Progris Riport

I am writing to report on my progress in the field of archery.

There has been some!

When I first started learning, I complained (loudly and often - as I am wont to do!) that my ample bosom got in the way of the string. The very polite men in the class wisely said nothing, except my teacher, who perforce was compelled to respond to my complaints. He said something about an "open stance," a way of standing wherein the string would be less likely to bisect my boob. 

I ignored the advice, of course, as I do most advice, and am please to report that after a few months I simply improved enough that now the string doesn't come anywhere near the girls.

I've also received my first official token: a White Arrow. That indicates my standing. I'm not entirely sure how good that is, but I do know it's not the bottom, and that makes me happy!

I've gone from an 80cm target down to a 40cm target, and once or twice per 90-minute session I manage to lob an arrow into the middle of it! That makes me very happy! Occasionally, I even manage a "grouping:" which is when all three arrows land close together. A grouping means the archer is being consistent. And being consistent is everything!

I have had one consistent problem though - I'm always off to the left. All right, all right, enough with the "out in left field" or "I guess you really are a socialist" jokes! But seriously, I'm hitting consistently in the correct height to hit the bullseye, only I'm hitting to the left of it.

And I adjust my sight over and over, and I keep hitting to the left.

Today, in desperation, I thought I'd hit on the brightest idea yet - get Genius Archer Boyfriend to use my bow! See, he's been bugging me about being consistent and about my release till I'm absolutely sick of hearing about it. Today I got the bright idea - let Boyfriend fire the bow! If HE hits to the left, then I could go "Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!" and say "See! I TOLD you something was wrong with the bow!"

I got a dirty look from Boyfriend, but he dutifully shot off 6 arrows. Two went left, but four were squarely in the center.

Sigh. I guess it must be my release.

Or something.

However, as a final note about something I'm doing consistently...I used to only use the same three arrows over and over. Whenever I'd switch arrows, I'd shoot wild. I'd demonstrate this to Boyfriend or to the teacher or to anyone who would watch. But today, I switched arrows with absolutely no change in my result.

I still shot to the left. In the same place as the other arrows I'd been using.

So at least I'm consistent!

Trouble in the HeadHouse

I just had a seven-day-long migraine. That's something of a record for me, since about 20 years ago I started being cared for by a wonderful neurologist here in Montreal who pioneered one of the meds I take. I went from having 15-20 migraines per month down to having 1-2 per year under his care. So I'm pretty impressed with him, and with the different meds and treatments he's given me over the years.

And the meds and the treatments have changed over the years, too. Because the reasons I get migraines change from time to time. The last bout I had, in 2015, was due to trouble in my cervical vertebrae, and I needed injections in two of them.

I'm on track to see him again - he's got 3000 patients - yes, I said three THOUSAND - so when I finally decided, on day five of my migraine, that it was time to call his office and speak with the nurse who schedules his emergency appointments, I was grateful that he had a nurse who could talk me through what to do until he could see me, and who could decide how quickly I could be seen.

One of the questions she asked me though, was, had I been under any particular stress lately.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Where do I start? Boyfriend has been out of work for 7 months. Now there's an opportunity on the horizon, but it would mean moving.

Far.

To the boondocks.

Wait a minute - I has a job!

A good job. That I enjoy. That I'm moderately good at. That I get a great deal of satisfaction from. And have positive social interactions in. And learn a lot about life from. Learn a lot about everything from - I work in a faculty of Education of a world-class university - you have to be particularly dense not to learn stuff working there!

So...if Boyfriend gets this job out in Timbuktu...what do I do? Because I don't exactly make a lot of money, working 3 days a week.

Definitely not enough to live in a house with 2 cats.

And Boyfriend can't afford a house and an apartment. So, if the job comes, the house here goes. And the cats and I go...somewhere else. Either with Boyfriend or...???

Hubby has kindly offered, which sort of stunned me. Nice and tidy, on the surface, but...

There are always buts! Wasn't Hubby the one who drove me nuts in the first place? Can I live with Hubby? Granted, the kiddies are all growed up now, the situation is different...But is Hubby different? Am I different enough not to fall into the old bad habits?

