23:54 - 11.09.06
puzzles too
It was an interesting day dear diary. As it turned out I didn't sleep much. Too many thoughts chasing each other round the bend. That and the concentration of smoke from the forest fires made breathing very difficult. It was just easier to get up and do something useful instead. Housework was covered, then I sent an email to one of my co-workers. They and the friend whose son just died have been at odds for close to two years, because of a dispute at that time. I have no direct knowledge of what occurred, so I have listened to both but not taken sides. How could I? We each have strengths and weaknesses. Put two strong personalities in a room under external pressure and friction is a reasonable expectation, I think. Anyway the friend, when she was talking last night, mentioned how touched she had been by the email the other had sent her about her son's death. She said it was the most beautifully written piece she had ever read. I decided that maybe there was a possibility of detente in the comment, so I passed her compliment on without any other words to go along. We all need to pull together and rely on each other's help when elections are called, so the opportunity to mend fences or bring some healing in the meantime was worth an attempt. I hope I haven't misread the signs there.
A little later in the morning, I was at the front door preparing to go out for a bit when one of the neighbours from the west duplex drove up. I had thought a lot about their fighting the past few days and decided on an approach that I hoped would be supportive instead of accusatory or judgemental. When I was volunteering, one of the tasks I had been involved with was getting a free family counselling service set up in a way so that the families could decide when they needed help rather than trying to engage a system where waiting lists for crisis care were usually a year long. Not much help when children are at risk. By the time they were seen, the damage was usually so far along that they had to wait another year to see someone who handled the next level of crisis. And so on. Catch-22, where often the child almost had to be in the young offenders program before help was supplied. Why not prevent that?
The other problem was that all those services were 9 to 5 Monday to Friday and required the whole family to be present. That meant hauling the children out of school and both parents losing waged time. Remember, the families in my community were house poor at best or in financial crisis more often. That was often the trigger for family breakdown. Hard to hold things together when one can't feed the family unless the monthly bills were left unpaid. End of that rant. The services available often caused more harm than good as a result. The center we managed to get into place was walkin appointments, first come first serve, week nights and weekends, and free. One of the things that was done to reach out to families in crisis was to print 3" x 5" information cards that could be tucked in a purse or a backpack. Police officers in the area could fit them in their pockets to hand to people when they had to defuse family tensions. They were often the most enlightened on the steering committees in terms of promoting the center's development, because domestic violence calls are among the most dangerous they attend. They much prefer prevention too.
I still have a few of those cards in my files, so I pulled one out hoping to hand one to one of the adults during the day. I guess I could have put it in their mailbox, but I wanted to give the provision of the information a context of caring about the family getting support and assistance and not of judgement or condemnation. No value in that message. It was a bit risky, but I apologized and said that I hated to see any family struggle, that I didn't have the skills to help but the center might be somewhere they could turn to when they were ready. I think the male was a bit startled, but he thanked me anyway and went on his way. All I can do for now.
My one sister had called on the weekend to see if I wanted to spend some time with her and my Dad today. She had wanted to go walking through Chinatown, but my Dad's foot is still very painful. I suggested we try visiting one of the rural towns he really likes instead. Cochrane. When we were small, my parents would pile us all in the station wagon for our weekly recreational drive. At that time it was one of the cheapest forms of family entertainment available. We learned a lot about all parts of our city, but we often spent time travelling up and down the backroads just learning about our natural environment too. When the drive went in the direction of Cochrane we always stopped for the best homemade ice cream in the country. McKay's. At that time the town was very small and miles out of the city. Now, what with annexations and hobby farms, it is barely 10 miles away. Instead of travelling through open and mostly untamed foothills ranching country it is more like suburbia supersized. Now instead of herds of cattle ranging the foothills, there are bales of hay and horses. Not that that is a bad thing, but just not the same feel to it. I love the back country and the mountains. It is a real gift that I had the privilege of growing up when it was mostly unspoiled and wild. My Dad was talking about some of my favorite hiking trails as we were travelling into Cochrane and I realized how much I miss having the opportunity to go out there anymore. After all there is no transit to those spaces, nor should there be.
At the town - population now over 12,800 - my sister really wanted to visit some of her favorite shops. I live to hike, she lives to shop. My Dad would have had difficulty walking for the time that was necessary, so I got him an ice cream cone from McKay's so he could savour the treat while I went with my sister. I really can't afford to spend anything, but I enjoy window shopping once in a while. The one store that was open was a combination of antique dealer and local artists showroom. It was quite interesting and there was some very nice work on display. By the time we got back to my sister's SUV it was time for lunch. We headed out to the local pancake house.
The conversation at lunch was somewhat bizarre from my perspective. When my sister had picked me up from my home, she spent the time on the way to pick up my Dad talking about their investment and tax woes. I'm not certain why she would tell me, but her hubby paid as much in taxes the one year as I made as a wage. Why would she disclose that? Then she was talking about their investment broker and their stocks. I admit my eyes glazed a couple of times. I feel fortunate to have all my bills paid each month. I don't even follow the stock markets, because it is irrelevant to my life in an immediate sense. Yes I know it drives part of the economy and therefore job creation and I do understand the other implications, but usually when people converse it is about things where they have some mutual knowledge. Maybe it was revenge for the times when I've gone off on some theoretical physics tangent. Today, for example, I mentioned that I would love to try that job working with Stephen Hawking and she asked who he was. Tit for tat, but I didn't mean to.
A lot of the lunch conversation was about my Dad's trip to Alaska and Northern British Columbia. He and his neighbour had had a fabulous time. His descriptions of their travel on the Whitepass train and the Skagway to Juneau ferry were really entertaining. Near the end of the meal though my sister started in on "what I would choose if ..." Why even ask? If she is aware that there is bizarre circumstance that would give me a reasonably large sum of funds to use for myself, why would she claim the power to dictate the definition of the choices available. First question - choose three university courses, in order of preference, that I would take if the oppotunity became available. As you might have noticed dear diary, my interests are rather eclectic and, um, sometimes unusual. My sister said I was weird when I chose, but whatever. My brain needs lots of stimulation and research is my drug of choice. She was trying to promote being a teacher, but not in this province where education is so undervalued that the roofs of the buildings housing our children are allowed to get to the point of collapse. I don't want to gain that degree just to spend all my time begging to be allowed to do my job. I already deal with those circumstances in both my career paths, don't I? I mentioned alternative or complementary medicine, environmental conservation, religion and philosophy - our city has a great faculty - and then I threw in bio/astrophysics, stating that I see those courses as all being different aspects of a single whole. Truth is I would also throw in music/dance/languages/literature/anthropology, um well, you get my drift. Last time I looked at the university calendar there were maybe 5 course I didn't want to take - how do I choose three? And why the question? Next statement was that she was still certain I had always wanted to have an apartment in Paris as my dream vacation, so we went ring around that rosy again too. None of that makes sense. It's like putting a glass of water in front of a thirsty human, choosing a flavour of koolaid to add without asking the person who is to drink it and telling them they can look, but never drink anyway. Truth is if I was coming into a large sum of money, fixing this home or moving out into the country would be my first priority along with helping out my sons, but again why even think about it?
While we were at my Dad's, I checked his foot just for my own peace of mind. He said the doctor told him it was fascitis, but that didn't all add up with the symptoms. I know, because of working in a physical rehab department and also having had a bout myself, in the days when I lived in spiky stiletto high heels. Oh yes dear diary, I got at least one lecture a day from the physios, but what did they know, eh? Apparently more than I thought, when stepping off a bus the wrong way tore the connective tissue all along the sole of my foot. Anyway my Dad is diabetic too, so I had done some research before today trying to get a better picture of what was going on with him. I think if he had gotten treatment right away he would have been just fine. Being forced to wait in the treatment queue for two or three months meant his condition had detriorated quite a bit by the time he actually received the cast he needed for his shoe for support. Impairment of circulation and neural pathways are part of the diabetic syndrome and place patients at great risk, if they aren't attended to immediately. The bottom of his foot wasn't as bad as it could have been, but there is still quite a lot of healing that needs to happen - it is just this side of serious. Just like education or family support, prevention in health care is an investment that saves society huge sums of human potential as well as dirty old cash - about $5 for every dollar spent. The other thing I did while I was in his home was check his computer at his request. I have offered a few times to go spend a day teaching him how to navigate it so he can enjoy it, but there is something not right there either. It wasn't until my other sister and her hubby came by one day that he was even shown how to connect to the internet. He had wanted to look for some stuff on e-bay he had told them. Yet my tech savvy brother who set the system up for him and the sister's husband who was part of the party today hadn't shown him that basic function. They had set up email for my Dad, but only placed their two internet addresses in. There are five siblings in the family. My sister was very tense as I showed my Dad a couple of things, because he wants to buy a used motorhome. She seemed really unhappy when I added my email address into the address book. She kept saying it meant that the one other sister would send him too much "junk mail". Maybe so or maybe not, but my Dad is old enough and sharp enough to out-think the whole rest of us put together. I don't think he needs someone else making decisions on who he can communicate with and when. As my Dad's physical strength is reduced, he will need some other form of communication tools to keep him in the social loop. He is too people oriented to be isolated in his home. When he can't get out as much, the internet will offer him some alternative, especially with voice over technology becoming so much part of the landscape. Don't understand it.
Anyway I'm going to go watch some happy movies - my mental health therapy for tonight. Good night dear diary.
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