifteen of my fellow swimmers and I recently completed a 1,213.5 km swim from Calgary to Vancouver.  To do this we logged our laps at the local pool and finally made it, which meant each of us swam an average of 80.9 km over a three-month period; my laps probably got us to Canmore.   

Known as the "Melcor Y Swim Challenge", it was depicted on a large map on the pool wall, updated to show our progress.  There was no point, of course.  It was just fun.  Today I received my dinky certificate. 

 

Silly, but there was a degree of suspense as we checked every day to see how far we'd swum.  And there actually was a feeling of accomplishment when we finally reached the imaginary finish. 



My top six

Maybe it's living in Alberta, or maybe it's endemic, but my ears ache constantly listening to people talk.  Their speech patterns and grammar are atrocious.  It's like chalk on a blackboard and I have yet to get used to it.  My top six, not necessarily in this order, are:

• Answering a question with "so".  What is this?!?!  Some "expert" is asked a question on the radio or television and he/she starts out with, "So, I think......"  It's beyond the pale.  "So" means "therefore" or "very".  The dictionary gives many examples, but none (yes, "none" is singular, to the puzzlement of many) includes the beginning a sentence.  Whoever started this abomination should be jailed. 
• Dropping one's "g"s, as in "comin', goin', talkin', walkin'".  It is actually a dialect here and even people raised to never do it, do it after living here awhile.  It is unbearably hard to listen to and belies any college or university degree the speaker may have earned. 
• The up-lilt of the voice at the end of a sentence.  This is not how one speaks.  The voice is supposed to drop at the end of a sentence, not rise.  The only time it rises is when a question is posed.  I believe this came from 'Valley Girls', but now we're sadly surrounded and bombarded.
• The incorrect use of "would have".  So many people misuse this conditional tense.  They say, "If I would've known, I would've....."  No.  Wrong.  It's, "If I had known, I would have...."  One too many "would've"s in there.  Stop it please.
• The repeating of the word "is".  Why do people say, "The thing is is....."  Listen for it, it's everywhere.  Even worse?  "The thing was is....."  It has to stop, but I know it won't.
• Ignorance of the three tenses of every verb.  It's "go, went, gone....and...take, took, taken....and...speak, spoke, spoken...."  Most people completely ignore the last tense.  Here's a classic, "If I would've went....."  That one actually combines two no-no's.  A real delight.  We used to play a car game with our kids (before handheld devices ruined everything) wherein I would throw out the present tense and the kids would have to give me the other two.  It was a lot of fun and as a result, they know their verbs.  Even ones such as "strive, strove, striven".  That's a beauty.

As a bonus, there's "hung" and "hanged".  Pictures, laundry, bunting are "hung", but people are "hanged".  Don't ask me why, that's just the way it is.  But do you think the general public knows the difference?  You expect it on the CBC, but even on BBC you will here, "Joe was hung yesterday."  Sad.

Ah well, I guess I will have to carry on and "bear, bore, borne" whatever I hear.    



 

Really?

The Toronto Gay Pride Parade organizers expect the usual $260,000 from taxpayers, while banning the municipal police from the event? 

Seriously?  Get serious.  A vote will be held at city council to see if the money will be given.  I bet it will, because Canada and Toronto "are what they are".  Political correctness has booted sense right out the window, with money being thrown at anyone who howls, and because this is a "gay" issue Toronto's civic fathers won't dare refuse to hand it over.  But groups can't ask for public money and exclude organizations they don't like.  Hell, there are gay police officers of both genders, so how do you think they will feel?  Yeah, I agree.  Not good.  If you want to start decreeing who can and can't join a parade, raise your own money.     

OK, we get it.  The raids on bath houses decades ago was a disgrace, but the police have more than bent over backwards to make amends.  But no, not enough for Pride organizers, who have banned the traditional police float this year.  Now, there's a show of reconciliation and cooperation if ever I saw one.   

Shame.