And was all this enough stress to bring on a 7-day migraine?

Nope. There was one last straw. That got on my last nerve. Don't you love that expression? I learned that from my Stepsister. I love my Stepsister. She's a lovely woman. She's in Louisiana, and she's taking care of my aged and Alzheimer-afflicted Daddy. She's a saint.

But she's also my other problem. 

See, I don't much care for "The South." I don't like the politics, and I don't like the religion. The religion is what started me on the road to mental illness, back when I was 5 years old. An authoritarian regime based on a patriarchal mindset which had no place or tolerance for thinking "outside the box." A system of thought-control that, while never overtly disapproving of higher learning, because that would be a dead giveaway, subtly discouraged it by praising the simple fishermen of biblical times.

A system of thought control that always had a bible verse to throw at you the minute you had a doubt or a question or an idea that didn't fit within the prescribed spectrum of acceptability, shot like a missile at your thoughts to bring you back into the box. To never let you question things.

To keep you in line.

I wrestled so hard to keep my faith. For years and years and years, I fought off my reason and my intellect. But in the end, mental health won.

There is no such thing as a virgin birth. If a baby was born, sex happened.

The universe was not created. It happened. Life evolved, which is WAY more miraculous than any "miracle" these bible-thumpers can come up with!

The bible was written by MEN. Specifically, Jewish MALES. Translated by MALES. Prominent, politically powerful MALES. It is predominantly misogynistic, and it spouts the political views of the males of the times in which it was written.

The jews are NOT "God's chosen people." The just wrote a book claiming they were. And, since they have always been a powerful military force, winning a lot of battles, the conquerers write the history.

The bible contains some interesting points. But it is NOT the only book in the world!

But people down in the south don't know that. They think it's the only book worth reading. They exclude every other piece of information from their consciousness unless it fits their mental map - the map they drew from their sunday school bible map of the world.

And down there, it's all mixed up with nationalistic fervor, to add insult to injury. It's not just god, it's "god-and-the-flag."

I love my Stepsister, she is the kindest soul I've ever met. But the vitriol she reposts on facebook is horrifying. She doesn't even see the language that she uses is venemous. She doesn't hear the hatred that she's spewing. She thinks she's being loving and kind and helping to educate.

I've been trying to get her to understand that she's the victim of propaganda. But she doesn't have a "propaganda" filter. Everywhere down there they are bombarded with it. It's the way everyone speaks to everybody. Her husband listens to a radio show daily that would be banned here, because it's hate speech. He thinks it's political dialogue. It's hate speech!

They really, sincerely believe that Muslims burn Christians alive, down there. They do not understand the word "radicalized" or what a small portion of the population that represents, or what a "Christian" equivalent would be. If it wears a hijab, or sports an unkempt beard, it's an enemy.

They really believe that. And I can't get through to them.

And I can't get through to them that Donald Fucking Trump is a Nazi. A hate-monger. An idiot. A greedy businessman who cares less for them than he does for a pimple on his arse. Who is going to ruin the country, ruin their lives, and take the rest of the planet down with him.

And the abortion debate. Oh my head, I just can't believe this shit. I can't understand how a compassionate woman, who has herself been put through the hell of childbearing, could wish that on someone who didn't want it.

There is no reasoning, and I can't stop the fight. In my head.

And here's the whole problem: it never goes away for me. 

Like my neurologist said to Hubby - your wife can never tune this out. There is a genetic defect in her brain where this noise is ALWAYS front and center in her perception, and she can't ever tune it out.

My Stepsister goes to bed at night, and, at least I imagine, sleeps.

I don't sleep, because I'm having the abortion debate with her. All night. Explaining it to her. Arguing with her. Pleading with her. Reasoning with her. Showing her the satistics - that the crime rate went down, NOT when they "got tough on crime," but when women finally had access to safe, medical abortions! When unwanted babies weren't born, and mothers could continue working, and people were above the poverty line! It's not money that's the root of all evil, it's POVERTY!

