Real life

'Best in Show' was not a spoof.  It was real.  What a hilarious movie, but discovered it was actually a documentary when we visited the Cochrane Dog Show this morning.  There that movie unfolded.  Daughter, grandchildren and I wandered the arenas and kennels of very interesting dogs, but it was the handlers and owners who took the cake. 

"Have you ever noticed," I had said before we had even walked in the front door, "that show-dog people on TV are usually fat women and gay men?"  Hey, it's true.  Dog-show people are, well, weird??  They dote on things the rest of us give absolutely no thought to.  Ah well,  I loved all my now-dead dogs.  Here are a few of the live varieties we enjoyed this morning:

Told the owner these guys were better looking than most people.  She agreed!

The sixties hair look

This guy was huge!  Feasts on paper.

Bow-drying the muzzle.....weird?

No clue what this poor creature was?!

Daughter became emotional looking at this beauty because she had one exactly like her.  Sadly, "P" died very young.

 

Look what was underneath the white stuff!

I told you my flowers were little toughies.  Could not believe what was underneath 35 cm's of snow.  Many of my flowers were....intact!  I had completely given up on them, but as the snow started to melt, I thought I saw a few blossoms poking out.  Whaaaaat?!  Things like impatiens were finished, but my roses, petunias, pansies and a few geraniums hung in there.  As I have said, they have to survive in early June, when it is just barely above zero, so they harden off and come through in a pinch.  Here are a few before and after pictures:

You can see the hanging plant two days ago on the top right.....

Here it is today.  Amazing!

These petunias were previously completed blanketed, but they hung in there.

My roses were fine. 



 

Sunrise out back this morning.  Mother Nature, who takes no prisoners, is a tease.



Oh that...

"That's just Calgary," said a friend at the pool this morning.  A born-and-bred Calgarian, her reaction to the horrendous summer snow storm we just suffered through -- all 35 cm's of it -- is pretty typical of anyone who has lived here most of their lives. 

Me, not so much.  We were flabbergasted when we looked out the window Monday morning and saw the white stuff flying.  The day before, I had laundry drying on the line, people were mowing their lawns and everyone was in shorts.  It was absolutely unreal.  "Mum, you live in a mountain basin," said my son, who studied geography at university.  He too was nonplussed about the whole thing, thanks to his knowledge of this area.  The only thing he lamented were my beautiful flowers.  Gone for the season.  And they had just struggled back from the August hail storm!  Poor dears. 

But spending money has its rewards.  Two years ago, we called in Davey Tree (you don't use anyone but Davey, my mother used to say -- she of the magnificent blue spruces that ringed our corner home.  She actually used to call the company in to move 60-foot trees three feet.  And we're talking' cranes and backhoes, the whole works.  I kid you not!  But I digress.)

Anyway, Davey trimmed and fertilized our trees and thanks to that intervention, they came through pretty well -- only one big branch in the back broke off.  The rest of the city?  An absolutely chaotic mess.  If you're cheap, or take trees for granted here, you'll lose them.  But today it's all melting, the ice is dropping from the branches and boughs are bouncing back into place.  Hey, we're going to 20 on Sunday.  "When you get a day like that, just go with it," said another pool buddy.  What a city.

Here was the scene at our place this morning:

Looks like two snowmen relaxing!

Of course, children know what to do with summer snow, gotta love that.

 

 



      

Sad

He was one of our best friends.  Now he is dying.  Of lung cancer.  Was a smoker.  Why do people smoke?  Why? 

We met through our children many years ago and he and his wife became lifelong friends.  We visited them on their boat on the Big Rideau and had so many laughs I can't count.  Over the years, our children drifted apart, came together again, but the four of us remained fast friends.  We spent many New Year's Eves together, enjoyed lots of boozy dinner parties and BBQs and confided in each other about everything. 

This is the fourth good friend we will be losing.  The first was Mike Copeland, my best childhood friend.  He succumbed to alcoholism.  Then it was John Munro.  He succumbed to complete organ failure.  Then it was his wife, Heather.  She succumbed to........everything.....basically her lifestyle.  They were all smokers.  I think also of my good friend "D" here in Calgary, a smoker who is also dying of lung/brain/liver cancer. 

