Photos X-Mas 2005

How Many Bags is Too Many?

Click here to find out how many plastic bags have been consumed this year

Love After Love

The time will come when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.


Derek Walcott
Nobel Prize Winner
(Click on the title of this post to link to his bio at nobelprize.org)

Matt Lauer Speaks

“Researchers have discovered that chocolate produces some of the same reactions in the brain as marijuana. The researchers also discovered other similarities between the two but can't remember what they are.”

@ Work and Not Much To Do

You know, when you start a new job, one of the perks is a lot of time on your hands. So here I am making myself useful.

I have taken on 5 clients to date and I have two visits to local programs mapped out. This leaves me with about 5 hours of blank space in my day-minder.

You know, one of things that never fails to amuse me is the ridiculous lengths of the receipts I receive from most chain stores. I have walked into a Shopper's Drug Mart or a Home Depot for one, yes one, single item and have been handed a receipt which is as long as my arm.

Why do I need a receipt that rivals my arm if I'm only buying toothpaste? Why? Because they can. With all their electronic/computer/state of the art gizmos retailers have nothing better to do than to track my spending habits and to tell me how much they appreciate my business, do I have any complaints?, would I answer a survey?, you bought this item and saved this much money, I boought the item at 4:05:34 p.m. at store number whatever, cashier # 23423 served me. Oh, and thank you and have nice day. Usually there's a company logo at the top with the main address and contact information. Sometimes, on the back of these receipts is even more stuff...directions on how to win $500 by filling out that survey they told you about on the front. And even just plain advertising or a coupon.

Like I don't have enough frigging information rushing past my eyeballs.

sorry.

Random Thoughts

* I wish, sometimes, that I was Sean Connery.

* I will admit to having a (ahem) liking for Julia Roberts...but only after having seen her in a nature documentary set in Borneo about the orangutans. WHAT? Oh, get over it!!

* I cherish alone time

* I would like to find a lounge that is darkened, has leather couches, drinks, delicious finger foods and allows smoking.

* I am tired of people talking for too long. Can't you fucking see I'm bored.

* I love that some people, at my old work place, have actually said they love me.

* My daughter and I play the following games:
1. I tap the wall near a light switch, then she slaps the switch and sometimes she turns the lights on/off on the first try. I squeal and say, "good girl." She has a huge smile on her face.
2. She crawls away from me really fast. I grab her ankles. She stops crawling away and waits patiently in anticipation. Then I slowly drag her back towards me. She usually has a big smile on her face. I think she loves the feel of the carpet on her belly and hands.
3. Seth (my son) taught her this one: He gives a big sigh. She smiles and listens and then without any notice starts sighing heavily herself, all the while smiling her head off.

* I don't have a favourite colour. Honest!

John Lennon - Self Portrait

Jocularity, Hawkeye!

Mike Lester, Rome News-Tribune, Rome, GA

Saddam Defends Self at Library Hearing

"Overdue? This is the first time I've ever seen this book."

In Between Time

I have officially left the Griffin Centre and start work at Durham Mental Health Services on Monday. the in between time, between the known and the unknown is really the worst for me.
I greatly miss the people I worked with at Griffin already. Funny how a year or two can cause a person to become attached to a time and place. All those people you interacted with in a passing, sometimes meaningful way, come out of the background to say so many wonderful things and end up making your day and making the in-between time a time of doldrums.
Let's get this party started. Monday can not come soon enough.

Karen's Photoability

Just wanted to share one of Karen's end-of-summer pictures on my favourite lake -- Redstone.

LOST and FOUND

Found a great website that publishes found stuff...mostly notes and photographs. People write down and take pictures of the most amazing things. This website fits right in with my previous post of people divulging secrets anonymously. See my post of October 11, 2005.
And how'd this all start?

One snowy winter night in Chicago a few years back, Davy went out to his car and found a note on his windshield -- a note meant for someone else, a guy named Mario.
To visit this website click on the title of this post.

Who Can Argue With This?

Top 4 arms sellers in U.S. $ (1990)

United States $4.5 billion
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

China $3.1 billion
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

France $1.2 billion
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

UK $1.1 billion
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

Canada $152 million

Source: SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute). 2002. Correspondence on weapons transfer data. March. Stockholm

***************************

Top 4 arms sellers in US $ (1992-1999) to developing nations

United States $90 million
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

United Kingdom $42 million
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

France $22 million
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)

Russia $19 million
(permanent member of the UN Security Council)


Source: Richard F. Grimmett, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1992-1999" (Washington: Congressional Research Service, August 18, 2000), p. 51

My Home E-Mail

Please click the links menu to find my home e-mail address.