Or I'm screaming at Trump. Or I'm sobbing my heart out for the dead, starving and dying polar bears. And for the dead, starving, burning animals everywhere. Or arguing with my Stepbrother to tell him to move to higher ground and get all my Stepsisters and the other Stepbrother to move to higher ground because the climate deniers are in power now and the oil producers are going to kick it back into high gear and the ice caps are going to melt and there won't BE a Louisiana soon! Or a Florida, or lots and lots of places on this Earth. And god ain't gonna save ya.

So...to answer the nurse, who asked me if I was under any particular stress...yeah. You might could say that. 

I'm on my last nerve. 

And Trump, and republicans and conservatives and nazis everywhere, are stepping on it. 

And people I love are stepping on it.

And I can't save them.

And once again, I'm going to have to choose life. As I did before, I chose to live with my sanity intact, to follow the paths that bring me peace, that make me whole.

I cannot live with hate. With guns. With nazis. With no religious freedom, or rather, with religious-freedom-only-if-you're-a-member-of-MY-religion! With people who scream their rights are being taken away if you suggest that guns be registered, but who see nothing wrong with banning entry into their country based on religion. Especially if they know ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about that religion!

I can't do this. I can't get through to them, I can't help them. I will try, one last hopeless time. I will say the same thing to my Stepsister as I said to my Father, oh so many, many years ago, when he was all for bombing the Communists off the face of the earth.

I will say this:

If Jesus were alive today, and speaking to the American people, He would not tell them the parable of the Good Samaritan. He would tell them the Parable of the Good Muslim.

Imbolc, as I Understand It

And there's a lot I don't understand, but Imbolc is one of my favourite pagan celebrations. It's a cross-quarter day: half way between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The last vestige of it in our modern world is Groundhog day.

The word "Imbolc" means "in milk." At this time of year, in the climates where these traditions began, sheep and goats are giving birth, and the farmers who care for them now suddenly have extra milk, because the animals can give more milk now. To subsistence farmers, this is reason to celebrate, having this source of extra protein.

It is a time of celebrating the turning of the wheel of the year. It is light out again, and the light grows stronger daily. There is extra nourishment. We give thanks.

I personally welcome the light back by placing a candle in every window and every doorway of my home. And tonight we eat a dish made with milk or cheese. My home-made yogurt is just about ready to be strained and chilled as I write this!

I love that it's simple.

The aspect of the Great Goddess that I am mindful of at this time is Brighid. Known as the goddess of the forge and smithcraft, poetry, and healing, she's very well-known among the Irish, and being of Irish descent I therefore have an affinity for her!

But I like especially the candle bit. Catholics call this day Candlemas - when they would bring their candles to the church to be blessed.

Back in those old-fashioned days, it must have been something to see candles in every window and doorway, when there were no other lights around.

So this is what I do.

A NEW New Year's Eve Rite

I learned a new rite of passage for New Year's Eve last night that I'd like to share. Even if you're not a pagan, you can adapt it, if you like it, to suit your lifestyle. I just thought it was really neat!

So, at a couple of minutes before midnight, you open a bottle...If you don't consume alcohol in your home, no problem, open a bottle of something you do consume!

You open your back door, and you KICK OUT the old year! "Go on - GIT!"

But we did learn things this past year...so, in thanks, we offer a libation to the old year by pouring some of the contents of that bottle out on the ground. How much you pour is up to you...be guided by your senses, your instinct.

Then you close the door on the old year.

You go to the front door, and you open it wide, and welcome in the New Year. "Welcome! Come in!" You pour a glass for the New Year, and you set it down somewhere in a place of honor. (Out of reach of children, dogs, cats, etc.) You close the door, and if there's anything left in that bottle you can share it with whomever is up with you. But that glass for the New Year is left in its place of honor till the dawn light has come through the windows.

Isn't that cool? Oh, I should mention, this isn't new per se - it's a Germanic custom. It's new for me, and about to become my standard greeting for the New Year.

And I hope everyone reading this has a great, happy, healthy 2017.