Last year the whole event was marred by "Black Lives Matter" -- welcomed by Pride.  What did these hoodlums who staged some sort of sit in and blocked the parade have to do with Pride?  Absolutely nothing.  What the eff was that about??!!

The parade theme this year is + (as in "plus") you + me + conversation + diversity.  But it's - (minus) the police.  Works neither for me, nor for many gay people interviewed on TV today.  One of the organizers said the police were welcome, but not in uniform.  Really?  Have you ever seen the "uniforms" worn by parade participants?  Sadly, I would not be able to take my grandchildren to this parade, in honour of my gay brother who committed suicide, because marchers are indecently attired.  How could I explain to three- and five-year-olds what the bumping and grinding in G-strings was about? 

Couldn't.  The Gay Pride people need to take stock and drop the hysteria. 

This speaks volumes

So, here are the foreign ministers of the G7.  Guess which one is Canada's?  Yep, the short one, Christia Freeland.  The ludicrousness of the image made me burst out laughing because her stature parallels how unseriously we are viewed on the international stage -- not the selfie stage, where we shine -- the serious one.  I don't know why the hapless Trudeau named her foreign minister?  Probably to have more women in his cabinet because he's a "feminist", don't ya know.  How Justin can call himself a "feminist" I have no clue?  Here's a guy who inherited millions and never held a serious job in his life.  He has no idea what it's like to work and raise children without a phalanx of nannies, of which he and his unemployed wife have three -- paid for by the taxpayer of Canada.

No, that guy is not a feminist.

The EU minister on the left looks much more professional and the two with the best suits?  The Frenchman and the Italian (third and fourth from right) -- naturally.  Freeland's hair is an unprofessional mess of hanging hunks, but the worst of it is that she is personal about her hatred of Russia and Putin because she is a Ukrainian and can't get past her own distinct and biased agenda.  In fact her writings have resulted in her being banned from Russia altogether!  Can you imagine that?  Canada has a foreign minister who cannot enter a super power country with which we negotiate regularly!  Obviously, Trudeau took the "eeny meeny miney moe" approach to cabinet selection, without bothering to google the candidates.  Oh, by the way, did I mention that although Jewish, her grandfather published pro-Natzi propaganda during WW II.  You could not make this up. 

We are a laughing stock of a country and with "sunny boy" at the helm, it's only going to get worse.       

Illogical

Rona Ambrose is introducing legislation that would make sexual-assault training for judges mandatory.  That means hitherto it was not.  Therefore, why was Justice Robin Camp removed from the bench for being insensitive to a woman who alleged sexual assault in his court?

That's not logical.

Were there no formal training, and thus Justice Camp hadn't received any, how could he have been removed for not having had it?  Had Ambrose not introduced the legislation, this would not be an issue because the assumption would have been that Camp had indeed received appropriate, formal training, yet ignored it, thus his remarks were completely out-of-line, outrageous and grounds for his removal. 

But if Ambrose now deems such training mandatory, yet Camp's appointment to the bench didn't require such, then he can't be removed.  Only censured. 
 
Get it?  It's an after-the-fact response to something that wasn't there in the first place.

Don't get me wrong, his remarks were shocking.  But you can't "officially" close the barn door after the horse has bolted if the barn door had been open for years.

Am I the only person who gets the logic?  Usually.    



 

Poor B

Wherever he travels, people often give my husband, B, grief about my blog -- which, by the way, he never reads.  The latest push-back he is enduring is taking place in Houston, where he is visiting his grandchildren.  A while back, I wrote a blog about the financial toll it takes on us (see 'Debtors' Prison', March 8/17).  Afterall, we are merely pensioners and thus don't have extra money lying around.  We have to save and do without to pay for his visits and at times it pisses me off because I am a firm believer in the critical importance of grandparents in the lives of their offspring's children and I sometimes resent the reduction it causes in our own recreation. 

So I insist he go, even though I don't. 