New Work, New Adventure!

As of December 2nd, I will no longer be working for the Griffin Centre.

This is sad for me because I really did love the crisis work with all its many facets. In the end, being able to concretely help people who were sometimes in dire and immediate need of help was a great way to keep my enthusiasm and focus strong. I really did love working with the people around me as well.

Unfortunately, for some mysterious combination of reasons: my clinical thinking skills were not quite adequate (roll eyes here), the budget for the coming year could not for some mysterious reason guarantee that my contract would get renewed. Mysteriously, I had been renewed the previous year, but this year Griffin was up against the two year deadline.

This deadline, by Griffin's own policy and procedures, means that if you renew a person's contract for two years then you must hire them for the third. This is where I was.

Nevermind. Change is progress even if it is backwards. Although it must be said that Durham Mental Health Services is no fly-by-night operation and I hope to learn a great deal working there as a case manager in the mental health sector.

Hmm, strange that they, a mental health agency, do not have any over-inflated notions of what clinical thinking really means in day-to-day work with their population.

MORE ON THIS NOTION OF THE "CLINICAL" IN FUTURE POSTS.

Lisa Wants to Know

My artist-friend in Montreal wants to know what my ultimate goal is with my "Trade-Up."

To be honest, the journey is the destination. I just want to see how far I can take this thing. So, e-mail me, offer me your brother's soccer ball or your mom's Phillips blender...I'm easy -- honest!

Trade-Up!

So there's this guy from Montreal -- Kyle MacDonald -- who started a website called "one red paper clip."

Yep! That paper clip. And he is determined to trade his way up from the paper clip to a house. So far he has gotten a wooden fish pen for the paper clip. In exchange for the wooden fish pen he got a hand made door knob. The door knob was then traded for a Coleman stove and now he has a red generator.

I first heard about this guy on CBC radio on November 10, 2005.

So, I figure, hey, if Kyle can do this....so can I.

I am willing to trade a fridge magnet in the shape of a hunk of cheese. I think its a promotional item produced by the Milk Board or whatever they call themselves...probably dairy something. The magnet is exactly the size of a single serving of cheese (50 g). This is not just a good trade, but potentially, the only magnet on your fridge which will help you become way healthier than you currently are....really!

I await your first trade...post your comments with an e-mail address and I will get back to you.

p.s. this offer is only open to people who are in Toronto or within a one hour driving radius of Toronto.

You can visit Kyle's website by clicking on the title of this post.

Mea Culpa...

Complicit -- adj., Associated with or participating in a questionable act or a crime.

***
Daily, I meet parents who have cared for their son or daughter for 20, 30 and 40 years. They have not abandoned their kids. As parents no one can expect any less from them. Would you walk away from your handicapped child? Neither do these parents. But there must be a limit to how many years of sacrifice, labour, residence and money one can realistically expect two people to provide to a child who is no longer a child.

There should be a limit past which society says, "You have done well -- beyond well, beyond all possible expectations. We as a society value not just people's lives, but the quality of people's lives. We value your lives as parents and the lives of your children."

Instead, we provide parents with token aids. Support payments and supplements. And then, when all else fails -- a crisis network which throws money on any given brushfire. This staunches the flow for a time. In reality, it is hush money. It is all hush money. Here you go...a few dollars to hold you for a month or two...and the problem goes away. The system is off the hook.

And the reason I do not strap a sandwich board on and ring a bell at the corner of Yonge and Bloor, is that I benefit from the system as well. Yep. I have mortgage payments to make, don't you know? And that, ladies and gentlemen, is my hush money. 40K keeps my mouth shut despite the overwhelming evidence of the injustice perpetrated in the name of a government which insists it is deeply concerned with 'people in need of services.'

This, I have decided, makes me complicit. I am the system.

* * *

"If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor."

-- Bishop Desmond Tutu

Good Bye and Good Night Rosa Parks

"I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day," Parks wrote. "I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was 42. No, the tired I was, was tired of giving in."

Piercings!

It's 4:45 p.m. as I sit at my desk. Phone rings. I pick up. Its my wife. Seth, our son, has used a single hole punch on his 6 month old sister's lip. Yes, LIP! Upper lip! Wife says, "she's bleeding a lot and it won't stop."