Loved by the Fairies

I had another totally awesome Hallowe'en experience last night!

Over the years, I usually have one visitor each Hallowe'en who rocks my world and makes all the effort of the preparation worthwhile. When I was still in high school, I dressed up as a witch, handing out candies by stirring them in a huge pot and lifting them out with a ladle - all the while with my very cooperative black cat Tuffy perched on my shoulders! I cackled with glee and used my best old crone voice to great effect. The best reaction I got was from a couple of knee-high things who stood, heads tilted almost straight back to see me, their mouths dropped completely open. They turned around and ran to their mom and exclaimed "Mommy mommy! we just saw a REAL witch!"

It made my day! And of course, turned out to be prophetic, though nobody, not even me, dreamed it would one day be true at the time!

Another great reaction was from a 10 year-old girl one year. It was the year I had made "Big Bertha," a dress form that Hubby had helped me make out of - what else? - duct tape! So it was very much my actual shape, with no head. Come Hallowe'en, we stood it up on some kind of stand and dressed it in a long dress. Next to it we put a hay bale with a painted wig form holding a wig, and Hubby added a hatchet into the head and we put lots of red paint around.

This little girl walked calmly up to the grisly scene and stood in front of it for a few minutes with her hands on her hips. Then she shook her head and said "Good grief!" and walked away. I nearly asphyxiated laughing!

And then there was the sweet little 6- or 7-year-old French girl who happily clambered expectantly up the steps, only to have my cat, who wanted very much to come in the house, jump right in front of her just as she arrived at the door. She gave a stifled scream and spluttered away in French that my cat had terrified her. I did my best to soothe her with candy, but I must admit that, after she left, I secretly praised the cat!

Now, recently I've met a new group of pagans, one of whom is into Faeries. They are not to be mixed up with Fairies - watch the spelling here - and they are not to be confused with the dancing, fun-loving, teensy-weensy beings we think of - like Tinkerbell - and with whom we populate children's stories, making them all glittery and fluttery and fun.

No, these Faeries are not to be trifled with! They are the stuff of nightmares - mine, at least. And Boyfriend and I recently spent an evening with our new friends A and E, getting a rather scary earful about these beings. Well, they've been somewhat on my mind since then, or rather, at the back thereof, since I quickly pushed all thoughts of them down to where I didn't have to think of them, because I simply can't deal with the occult. In any way.

Not my path. Too many mood disorders, too close to madness for me. Here there be dragons. I don't go there! But I do have great respect for those who can, and do, manage to come out, if not unscathed, at least sane.

And here's where I got a message last night, from the Faerie folk, through a little Fairy, who happens to live across the street from me, one of two little babes I've enjoyed watching slowly grow from a bump in her mother's tummy to a walking, talking being.

She and her sister and her cousins came trick-or-treating as a group with her mom and auntie. Ours was the first house they came to. We were actually both waiting and watching for them, they're kind of the signal for us that Hallowe'en has officially begun, because they're so little they go out very early.

Three of them took their time working their way up our steps, but my little Fairy was on a mission!

"Debbie!" She was saying at the top of her lungs. "Debbie-Debbie-Debbie-Debbie-Debbie-Debbie-Debbie!!!" she kept on saying! And she THREW herself into my arms! I lifted her - she was IMPOSSIBLY light! I had to kiss her little cheeks, I think she was busy kissing mine, or else she was still saying my name. Her mother, in between trying to catch her breath from laughing, managed to say "She knows your name!" and proceeded to introduce me to her sister and the other children as I handed out treats (unsweetened applesauce snacks, puddings, and juice boxes, by the way!) but none of us could hear anything for this little Fairy saying my name!

She finally stopped when given her treat and I said "Okay, darling! Okay! You have FUN tonight!" And I told her mom her treat bag was too small (kids love to hear that!) and then they trooped off to the van to be whisked away to where the streets aren't quite so busy and they could trick-or-treat with less danger of being mowed down.

