11:38 p.m. - 2004-03-25
Choices
The cats and I have been having a bit of a stand-off. You see, I have a planter in my living room - with real plants. At least that was the case until the kittens were old enough to roam about the house. Miss Kitty took it upon herself, as a caring parent, to teach her babies the ways of the feline. However, one of her projects was to teach her little ones about the joys and opportunities inherent in digging. Now on a farm, where Miss Kitty was born, that is eminently reasonable - there are all sorts of "chewy toys" of a sort in the ground. The roots of my plants are not part of that though. Only two of several plants that were originally in the planter survived the on-slaught of six cats. The other two, plus three new seedlings, are now wrapped with banana peels and a cotton ball soaked with eucalyptus oil sits nearby. We had tried every internet pet site and all the tips that were offered but none of those worked. Guerilla raids complete with lookouts and diversionery tactics were carried out with increasing frequency and daring. Cat tails were thumbed in our faces. The resolutions came when I noticed the babies wouldn't come near me even when they obviously wanted to cuddle, when my sinuses stuffed up (allegies). I had slathered on eucalyptus oil to create some breathing room. Then my youngest noticed that Miss Kitty turned tail and ran any time he was eating a banana. Le voila - an elegant, non-toxic, stinky, solution.
I've been working with contacts from the political parties for about a week. The last two to respond have been much younger people. The caller with the bookie intro turned out to be a very nice young gentleman in probably his early twenties. He works two jobs and was both polite and articulate during our conversation. I checked the party websites for both the young adults out of curiosity - I wanted to see what would attract young adults to get involved since that is a major issue according to the head of Elections Canada - declining youth voting. One of the major comments made by people who don't get involved is that they feel their action has no impact or power over the decisions politicians make. I came across this article today, and although the story is in reference to the US presidential election, it has the same potential for impact on the politicians here. Maybe this article should be tucked into the voter information card each elector gets during our election. blocvote
The rest of my day was taken up with chatting with four different Returning Officers each of whom had different issues to resolve. I enjoy dealing with each and don't mind helping, but I'm wondering why Elections Canada would hire someone else to do that and then choose a person who can't answer enough of te queries to be helpful. No answers back from them on a couple of critical questions I e-mailed to Ottawa yesterday, but maybe no news is good news. Hope so.
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