After much investigation, I found GGG Grandaunt Bella’s Death Registration record. The record was obscured by a faulty transcription: a misspelling of her surname. She lived to be 88 years old, and spent the last years of her life at the County Gaol. She is listed as a vagrant, although that seems a bit harsh, as a description of someone who cared for her father till he died, and then supported herself as a seamstress, eventually buying a small plot of land that I assume she lived on. She is buried on her father’s farm. She was probably institutionalized because she was old and needed care herself, and not because she was shiftless or had committed any crime. It seems sad, but who knows what kind of a place it was. Surely there were other honest, hard working people there, who faced similar circumstances, allowing people to at least offer each other some understanding and perhaps even camaraderie.
Things have changed. But I am not convinced they have changed for the better. Older women make up a significant proportion of those living in poverty in Canada, and they are also well represented in the homeless population. I don’t trust professional Feminist appraisals of the quality of life for Canadian women. Professional Feminists make a career out of advocacy. I have trouble with the need for advocates. The advocates get to have a career helping others, are usually well paid and middle class, and although they do help a few people, they seldom, if ever, make any significant change to the issues causing the disparity, which are structural and institutionalized.
Yesterday the blood test did not take as long as I had feared. There were only about ten people in line before me. At this lab you have to take a number when you come in the door. I carefully hang on to that little tab of paper, as it represents a place in the queue. Lose it and you will have to go to the back of the line again. I am sporting a beauty of a bruise, but there is not pain.
I also managed to do all the trip-to-town errands that were on my list yesterday. Shopping is a dangerous activity. There are always bright and shiny things that, in the wonder of the moment, I think I might need. But if I keep walking around the store, by the time I cycle back to those appealing items, I realize I do not need them, nor do I really want them.
My Mom has a birthday this weekend, 82 years young. And young she is, what a spirit! Her father, my Grandpa, was a fine fellow, and he was active his whole life through, all 89 years, an example to all of his children and grandchildren. That is where my Mom gets her gumption, which she has in spades. Happy Birthday Mom, and wishing you many, many more!
Attila has been spending a few hours stacking fire wood every evening. I think that by the end of May he will have all of it stacked. Then we will be able to recover the lawn, which has been buried under the dumped load of fire wood. Of course, once this fire wood is stacked, Attila will be bringing in wood from the bush out back, from trees culled by the wind and weather.
We are having an all day rain! The landscape needed it, and since the floods have subsided, no harm done.
One of the lovely things about the leafy season is movement. The slightest breeze animates the world. It is difficult to resist becoming lost in reverie, watching the lilt and sway of newly unfurled greenery.
In reading various news reports this morning, I was struck by a contrast, which I will describe. I read quotes from two people who experienced the power of mother nature this spring. The first person quoted, I found admirable. The second person quoted, not so much.
The first quotation is from an interview with a man who had experienced serious property damage, done when ice blew off the lake next to his waterfront property. Ice was driven ashore with unusual force, by wind. The man lives in Alberta, and his comment is:
“Nature’s pretty powerful,” says Morrison. “I’m actually quite fortunate that that’s all it did.”
Source: http://globalnews.ca/news/542967/ice-blown-off-lake-damages-dozens-of-alberta-beach-properties/The second, which I didn’t like nearly so much, quotes a letter from a Mayor, a seasonal resident in the Ontario area she represents; an area that experienced flooding in the spring of this year.
The flooding was caused by a combination of factors. The ground was saturated since last fall, and was still frozen when the area experienced heavy rain. The frozen ground was unable to mediate the effects of the unusually heavy rain, resulting in heavy run off, and thence flooding.
This is clearly an act of nature. It is something that scientists would regard as an infrequent, but not unexpected, occurrence.
“Murphy claims there was a “…lack of advance warning from the MNR to the municipalities.” This statement contradicts the MNR’s assertion that its first Flood Outlook warning was sent to all municipalities on April 16 (to identified emergency management coordinators including the Township’s Richard Hayes) and followed up the Flood Outlook with a Flood Watch (reported on Moose FM April 18) that was then upgraded to a Flood Warning (followed by more Flood Warnings specifying areas that could expect flooding). You can read the full letter that was sent by the Mayor to the Premier, various provincial cabinet ministers, the District…”
Source: http://muskokanewswatch.com/opensession/comments-by-muskoka-lakes-mayor-inaccurate-and-inappropriate-says-councillor/What a contrast in attitudes!