I'm pagan for a reason - I recognize a sign when I see one! I see that the Faeries have told me not to be afraid. I'm not going near them anytime soon, mind you, but now I'm not going to live with this apprehension in the pit of my stomach either!

I'm also going to cross the street with some home-made something soon and a piece of paper and go meet my neighbours properly and write down all their names and learn them! And...(groan) I guess there will be more quilts to make sometime in the future, AFTER I've finished the ones that are currently promised. At this point, I think I'll have to live forever to get them all made!

And the moral of the story is precisely this: Beings of great power are also capable of great love.

A Glimpse into the Future

I had a brief glimpse into my future today.

It wasn't pretty.

I was grocery shopping, at Maxi. The "welfare" Maxi, as a friend of mine calls it, where all the produce looks like it's first fallen off the back of the delivery truck, and half the customers are worse-dressed than I am.

Which is, sadly, saying something! Never one to look in a mirror before leaving the house, I am often appalled by my reflection should I happen upon it by chance when I'm out and about in the world. To those who wonder, upon seeing me in all my "glory," "What was she thinking?" the answer is simply, I wasn't. I never think about what I look like, unless I'm dressing up for a special occasion. So, when I go grocery shopping at the welfare Maxi, sadly, I fit right in.

And I didn't have the token you need to get a shopping cart. Or a loonie, either. I did manage to trade in four quarters and get a dollar so I could release a shopping cart from its chains at last and begin my brief course round the store.

Fast-forward to me putting away my groceries in the trunk of the car and returning the cart. Or rather, trying to. Because a few idiots had been there before me.

One idiot had jammed a small cart so awkwardly into a large cart - in order to get his or her token back from the locking mechanism - that it was impossible to wrench it out straight again, and nobody could use that lane for returning their carts.

Another idiot had managed to turn his/her cart 180 degrees and lock it up that way, retrieving their token but preventing anyone else from using that lane.

Several other people had just given up, and carts were abandoned willy-nilly.

Now this sort of thing makes my blood boil. I started wiggling first one cart and then another in an attempt the fix the problems. Soon I was joined by a rather tall young man who seemed to know quite a trick involving inserting and retrieving a token to free up the various carts, and in a few minutes we had organized the carts properly, leaving several of them unlocked for lucky patrons to find in the future.

I was happy to return my cart and get my dollar back though! But as I walked triumphantly back to the car, I had a premonition...

Greenfield Park Granny Teaches Lazy Patrons Lesson

The elderly lady who has been seen re-organizing shopping carts at local grocery stores appeared again last night at the Greenfield Park shopping Mall. Witnesses say she swung her umbrella at a man, believed to be in his 30s, who failed to put his shopping cart away properly in the parking lot at the Maxi store there. Moving unexpectedly swiftly for a woman of her apparent age, she managed to land some blows on the man's shoulders and buttocks, before he reached the safety of his car and called police. Passers-by convinced "Granny," as she has affectionately become known, that she should leave quietly, and when the cops got there both she and the man she had assaulted were gone. One of the remaining witnesses said "If people would just put the carts away properly, nobody would be inconvenienced and nobody would be upset! but there's always somebody who thinks they are so much better than anybody else...I think Granny might be a bit off her rocker, but she wouldn't be if people just did what they were supposed to in the first place!"

Quite the Revelation

I recently had an epiphany.

I was looking out my kitchen window at the backyard, and its contents.

The compost heap. Which worked (surprise!) this year, for most of the summer...till I put the sweet potatoes on top of it. The sweet potatoes had sprouted mid-July on my counter. By mid-August, they actually had leaves. That's when I gave up and sat them on top of the compost heap. I had delayed putting them out, because it was too late in the season for them to grow, anyway! We have such a short growing season here - mid-July might as well have been December, as far as hoping for any baby sweet potatoes to be harvested. But I couldn't bring myself to throw the budding plants in the garbage, either.

I was stuck. The potatoes were living beings. So, in the end, I gave up and put them on top of the compost heap, figuring Old Man Winter would seal their fate much more surely than I could.

It also meant the end of turning over the compost heap.

Scratch one compost heap.