And the surgeon? Well, he promptly ran behind the curtains in the living room, all the while yelling, "I'm sorry mommy...I'm sorry."

The fun never stops in our household.

Oh, yeah. Tarah is fine and by the time I got home the bleeding had stopped. Whew.

Zoo Run

Marsh (a.k.a. my wife) at the Metro Zoo's 5 Kilometre run/walk. Look 'er go!!

Share a Secret

Once in a blue moon, while surfing you find a web site that blows you away -- and it doesn't involve naked people!!

Postsecret is one such site. The picture you see is one of many postcards sent in to this site's author. They are confessions of secrets people have never revealed to anyone, but have done so on this site -- anonymously.



Click on the title of this post to go to the postsecret web site.

Hard Science Fiction: Recommendations

It's been a long time since I have read any science fiction not connected with Frank Herbert's Dune series. In fact, aside from the Dune universe I had assumed that hard sci-fi had died a quiet death. For a short time, it seemed that book stores only carried science fantasy...with dragons and muscle bound heroes fighting on some wacky world.

But I was wrong. Yes, wrong! Hard to believe but true.

A case in point is a novel I only just (15 minutes ago) finished reading: Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross. Iron Sunrise was shortlisted for the best novel Hugo award in 2005. Need I say more? Then, as I am apt to do, I go to Stross' web site and find that Iron Sunrise is a sequel to Singularity Sky. The point: This book was great.

Visit Stross at http://www.antipope.org/charlie/index.html

Strangely I have also found yet another author of science fiction: Robert J. Sawyer -- A Canadian and a Nebula award winner. Stross sets his novel, Calculating God, in Toronto specifically at the ROM. A beautiful read, a little heavy on the message but nevertheless hard to put down.

Both these guys are relentless and I plan on hunting down more of their many novels tomorrow.

So what are you waiting for...run to the nearest library and read, dammit!

Pictures from the Party

Tarah at the Church


Lesley and Grandma Buchoon



Aunt Jacqui


Jannelle


Friends




Eric and Aunty Louise

The Christening

October 2, 2005: Tarah will get christened and following church there will be a party at the 486, ok, just the "86."
So be there or be square, Yo!

In other news, I am officially on the hunt for work as a case manager. So if you see something suitable please, please, please call.

Gotta go! Pictures from the party to follow.

Counter

I am adding a site meter to my blog. Keep your knarled fingers crossed and pray that this works.

Memoir: Mrs. Macrae (final)

One of my fondest memories of you is that of visiting an ice rink near the school. A few days before our class was to go ice skating, my father and I went to Canadian Tire and bought a pair of CCM skates. The next day I watched my friends lace-up their skates and imitated them the best I could. I got on the ice with your help. Somehow you coaxed me away from the sideboards and then I was skating.
You pulled me forward with both hands, as you skated backwards. I felt so special on the ice with you - my teacher. I did my best version of skating with your encouragement. This is one of my fondest memories of you.
If I had to pick out a time that stands out more than the skating lesson it would have to be your thank-you note to me. It was the end of the school year. I had a cold and stayed home on the last day. Unable to attend class, I sent you a beaded necklace through a fellow classmate. A necklace which was one of a number of gift items my parents brought with them to Canada. My intent at the time was a end-of-the-year thank you. Not an unusual thing for a student to do, especially in the primary grades.
In retrospect, I must admit that I was smitten, had a crush on you. I can only imagine that this is not so uncommon an occurrence. And the cold? Well, I did have a cold but I suspect that the necklace meant so much to me that I was simply too shy and scared to actually hand it to you in person.
True to form though, you accepted my gift, delivered by proxy and went one better: You sent me a thank-you note. A totally unexpected turn of events. It was a simple note; a thank-you for the necklace from 'a far away place.' But it meant a lot to me because the note was written by my first teacher, my first real contact with a Canadian and the object of my first crush.
Once again, through that note, you had made me feel special, and by-the-by way, taught me the appropriateness and importance of thank-you notes. Nearly 30 years after receiving that note, I still have it amongst my keepsakes and memorabilia.
This is all to say: Thank-you.
Thank you for being there for me, for being an educatorand an exemplar. Thank-you for taking time out for me, and no doubt, many other students. And know that even now you are thought of and remembered with the greatest respect and fondness.

The Sky is Falling!