In my earlier blog, I may have confused before- versus after-tax dollars and this was pounced upon as false and objectionable.  Never mind that the blog is true and honestly depicts our dilemma.  No, it's all about the dollar error -- which, by the way, is the one quoted by B himself whenever we discuss finances. 

I have also learned that at least one of his ex's cousins (initials A.A.) secretly reads my blog and makes it a point to call everyone up to alert them and complain about my latest opinions.  Hundreds of thousands of people read my blog because I make it freely available on the web.  Readers know it's my personal blog -- as I always say -- and unless I am slandering or maligning you, shut up and write your own.  Or better still, write a comment which I will gladly publish.

But no, these people never have the nerve to put their thoughts and objections "out there".  Recently I went to a party and a complete stranger approached and said, "I read your blog all the time and I have to say I don't agree with a lot of what you say."  Whaaaat??!!  Like I care, lady!  Were it not for the regard I had for our hostess, this broad would have received an earful.

"You're only as sick as your secrets" is a saying with which I wholeheartedly agree.  Apparently, B's ex and her family have a lot of secrets and tend to whitewash the truth.  Unfortunately for them, I occasionally write about these "secrets" because they aren't secrets to me; I have none.  I'm into truth. 

So to this ex-cousin I say, the next time you cause B trouble, I won't just use your initials, I'll write out your name.

   

Not again!

So there he is.  Blabbing boringly away in Vimy at the expense of you and me -- the beleaguered taxpayers of Canada.  Does Pastor Mansbridge run the CBC?  I guess so.  Why does he have to go to this sacred site and defile it with his hubris, ego, ignorance and insincere blathering? 

Can't stand the guy.  His presence is an insult and affront to every veteran with eyes and ears.
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On another note, the reason the NDP will never get anywhere was on full display today.  The party's reaction to the revelation that Syria's chemical attack was perpetrated by al-Assad was breathtakingly ridiculous.  "We have to wait until all the facts are in," said a party spokesman.  Whaaaaat??!!??  They're in, buddy.  Read the memo.  But no, the NDP has yet to take a position, even in the face of international condemnation.  Do they think anyone cares what their position is?  Are they awaiting a war crimes court judgement?

Good luck to them.  They need it.
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And what's with all the vacillating about whether Canadian NHL players will go to the Olympics?  Typically Canadian...."I'm not sure yet.....it depends on.....how we're doing....our contract says....." etc.  Not the Russians.  Alexander Ovechkin and his comrades are going regardless of what Gary Bettman and his fellow money-grubbing suits say.  Sydney Crosby should definitely step up and say he's going.  If he gets fined, so what!?  The guy makes millions and millions and my guess is no one would dare fine any player who wants to play for his native land. 

Do you think Bettman can even skate?        

 

Grifter children

The sad, tragic tales of men getting effed by the Family Court put me in mind of the plight of a good friend of mine.  Christie Blatchford has written a number of columns in The National Post about fathers who simply want to share in their children's lives, but have to fight bitter, vindictive and greedy mothers who want to prevent even simple access at all costs.

And I do mean "all costs". 

This friend went through hell and back trying to get joint custody of his two children in the early eighties, but his ex wanted to bar access at every turn.  She had announced a year earlier that she no longer wanted to be his wife yet kept his name and wanted money.  A lot of it.  My friend and his new wife spent thousands on lawyers and psychologists which surprisingly actually paid off because his ex's unreasonable intransigence eventually won him custody.  "I have confidence the father will grant access, but I do not have the same confidence in the mother," wrote the psychologist in his report.  So, my friend was awarded custody -- a miracle 35 years ago.  Sadly, most fathers still get the finger while being ordered to fork over thousands in alimony and support.

What's really sad in my friend's case is how his children have turned out.  After a number of years, both eventually sided with the mother because her family money swayed them.  His daughter, who appeared to be on the right path, morphed into her mother when she married and had children.  Happily, she finally got a job and her self esteem returned.  He maintains a good relationship with her and also has one with his grandchildren.

It's his son who is the problem. 

Now 44 years old, this son is a mercenary, siding with whichever parent writes the cheques.  My friend and his wife have supported this son to the tune of thousands and thousands over many years.  They paid his rent, filled his fridge, paid for trips to visit relatives in Europe and covered hundreds of restaurant bills -- while never being repaid.  Ever.  Unable to keep a job (at this point he has been out-of-work for 18 months), this man puts the touch on his father whenever he runs out of money -- which is all the time.  The latest sling to hit this abused and beleaguered father was a call for yet more money to cover yet another month's rent.  Working up to the demand, the son called the father on many occasions just before the first of the month, flattering him in advance of the demand.  My friend's wife, knowing the first of March was approaching and knowing the son had no job and no money, told me she was just waiting for the rent demand.

It came. 

"Hey Dad, it's me.  I have decided to move in with my girlfriend (she's effed), but I need the last month's rent.  Can you bridge me?" he asked.  Bridge me!?!?  From what to what, his wife thought?  From nothing to more nothing?!  And here's the rub, he will not give up chain-smoking and hard drinking to save money.  Asking for money when you're blowing what little you have?  Please. 

For the first time since I have known this guy, my friend said no.  And guess what?  He hasn't heard from this grifter and ingrate son for six weeks.

So, to all you fathers in family court I say, "You may win a battle here and there, but you can still lose the war."     

Not every woman is a "victim"

As you may have noticed, I am not a "feminist" in the stereotypical way.  But I am a wholly-liberated and self-supporting woman who has navigated high school, university, the workforce, two marriages, motherhood, step-motherhood and grandmother-hood, all while successfully dodging unwanted male attention without being publically strident.

That's what young women today can't seem to do.

Maybe it's because we are roughly the same age, but I enthusiastically agree with both Camille Paglia and Margaret Wente about how mixing copious amounts of alcohol and partying can bring on male sexual aggression -- especially when one happens to get passed-out, black-out drunk.  If you come to and wonder what you are doing naked in bed with a man, something serious must have happened.

Paglia is exactly one month older than I, Wente two years younger, so we hail from the same cohort -- the one that first navigated "women's lib" back in the late sixties.  In fact, when I meet some new woman, I often mention Paglia or Wente to see what the reaction is.  If the woman doesn't like either, I move on.  If they start extolling the virtues of frauds Naomi Klein, Gloria Steinem or some other like charlatan, I tune out and move on.  I actually judge a woman by whether or not she is a fan of Wente or Paglia.  But I digress. 

With the advent of the pill, we had to learn the new rules around dating and sex.  We also had to learn that the more alcohol we injected into the mix, the more confusing encounters became.  Did I agree to make out with this guy?  Alcohol being the inhibition-remover it is, probably.  How far did I agree to go?  Was I so drunk I don't remember?  Am I covered in bruises?  No?  Then I must have some responsibility for allowing this mess.  None of this happened to me because I was of the generation that deemed drunkenness in women underclass and slutty.  But now young women feel "liberated" and "empowered" enough to get as drunk as they like.  So they do -- sadly, often with no idea of what happened?  Accusing someone of rape has ruinous life-long consequences; recovering from a hangover takes a day. 

And everyone goes along with the ridiculous notion that every woman who has drunken sex has been raped.  "None of this is fair or just.  It's unfair that women can't drink (biologically) like men, unfair that alcohol provokes certain men to be sexually aggressive and women to be less resistant, unfair that some men regard drunken women as prey, unfair that the justice system is often very far from perfect.  Some of these things can perhaps be changed; others assuredly cannot," writes Wente in her Globe and Mail column today. 

"But some of the most important things they can do to stay safe are never mentioned in anti-violence campaigns.  Perhaps that is also because heavy drinking among women has been normalized and is now perfectly acceptable," she continues.  Just as you wouldn't walk alone down a dark alley at 4 a.m., don't get blind drunk at a party where anything is likely to happen.  As I used to tell my kids, nothing good ever happens after midnight. 

Both young men and women need to have more respect for booze and what it can lead to.