So then I looked across the lawn where my hollyhocks had bloomed this summer. These were hollyhocks that my Grandfather had brought to Greenfield Park from Dunvegan and grew to great heights despite my Grandmother's disdain. One summer a hollyhock reached twelve feet in height! Grandpa was thrilled!

He was also blinded by his love of his hollyhocks. They were all prone to a dreadful blight. The plants were always spindly, with the foliage rusting away from the ground up, so that the flowers bloomed and were consumed by the blight one by one all the way up the stem. Really, they looked dreadful.

Mine were spared this blight, but some insect devoured them. I got one lovely picture of them, and one week later the plant had been razed. It looked like a matchstick, on the day that I was surveying things from my kitchen window, about to have my epiphany.

Then I looked at the deck, with my single potted plant on it - a potato. Not a sweet potato, just an ordinary potato that had - you guessed it - sprouted - and I had - you guessed it - planted it!

This time I did it during the correct growing season and I bought the correct shape of pot and I tried, I really did try to take care of it. Just then when I was looking at it though, it wasn't looking so good. The plant had grown really tall - not getting enough light. And insects had been having a good time munching on it. It had fallen to one side, still in the upright pot, because it was so tall, half pulling the original potato out. I don't know if there are any baby potatoes in there. In truth, it looked pretty pathetic.

There used to be a matching pot there beside the potato...that one had been started much earlier, when I tried to grow ginger. Some ginger I bought at the grocery store sprouted, and I looked up how to grow it on the internet. Promises of an unending supply of fresh ginger and a beautiful houseplant to boot convinced me I could do this. I got two more pieces of ginger to keep it company, and my three pieces of ginger began to grow beautifully inside the house, and eventually went outside on the deck, to be joined later by the potato in its matching pot.

Nobody told me the ginger would be so beautiful! It's leaves are like an artist's conception of leaves. Just looking at the leaves brought me inner peace! It didn't take me long to start talking to my ginger plants, saying good morning and good night, and telling them how beautiful they were.

In short, they basically became pets.

And so, one day, I was faced with a recipe that required me to hack off a piece of one of their babies. Just lift up this beautiful, living thing I'd been talking to every day, saw off one of its limbs, and shove it back down in the dirt.

Nuh-uh. I gave the plant away to a dear friend shortly after that, who explained that I had over-watered it unforgiveably. "I don't care," I said miserably, "just take it away and give it a better home. I can't keep it alive and I can't use it. Just take it." It was almost as bad as giving away a cherished pet. And so my potato plant sat alone on the deck, minus its ginger companion.

Lastly, I turned my gaze to the pot of dill on my kitchen counter, barely two days old, fresh from the grocery store. It was turning yellow already, and in my heart in knew. I knew what its fate would be. I'd end up throwing it out, because I wouldn't find time to hang it to dry or to wash it and freeze it.

I had all these good intentions with my plants, but none of them ever turned out.

And that's when I had my epiphany.

See, Grandma and Grandpa lived on a farm. They raised chickens. My Dad and Stepmom had a hobby farm that kept us in vegetables for a good nine months of the year. I grew up learning how to freeze and pickle and can and preserve things. Since I was a little girl, in the back of my mind, I always figured I'd end up...

Being a farmer.

My epiphany?

I am not cut out to be a farmer. I'd be a dreadful farmer! Cripes, I talk to my frigging plants - can't you see me naming my little hens or piglets or la-a-a-mbs? I would never in a zillion years be able to slaughter an animal - I can't harvest a frickin' ginger root! I can't put a sprouted potato into a compost heap and turn it over!

I don't have to be a farmer!

And the silliest part of this is, it's such a relief! Like I'm still in high school, trying to work out what I wanna be when I grow up! I'm 59 freakin' years old, and I just crossed "farming" off the list! Like I can't wait for my Monday morning appointment with the guidance counsellor to say - Hey! I don't wanna be a farmer anymore! We can cross that one off!

Only, the office closed 40-odd years ago, it just took me this long to catch on!

Guess I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed...