Nothing's changed

For all the talk about economic diversification, Canada still relies on its basic resources.  Alberta, for example, just announced its $7 billion deficit will now poof into a $9.7 billion surplus thanks to an increase in the price of oil.

So much for diversification.  We still rely solely on that stuff under our feet -- and so does the rest of the country.  What a way to run a railroad!

___________________

Oh, I almost forgot.  "Miss Havisham" reared her ugly head this morning.  While I was at the pool, B's ex called to revisit what had happened 46 yeas ago.  Forty-Six years!!!!!  She went on about how Nancy had lost a pair of then six-year-old Sarah's socks.  Sarah is now 52.  

Since their divorce, this person has remained mired and stuck in the past, like 'Great Expectations' Miss Havisham.  There she sits in her home (paid for by us), mulling over perceived slights and surrounded by cobwebs, decaying furniture and ratty Christmas decorations.

B's ex, sitting with her cobwebs.

In grade eight, our home room teacher, the peerless Miss Anderson, read a few chapters of 'Great Expectations' every Friday afternoon.  I was riveted and it all came back when the ex called this morning to cry about trivial episodes from 46 years ago.  She obviously needs psychiatric help, but, of course, will never seek it.

B told her to "f-ck off" and she replied, "How dare you speak to me like that!" Before he hung up, she announced triumphantly that she had told everyone at the Gatineau Fish & Game Club -- where B had been the president and where we had vacationed as a blended family of six for 25 years -- that she was, "The original Mrs. Marley-Clarke; the other one doesn't count."  They had been married for nine years.  B's daughter, a shameless non-member, has been bringing her up there for the past seven years on the back of a member's privilege and that's how the ex introduces herself.  

Get an effing life!

Yep, folks, she's insane.  Just put her number on call block.  I thought we had been rid of her decades ago, but no, she re-appears like the demon that never goes away.