There were floods where we live. I did not hear the Flood Outlook warnings, and I take responsibility for that. I don’t listen to the radio station that announced the warnings, although I could have, if I had been concerned. I live on higher ground and am not as concerned about flooding as I would be if I had waterfront property. I am not holding public office; I am not morally or legally obligated to monitor conditions for the general population of the area I live in, nor do I have the resources to do that.
Worldly Distractions
Weather
7C
Condition: Heavy Rain
Pressure: 101.2 kPa
Visibility: 3 km
Temperature: 7.0°C
Dewpoint: 6.0°C
Humidity: 93%
Wind: ENE 11 km/h
Quote
“The real hero is always a hero by mistake; he dreams of being an honest coward like everybody else.”
Umberto Eco
1932 –
We just had two days of hard rain and I am sure we had at least 5 inches or more . We needed it. I never argue with Mother Nature anyway for fear she could send much worse. In a day or so when it has soaked in, everything will be better for it. As it is, all the lawns and shrubbery are a lovely shade of green. Our dry summer months will be here soon enough bringing complaints from many. My house is not in a flood prone area so I just roll with ma Nature’s punches.
5 inches! That is a lot of rain! Glad to hear that you are high and dry! The greens are beautiful, aren’t they!
It took me a bit to realize ‘goal’ equals the word we spell here as ‘jail’. Sad conditions, indeed. I’m so glad your mother is doing so well!
Yes, a goal is a jail. It is sad to think that after a life of being self-supporting, when in need of help the only option was the goal. I have been trying to find additional information about life in the goal at that time, no luck so far. The ancestresses faced this down a few times. Another female relative in that area, in the next generation, a GG Aunt, had difficulty handling the death of a “friend”, she ended up in the penitentiary due to being upset. And another female relative of later generation still, ended her days in a House of Refuge; her death registration states that her parents and family were “unknown”; which wasn’t true because the family paid for her burial, I’ve seen the records. I have found no records of males being treated in this way, to date.
It is great to have my Mom in our lives!
We live on a hill with lots of ledge rock under our soil. Flooding doesn’t come our way either so we don’t have to prepare for it. But many’s a winter when I’d come home from work and not be able to get up our steep hills due to very slippery snow and ice and would have to park my small car at the shopping center around the corner for the night! So living on a hill has its “up and downs” but I’ll take the no-flooding part every time!
I see Ava South up there in your comments and wanted to give a shout-out to her – HELLO AVA!!! – whom I have seen (or read) in years now. Must check in with her again.
LOL, ups and downs.
It is wonderful to hear from Ava, isn’t it!
I think you meant to write “gaol,” not “goal” … perhaps that accounts for some of the confusion?
I would certainly like to hear you expand further on your “trouble with feminist advocates.” I hope you are not saying that women who are advocates for equality, particularly those who do it fulltime and thus need to be paid for doing so, are those who benefit the most from the lack of equality between the sexes.
LOL, of course! GAOL Thanks Kate, I see you have your editing hat on! I have noticed, since I started using MarsEdit to compose my posts, that I am frequently using incorrect words. I don’t want to assume that it is the software, it could be me getting old, but what a coincidence! I do know that I catch quite a few words that got autofilled on me, as I type a lot while looking out the window, not watching fingers or screen. It never used to be such a big problem. I guess I could test it out, try composing in a text editor that does not autocorrect.
“I have trouble with the need for advocates. The advocates get to have a career helping others, are usually well paid and middle class, and although they do help a few people, they seldom, if ever, make any significant change to the issues causing the disparity, which are structural and institutionalized.”
Kate, what I actually said was that I have trouble with the need for advocates.
If the professional advocate is striving for equality, and they succeed, then the need for advocates will diminish or disappear altogether. If they succeed their career is redundant. Few people toil towards redundancy, although I have seen it occur.
The people who benefit most from inequality between the sexes are those of the privileged sex.
There is a reason that males encourage females to work under feminist parameters, separate and easily identified.
Almost all women I know, most of whom would not call themselves feminists, and some who do, support and work towards equality of the sexes. Very few of them are paid for walking their talk. I have heard the saying, “helping is the sunny side of control.”