As B's grandson said this summer, "Smoking is yukky".  Smoking, my friends, is a very bad idea.  

Fashion fiascos

Whatever happened to elegance?  Whatever happened to simplicity?  Whatever happened to grace and charm?  Going, going, gone and gone.  Reading the Globe and Mail's "Style" (not) section today, here are a few fiascos:

Do you think she could pack any more crap into one outfit?!  And what's with the pigeon-toed look??

Who wears a dress with a skeleton on it?!

You'd think with a name like "Mellon" -- as in a ga-zillion dollars -- she'd be able to dress better!?  And that hair!  Just sadly and limply hanging there, woebegone.

 





Telling it like it is

This is amazing...............

AN OLD BLACK VET SPEAKS OUT, "WAKE UP!" WHAT A MOUTHFUL!!!!!

The words of a dying man have always captured attention, right or wrong, they are worth reading.  What this dying man has to say has a lot of truth.  May not be what some will want to hear:

 I wanted to clear up a few black and white questions and answers.  The things I state are facts.  They are not downloaded from some media website, not propaganda, just observations from a 70 year old black man, born in America.

I was told by my parents (yes, a married man and woman with my last name), that I was nigger.  We lived in “Nigger Town” in a small Texas town, no A/C, grass growing through the floor, no car, no TV.  We washed our bodies with lye soap that my mother made, by hand.  I thought I was a nigger, until I graduated high school, went to college, did an enlistment in the Army, and got a job.  I am now retired, own my own home, have 6 children by ONE WOMAN, and we all have the same last name.  I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Liberal Arts, a Master’s Degree in Sociology.  My retirement, VA disability from combat in the Korean War (I only have one leg), and part-time pay in a local college, is about $125,000 a year.  From dirt-poor nigger, to old, black, proud American.

Yes, I am black, and I can say “nigger”, because I understand the true meaning of the word.

Let’s clear up a few things about the Michael Brown incident.

 -Fact:  It is not called "shoplifting or stealing", it's called "robbery", which is a felony.  Brown stole something and assaulted someone, that means ROBBERY.  It’s on video, and it’s a fact.  Not shoplifting, not theft, not “lifting” a few cigars, but ROBBERY!

 

-Michael Brown, like Trayvon, was portrayed by the media as a “little black boy”, cute little headphones, and his cap and gown photo, gunned down by a ruthless police assassin, executed by “whitey”.  First, I have never seen a cop drag a person into their car’s driver door to arrest them. So, let us be clear, Michael Brown was a nigger; a sorry-assed, criminal, hoodlum, nigger.  Nobody wants to say that, but I will.  He had a criminal record a mile long, was known for numerous assaults, robberies, including the one you saw with your own eyes, and still refuse to call it a robbery.  He was, like so many others, living a life that he thought he was “entitled” to,  just for being alive.  Gangsta rap, weed, drinking, guns, and those stupid-assed low profile rims, makes him some kind of bad-ass nigger. 

-I have fought communist Chinese and North Korean soldiers in the 1950’s with more honor than that nigger.

Yep, I peeled potatoes and shot communists.  That’s the only job a nigger soldier could get.

-Rodney King?  Black Riots! 

-Trayvon?  Black Riots! 

-Hurricane Katrina?  Black Riots!  Stealing TV’s, designer clothes, etc.

 -O.J. Simpson kills white man and white woman, found NOT GUILTY?  Did white folks riot?  Nope!

-In fact, when is the last time white people rioted?  Civil War, maybe?  That’s because they are, relatively, civilized people, much like many black Americans.  Protesting is one thing, hell, I’m all for it.  Even if you are an ignorant idiot, you have a right to protest.

-Stop only showing the young black "cap and gown" photos of Michael.  Charles Manson may have a few of those laying around, as well.  Show the nigger "gangsta" photos of the "poor unarmed teenager" (grown man) pics that have been removed from his Facebook page, holding the loaded pistol, smoking weed, with a mouthful of money.

 -Militarization?  The stupid-assed media that publicizes this has no idea what “militarization” really is.  Cops wear helmets and vests, and drive armored vehicle because unemployed niggers thrown bricks at them, moron!  You put on an "Adam 12" uniform and walk down the streets of Ferguson during the criminal riots.  I can guarantee that you'll jump into the first armored "military tank" that you see.