"On the basis of research conducted since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has published a report concluding that there is a 62% probability of at least one magnitude 6.7 or greater quake, capable of causing widespread damage, striking the San Francisco Bay region before 2032. Thus, a major quake is about twice as likely to happen as not to happen in the next 30 years."

(The above material is lifted from the Association of Bay Area Governments' website. To visit the site, click on the title of this post.)

'If New Orleans is Sinking, Baby, I Don't Wanna Swim'

Don't tell me 40,000 people are coming here. They're not here. It's too doggone late. Now get off your asses and do something, and let's fix the biggest goddamn crisis in the history of this country.


-- New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin

Memoir: Mrs. Macrae (3)

I think of you as more than just a teacher. You were my beginning at Gateway. My beginning in Canada. I think of you as the gatekeeper to my life in Canada and an ambassador of this nation to innumerable immigrant children.

I recall meeting you with my father at "meet the teacher night." I felt at ease in your presence. You explained my various achievements and shortfalls as a student. At the end of the meeting, I remember my father saying, "She's a very nice teacher." You were. And I imagine, still are.

Teachers teach math, reading, writing, and science. You did all this and on top of that you did this too: You taught me to sing in a choir; to begin to read music; hold a recorder; clean the mouth piece in a solution that tasted like bubble gum; attend choral festivals and introduced me to Ontario Place. You also introduced me to two abiding interests which are a part of my life even today: A love for the outdoors and that quintessentially Canadian of all pass times - ice skating.

As a class, we often went on trips to a place called Forest Valley. An outdoor centre with a building for lunch times, a building for nature education, a river with a bridge over it and, best of all, a trampoline on site. At Forest Valley I learned, among other things, how to identify trees and leaves and how to use a map and compass. I have branched out since then to a love of canoeing in Algonquin Park, the ability to navigate in many a strange city with a map and, yes, a nostalgic love for trampolines.

Don't Look Now, But...

Across my driveway and in my neighbours front yard are a bunch of bees building a hive/nest. I suppose this is my year to do battle with tiny critters. Obviously having access to the "interweb" (thanks Corner Gas) I have researched the problem. You can link to this bee help site by clicking on the title of this blog.

Anyways, my neighbour doesn't want to kill the bees because he hates to kill any living thing. I would gas them in a heartbeat, except, I'm a runner not a fighter. Just thinking about bees gives me a rash. Nevertheless, I plan on treking to the nearest -- yup, HomeDepot -- and finding a safe (for me anyways) way to deal with the bees.

By the way, the website recommends calling a bee keeper...a nutty sub-caste of the human race if ever there was one.

Stay tuned!

Hug Him (he'll be happier, you'll be happier)

'It's gotten to a point where he's asking everyone for hugs...and it's problematic.'

-- Day program manager describing a participant's "behaviour."

Memoir: Mrs. Macrae (2)

I have never forgotten you since that first day. You were gentle, welcoming, beautiful and understanding. You took the time to teach me by your desk. It was not so much the material as the system and culture within the classroom that you coached me on. A lot remained to be discovered but in a matter of days, I had found my home within Gateway Public School. In your classroom. Because of you.
Now, at the age of 40, I still look back on those days with nostalgia and fondness. Now, being married to a teacher, I hear many stories from her classroom. I always recall to my wife, herself a graduate of Gateway Public School, that the smallest kindness can have a deep and lasting effect. A word, a look, or a gesture: The kind of thing you imparted to your students...to me...daily.

Memoir: Mrs. Macrae (1)

In October of 1974 I sat down for exactly one day in a grade 5 class at Gateway Public School in Toronto. I had arrived the
previous month, September 14th to be exact, from my birthplace - Tanzania.
I was stunned and confused. I sat in a class with no friends, a teacher who was too busy to be the welcoming presence I needed and the dreaded acronym BODMAS on the chalkboard. That night I returned home and explained to my father that I had no idea what was being taught in that class. And although that was half the problem, the other half was the result of a class full of students that left little time for individual attention.
The next day my father and I went to the main office. I stood around and then sat by my dad quietly while he explained the situation to the administrative staff. That same day - I wish I could recall the date - I landed, gently, in your classroom.

Suicide Bombing

"A thing is not necessarily true because a man dies for it."

-- OSCAR WILDE

A Prime Example

Imagine that you were a intellectually delayed (yes, mentally retarded) young man or woman. Your parents have taken care of you all their lives. Your elderly parents have, in fact, kept you at home for too long. Kept the burden of caring for you for themselves for so long that when help does arrive it leads to the city putting a health order on your home due to the unsanitary conditions. The poor sanitary conditions in the home are due to your way-past-retirement-parent's ill health and your handicap.

