Here we go again

I know I am always "off side" on this file, but I read in amazement about the $121 million handed the Lubicon Lake Reserve because this band refused to sign Treaty 8 way back in 1899.  Hello, you did it to yourselves!  By not signing, your band of 680 didn't get aboard the federal gravy train and all the while, you have been asking for too much money, which is why it took generations to settle. 

Oh, and by the way, as an "insignificant" aside, they're also getting millions more for schools, a new hospital, a new recreation centre.......and on.......and on.  We've all seen what new facilities do to improve life on remote reserves.  Nothing.

With this money, each band member will be cut a cheque for $177,941.  Wonder how they'll spend it?  Wonder how their lives will be improved.  Don't answer, rhetorical questions.  The only answer is to get off the reserve and into mainstream society.  But they won't. 

Stupid hair

Here are two examples of the wrong hair for an old woman and my fav, Chrystia Freeland. 

This is the Alberta Queen's Bench Chief Justice.  Is she kidding!?  What a disaster!

So unprofessional and unkempt.



It is to weep

Had to turn off the CBC a few minutes ago.  There was the smug Chrystia Freeland blabbing on about how great she was and how great the new free trade deal was.  What else is she going to say?  As I have said, we wrote it thirty years ago and she merely tweaked it -- making a huge and unnecessary fuss about it all while she arrogantly smugged her way through the process.  As to the press conference, she didn't answer a single question.  Just repeated her mantra.   

I can't stand the sight of her, for some reason.  All that hair-flipping and tick-sniffing is abhorrent.  She has no true conceit of herself and that is what is offensive.  So, we have the narcissistic twins -- Trudeau and Freeland -- running the country. 

Into the ground.

Thirty-six thousand illegal migrants have crossed into Canada from the US in the past year and, judging from the throngs emptying out of Central and South America, thousands more will simply stroll in very shortly.  Thank G-d for Trump, is all I can say.  Hopefully, he will get very tough and build refugee camps for them before they disappear.  People laughed when he said the US needed a wall.  Not laughing anymore.

By the way, whatever happened to refugee camps?  Oh yea, they morphed into hotels and motels. 

   

Another

One of my old boyfriends has died.  Kind of shocking when you read the obituary of someone you dated.  This guy was gorgeous and charming and we had so much fun the summer we spent at his family cottage near Kazabazua.  Everyone presumed we were intimate, but we weren't because he was....ahem...unable.  But I didn't care because everything else was perfect.  I was working and living in Toronto at the time, so he used to fly me to Ottawa every weekend.  Came across a photo of me on his deck in a late sixties, yellow, terrycloth, shorts, jump suit with a hideous zipper up the front and a cigarette in my hand.

Yes, I smoked way back then.  Hard to even remember. 

In his obit, I learned that he had married and I remember being told by a mutual friend that his new wife was a massage therapist.  Well, that may have helped his "ahem" problem and good for both of them. 

Dated one other guy who was "ahem" and kept dating him because again, he was so much fun and so charming.  Who gives a sh-t about "ahem"?!

I think yesterday was the first anniversary of the "#metoo" bullsh-t and I have to say that men are also subjected to that.  In fact, my husband was sexually harassed by five of his superiors that I know of.  Extremely good-looking and charming, he turned them down and his career suffered for it.  Women are not nice.  But when I met B, he was a perfect gentleman -- something which impressed me no end because I was used to being sexually-harassed myself in the workplace.  So don't think it's only women.     

One good, one bad

Today a couple of things happened:  Paul Bernardo was denied parole (good) and pot was legalized (bad). 

Ten minutes ago, Bernardo, the sexual sadist and murderer who maniacally took the life of two beautiful young women 25 years ago, was found with a shiv in his possession while incarcerated.  OMG!  Obviously, he should stay where he is.  He actually said in his parole hearing that he did it because he had low self esteem and had trouble with relationships!  OMG!  OK, so let's just kidnap, torture, rape and kill young women instead of getting help yourself.  The worst of it is that his partner in crime, Karla Homolka, has been out raising children of her own for years!  (I apologize for all the exclamation points, but nothing else seems adequate.)  

As to pot, I am not in favour.  I have known too many teenagers who got into big trouble with pot and lost complete control of their lives -- often ending up on the streets and into harder drugs.  To be clear, all the experts say it is very damaging to developing brains and causes life-long problems and I can tell you, from what I know, that's true.  Whatever happened to sneaking off in your parents' car with a cheap bottle of wine or a case of beer before you were of age?  That now seems so innocent and so long ago. 

The other problem is that tests on newborns in places where pot is legal show that half of them are born with grotesque levels of THC in their wee systems.  That's a crime.  All so sad, but we'll see more of that.  Their brains are being exposed to the drug while they are developing in utero -- just as my stepdaughter's two were while she smoked during her pregnancies -- and it will be no surprise when they take up smoking or toking when they get older because their neurons are hard-wired to it. 

Now, the nonsensical Trudeau is putting through pardons or expungements of those convicted of possession.  Why?  When they smoked it it was illegal and against the law, so why should they be pardoned now that it's legal?  It wasn't when they did it and they knew it.

Anyway, at least Bernardo won't be out wandering the streets. 

His priority is clear

One look at our mayor, Naheed Nenshi, and it`s obvious his priority is eating.  Every year he gets bigger which means he must be spending more time scarfing junk food than running this city.  Too long in office, he has completely lost sight of the task at hand, i.e., running this city efficiently and within a reasonable budget.

Now to add insult to injury he is determined to host another winter Olympics to the tune of billions.  And we only know this because a couple of responsible folks at city hall leaked the true budget -- not the phony figures Nenshi put out.  We're up to several billion and guess who will be paying for it?  (No need to answer that rhetorical question.)

When first elected, Nenshi was a sensible advocate for the citizens of Calgary; now he believes his own press and has become a megalomaniac.  All he wants is to bask in the ceremonies and leave a legacy.  Sadly, the legacy will be a severe blow in the wallets of everyone else. 

Also sadly, he will probably get re-elected.  Again.  Because he is ethnic and all the ethnics vote for him en bloc, regardless of whether they are of his ethnicity or another.  We're effed.   



 

The math

Wish I hadn't done it.  Got out the calculator and figured out I've been ripped off to the tune of $209,664 by B's and my ex.  My ex was supposed to have paid $450 a month until the kids were 18.  That was $89,000 I didn't get.  At four percent one-time interest, that would have been $92,664.

So, that was one of the rip offs.

Then, we had to pay his ex $1,000 a month, half of which was out of my pocket, so with legal fees, that worked out to $72,000.  Then we squandered $55,000 for B and sometimes me to travel down to Houston for years and the total out of my purse is $219,664.  Double that and B and I have thrown $439,328 down the toilet.

What a dope I have been!  Little did I know, when I walked into his office in 1980 and met him for the first time, I would be ripped off to this degree.  His daughter, Sarah, is the worst offender, having stolen $10 K we sent to her for her children's education.  Unforgiveable. 

So, we have written a couple of kids out of our wills to save our own financial asses.  All I can say is, marry the right person or you're effed.  Has no one any shame to have picked our pockets threadbare?!