 -You only "want the police" when you "need the police", otherwise, you mock and fear what you do not understand about the police.  And by the way, the police are trained to take your shit, but I wouldn’t fuck around with those Army National Guard, they aren’t as well disciplined “culturally” to take your shit like police do every day.  They will ventilate your black asses with M-16s, with military precision and extreme prejudice.

 -And finally, the way we protest and demand justice, is run down the streets breaking shit, looting stores, and acting like a bunch of untrained monkeys?  Hell, after Rodney King, criminal niggers were actually killing people, thinking they were entitled to be worse criminals than they already were.  For those black criminals that do that, you are a disgrace to your race, inflamed by idiots like Al Sharpton, instead of listening to logic from proud black Americans, like Bill Cosby, Samuel Jackson, Colin Powell, Allen West, me, etc.

 -You blame white people for your ignorance, criminal acts, unemployed laziness, etc.

 -You blame white people for 89% of the prisons in America being full of blacks.  They did nothing wrong, the racists white cops framed them all, right?

No chance at school, no chance for college, military, employment?  BULL SHIT!

 -More niggers kill niggers, than niggers killing whites, whites killing niggers, and whites killing whites….COMBINED.  I find this astounding.

Varia

"If you're gay, I'll kill you," his brother had said, which is why the chap I am talking about took so long to debut.  Sadly, his wife seemed to be the only one who didn't know her husband was homosexual.  Everyone else did because he was of the very feminine walking-talking-affectation variety.  Not that it matters, except for the fact that he married her and had two children, knowing he was homosexual.  That was the offensive part.  I mean, why marry a young woman knowing you are going to leave her for a man?  Not nice. 

I kind'a wondered about the husband for a while because when I was at Carleton University, I dated and fell in love with one of the French professors who was extremely effeminate, but only on the outside.  In reality he was very, very heterosexual and sexy, so you can't always be sure.  Most of that boyfriend's affectations, it turned out, were cultural.  But here in Alberta, if you're effeminate, you're homosexual.  You're not "French".    

The husband to which I refer recently "came out" and that's as it should be -- except his children are very confused and upset.  Daddy likes men?  Daddy doesn't like Mummy anymore?   All very sad and unnecessary if he had just been himself in the first place.
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Watching the US Open, I can't believe the fatties who are the linesmen/women?!  How can they have such tubs on camera at a major sporting event?  The juxtaposition between them and the players is jarring.  Seriously.

Roger Federer, who B and I saw defeat Andy Roddick at Wimbledon in 2004, is in magnificent shape.  And then the camera pans to his fat wife in the players' box, Mirka.  Weird.  But apparently he is madly in love with her.  Go figure.

His coach is the great, great Stephan Edberg, my all-time favourite male player.  To see him serve and volley and dance to the net was a thing of beauty.  Now, there was a guy who hit winners.  No baseline pounding for him.  He was absolutely fabulous.  Now Roger too comes to the net, thanks to Edberg, and almost always wins the point.  Perfect.

Also love watching John and Patrick McEnroe calling matches.  Such enthusiasm and knowledge.  Also love Chris Evert, but can't stand that know-it-all Pam Shriver -- who wasn't even that great a player.  Did I tell you she was married to George Lazenby for five minutes?  Yes, she was, and had a couple of kids with him.  Then she dumped him and insisted on supervised visits, which he had to go to court to have overturned.  What a bi-ch.  By the way, it shows.
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Cleaning out a drawer guess what I found?  A diary from 1981.  Started reading it and nearly died.  What a mess that year was!  B had just separated from his wife-of-the-moment and she was a completely hideous b-tch about everything. Denying access (the reason she did not get custody, by the way), changing locks on doors, you name it, she did it.  The diary also chronicled our courtship.  One word to describe it?  Rocky.  I was renting a house two blocks from my parents, who were wonderful-wonderful-wonderful.  B was living at the "Y" in an almost-slum room with the bathroom down the hall and a shared bath.  What a "yuck".  It was chaos, but we muddled through........somehow?  I guess if we survived that, we can survive anything. 

Threw out the diary.  Don't want my children to read it after I'm gone.  G-d forbid!