The "system" having found you call, oh, I don't know -- a crisis centre. The crisis centre gives you temporary housing (2-3 months at the most) and finds you a sheltered vocational day program. You receive assistance of a monetary nature from the government to the tune of $950.00 or so per month.

Having lived out your 3 months at your temporary home you are faced with the decision: Where to live? Mind you, as a result of your handicap, you are not capable of grasping the full consequences of the question. You are not able to find an apartment on your own. You are not able to cook in any significant way for yourself. You are unable to move about the city on the public transit system without risk to yourself. You are not able to maintain a decent level of personal hygiene or administer your own medications at the right time, in the right dose, by the right method, etc. You are, to be frank, not capable of projecting far into the future; otherwise you would be curled up in the fetal position with worry.

Your choices are -- would be: Live in a boarding home without much assistance; live in the hostel/shelter system where you would be perpetually victimized. The system will soon demand that you leave your "safe-bed" placement to permanent housing. Now, you must, with the help of your case manager (who is currently befuddled and at wits end) find a place to live. Live with your disability. Live on 900-some-odd-dollars a month. Live out your life without the crutch of mom and dad (who have been moved to a seniors home). Live out your life on your own because the system is built to help you (even in crisis) for only so long. In other words, you are welcome to help, as long as you don't need too much of it.

Sibbald Point Provincial Park

Spent a glorious day with Tracey, Seth and Mickey John at the beach on Saturday.


Mickey John -- Trying to stop his teeth from chattering after a respectable time in the lake.


Seth -- Warming up after a short dip in the lake.



Fossil hunters!

After Years

After Years

Today, from a distance, I saw you
walking away, and without a sound
the glittering face of a glacier
slid into the sea. An ancient oak
fell in the Cumberlands, holding only
a handful of leaves, and an old woman
scattering corn to her chickens looked up
for an instant. At the other side
of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times
the size of our own sun exploded
and vanished, leaving a small green spot
on the astronomer's retina
as he stood on the great open dome
of my heart with no one to tell.





Ted Kooser (poet laureate - U.S.)

Done! and Done!

The fruit flies are no more. On our return from our trip to Montreal, we came back to a house free, yes, free of fruit flies. Those traps...you know the ones, from Lee Valley Tools are worth every penny.

Still have not gone out to see the Gulu Walk people (see previous post). Anyone interested? Post a comment with your e-mail and I will get back to you.

Tarah at the Park

Tarah and Seth

Death to America, uh, the fruit flies!

Finally! Home Depot be damned. Lee Valley tools rocks!
I have a trap that will work, I am like so sure!
Click on the title of this post to see the wonderfully expensive traps that I found.
NOW GET BACK TO WORK!

Pestilence, Scourge, Epidemic!

Somehow, ladies and pests, we have (according to my son) "hundreds, no, really dad, hundreds" of fruit flies in the house! They really seem to thrive with the AC on at full blast. God knows how many lives I have taken lately. Unfortunately, it has gotten very darwinian in the house...might is right, survival of the fittest and for the flies especially, natural selection is at work. Fly or die!
We're trying inoffensive (to us) methods of killing the little vermints. Vinegar, juices, cider, or some such liquid in a tall container attracts them and they, supposedly, drown after touchdown. The reality is: Sure they land. They struggle. They swim. Check the cup/glass 20 minutes later and they've all -- ALL -- managed to crawl out and have disappeared!
Next stop -- Home Depot, dammit!!

Gulu Walk

Just received an e-mail about a couple of guys who are walking 12 kms at the end of each day. Sleeping in downtown Toronto and then walking back home in the morning.
Everyday in July. Why? Because children in Northern Uganda have to do this everyday to keep from becoming child soldiers or dead each day. Learn more click on the title of this post or use the links to the right.

my work

These first few posts are intended to make you, my readers, familiar with me.
I work in a crisis department for developmentally delayed adults. I love my work and may from time to time sound off on this.
Being in the crisis area I see the worst cases of people supposedly considered by the "system" as valuable members of society and yet, when you consider the resources alloted to the developmental services sector -- you realize the reality is far different from the official line.

Wonderful summer day

How lucky am I?
I have two beautiful, healthy children. A loving wife. A house to call my own. Two cars. And my health.
Cheers...life is good!!