Yawn

Easy weekend full of normal, responsible homeowner stuff like painting, grocery shopping and vacuuming. It was delightfully boring.

The fall allergy season has kicked in and my head is in a state that requires constant ibuprofen ingestion. A pounding headache woke me up out of a dead sleep last night, which is always fun. There is just nothing like the sweaty dry heaves at 1:48 am to ring in a Monday morning.

Tomorrow, I am flying to the East Coast on business which will leave my very fabulous husband having to deal with my not so fabulous ex husband. I am not worried, though. All Dallas has to do is open his mouth, utter "mate" in his delicious accent, and my ex husband instantly feels like he is an extra in a Peter Jackson movie.

Dylan had his first football game on Saturday and he did well considering his exposure to the sport is only two weeks old. I just love that he's part of a team and out there sweating his tail off rather than spending hours in front of his laptop. I sense a small shift for him both in confidence and attitude. On Saturday, one of his friends we haven't seen in ages, showed up and invited him over to hang out and then Sunday, he again spent most of the day outside with Liv and some of the neighbourhood kids. It was all very angst-free and functional which was a welcome break from some of the high drama we've experienced lately.

So that's it, really. There just isn't much to tell. The minutiae of life.

And if the truth were to be told, I have to admit that I'm thrilled to be steeped in the mundane.

9/11

Today, the blogosphere is full of posts discussing the significance of today's date and how eight years ago, our lives were irrevocably changed forever.

Like most, I remember exactly where I was when I heard that the first tower had been struck. Like many, I watched, live, as a plane flew into the second tower. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My first thought, "what the hell is going on with air traffic control?", was quickly replaced by, "Oh my god. We're under attack," as realization dawned.

I called Canada and woke my mum up. As we witnessed the horror unfolding with each minute that passed: the collapse of the towers, the debris field in Pennsylvania, the Pentagon, the firefighters, the police officers, the panic, the ash, the smoke, the passengers, the crew, the people trapped in the towers and the people that escaped....my prevailing thought was, "This is not happening. This is America."

I did not personally know anyone that died on that awful day eight years ago and I can only imagine how torturous it must have been for those that had to wait weeks to get confirmation of what they knew deep down inside. To be one of those mothers or wives or sisters who played old messages over and over just to have the comfort of listening to fifteen seconds of a voice they'd never hear again or to be one of those left behind plastering the photo of a missing loved one on the exterior walls of the Armory on 26th Street, well, it's just heartbreaking. The emotional pain of that day still has the power to stop me in my tracks. The enormity of the loss still takes my breath away.

Today, we will remember. Today we will mourn.

Tomorrow, we will honour them by allowing life to go on.

From the Soapbox

Busy, busy week so far and the last couple of days are looking to be somewhat hellish so I'm going to be really quick today.

I've got a few comments about the president's speech last night.

While I was a bit disappointed that we didn't get more details, I was encouraged to hear that the public option wasn't taken off the table. I'm Canadian. My husband is a Kiwi. We come from countries where there is socialized medicine. We've experienced both sides of the proverbial fence and I can tell you that nonsense like Sarah Palin's death panels is nothing more than propaganda. Canadian health care isn't perfect but it's good. As a nation, we need to understand that the insurance business is FOR PROFIT, which simply boils down to the fact that every single day, a medical decision is made in favour of the shareholder and at the expense of the patient. EVERY SINGLE DAY. It's a blatant, head-shaking, clear, conflict of interest. Seems to me that we should be talking about those thinly disguised "death panels".

And really, how can anyone in this country possibly look to the Republicans to provide us with a reasonable alternative to the health care plan currently on the table? These are the people that gave us Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act(MMA). Besides the provision that prohibits the Federal government from negotiating with the pharmaceutical companies (WTF?), the cost of this legislation was deliberately concealed. In December 2003, as Dubya inked the deal, the 10 year cost was estimated at $400B. That's how it was sold to the more fiscally conservative members of his party. In January 2004, the Whitehouse adjusted that figure up by nearly $150B. By 2005, estimates showed the 10 year cost to be over $1.2 trillon. Former US Comptroller, General David Walker referred to the MMA as "......probably the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s".

I'm pretty comfortable rolling the dice with the Democrats.

Congressman Joe Wilson was a disrespectful tool for yelling out, "You lie!", in the middle of the president's speech. Idiot, for sure. But he quickly apologized so let's get over it and move on. Bush was booed at a State of the Union address and while I despised him as a president, the office deserved more respect than that. Also, it wasn't that long ago that Senator Harry Reid referred to George Bush as a "loser", which was equally inappropriate so let's not get our collective liberal panties in a bunch and turn Wilson's remarks into a freaking rally cry because we will look like hypocrites.

Bottom line, we need health care reform and we probably don't need to reinvent the wheel. My opinion is that we need to focus on affordable insurance so that people will get in front of their primary care physicians. Those doctors are first in the line of defense against skyrocketing health care costs and they need to be compensated accordingly. They are the ones that see people before the heart attack, before the stroke, before the type II diabetes. They are the providers of preventative care and if everyone had affordable access to them, we'd save money. Lots of it.

And something needs to be done about malpractice lawsuits. We must institute reasonable limits that don't exist today. The cost of malpractice insurance is staggering and when you combine it with the reduced compensation that a PCP gets for seeing a patient, many doctors simply can't afford to be private practitioners. My son is hearing impaired because of hospital error and we flirted with the idea of suing but the fact is, money wouldn't have changed a thing for Dylan and the hospital did 99.9% of everything right. His lab results slipped through the cracks, which is unfortunate but mistakes happen. He's impaired, not deaf. While it would have been nice to have had a chunk of change to pay for the hearing aids that he will wear for the rest of his life, I couldn't get my head around all of the attorney fees, court costs, time and effort that it would have taken to accomplish this.

Okay, that's it for my soapbox today.

A Boy's Rite of Passage Begins

Tuesday, I was at my desk labouring over cost sheets that needed to be modified because of unexpected increases in raw materials when my mobile rang. I wasn't in the best of moods and since I didn't recognize the number, I fully expected there to be a telemarketer on the other end. As I answered, I shrugged on my superbitch persona and prepared to take out my daily frustrations on the schmuck who had the misfortune to call.

"This is Beth", I said.

"May I speak with Mrs. J", he said.

"Yes, that's me. What are you selling", I asked in clipped, impatient, Nazi tones.

There was a short pause, an audible intake of breath and I smiled, thinking that the telemarketer had to know at this point that an unpleasant experience was at hand.

"This is Tom from the Boys and Girls Club. Is your boy still interested in playing football this year?" And people, this man was all southern charm and respect. I scrambled to dislodge my shoe from the back of my throat.

After apologizing profusely and giving him an overly long explanation about telemarketing and spam calls and how I really wish I had a bullhorn to blow every time I received one and nodding furiously on the other end of the line even though I knew he couldn't see me, I took a breath and told him that yes, Dylan would be thrilled to get on a team.

He instructed me to bring him by on Wednesday afternoon to sign him up.

Then, I called my ex because Wednesdays are the day that he picks the children up from school and takes them to some fast food joint to fill them full of 1500 garbage, artery clogging calories dinner.

I explained to him that Dylan got into football so please don't fetch him from school on Wednesday as I would be taking him to get signed up and then on to the sports store to outfit him with proper equipment. His reply?

"I AM NOT PAYING FOR ANY EQUIPMENT!!! I PAY A SHIT TON OF CHILD SUPPORT AND THAT MONEY INCLUDES STUFF LIKE THIS!"

How does one respond to that? Well, I suppose a more mature person would have calmly allowed the irrational blow up and then have reasoned with him in a gentle, measured manner. Sadly, I am not that person.

Instead, I spat out a paragraph laced with four letter words, detailing his failings as a human being and then I hung up on him before he had a chance to reply. Like I said, I am FLAWED.

Anyway, yesterday, after we had signed all of the papers, Dylan and I made our way over to the sports store to get pants, pads, a mouth guard, a chin strap, a practice jersey, cleats and a helmet. My ex showed up, which I thought might be a positive thing but alas, he was true to form. When it came time to pay, you could have run a car on the vapours my ex left behind as he fled from the store.

$175.00

Dylan's eyes widened as I handed over my bank card.

"Thank you, Mum", he whispered. And the child meant it.

"You're welcome sweetie." I said, giving him a hug. "You understand that quitting won't be an option, right?"

And with that, I officially became a southern, football mother.

Monster

Man kidnaps 11 year old girl and holds her captive for eighteen years.

He rapes her repeatedly, fathering two children with her; the first when she was just fourteen years old.

She and her two children are imprisoned in the BACKYARD of a structure in a cluster of shanties and tents.

EIGHTEEN YEARS.

They are not schooled. They are not socialized. They live like animals.

Man is married.

The wife of this sick bastard is more than an accomplice. Turns out she is an enthusiastic participant.

Both plead "not guilty", promising a great story with a "heartwarming" ending.

I have to turn the television off because the story is more than I can stomach.

I do not believe that pedophiles can be rehabilitated.

But I also do not support the death penalty.

These two monsters make it easy to understand why some people do.