02:44 - 21.07.07
venomous beasts
Thanks for the insight Kramer!
Very early yesterday morning there was the distinct sound of helicopter(s) flying over and around the community for over an hour. I made a guess that they were the police issue Hawcs that assist in their policing duites. That was confirmed in the news today with the reporting of how officials were opting to deal with a big Hell's Angels gathering on the outskirts of the city - maybe 10 miles as the crow (Hawc) flies. I've mentioned our family's encounter with them in the late '60s in California, very near their main headquarters at the time. It would have seemed totally insane to believe that they would ever enter Canada let alone set up shop in our own city, but there it is. Shortly after the helicopters departed - about 5 in the am - there was a long period of military planes passing overhead. I'm not certain which incident was most disturbing to me, because the military overflights usually signal times of escalating fighting overseas. I support our troops for all the peace-keeping, making and community building they do and have done for decades. I do not support their deployment in war actions and I resent the current federal government's attempts to tie the support for the troops into support for their stupid wannabe "cowboy warrior" personae that they are trying to create for themselves personally. No disrespect, but our Prime Minister still looks like an accountant harbouring dreams of glory through other peoples' death and suffering. Grow up Stephen and cie. Try addressing some of the really serious problems in this country - you know, like the gang wars and homelessness. Umm well end of rant. Must be the antibiotics trying to flush out the poison, eh? Too bad they don't work on politicians and power brokers.
I did make it to the clinic today to have my dressings changed and my arm assessed. The doctor handed me a batch of supplies so I could do my own dressing changes at home. The four block walk to her clinic - which is usually an easy amble - took every ounce of energy out of me just getting there. There is a lot to be said for building up strength through exercise. However, one needs a certain amount of energy to supply the physiological tools necessary for the body to work with to do so. The doctor also lectured me about not eating. I've lost quite a bit of weight I think - but the antibiotics kill any desire for food that might be left over after the long stretch of very hot days saps away one's appetite. I did take my sister and youngest out to breakfast after yesterday's disasterous beginning. We then took him to work, then went back to the herbalist's to get the additional material she wanted for her extended family. She hadn't realized one had to pay cash or use a credit card, so I paid for that instead thinking it would cover some of the gas money she's been out the past week. I found some cash slipped back in my purse after the fact, so I wasn't entirely successful in paying her back. Tonight my youngest brought supper from the local mediterranean restaurant. See I am too doing what I need to heal.
I had called and left my Dad a voice message just asking him to call me back so I could work out the miscommunication that had happened that morning, but he still hasn't returned my call. My one aunt did email me to tell me that my other aunt - who is very frail - had fallen and broken her hip. I expect he was at the hospital visiting her today, maybe. That said, I've decided to go back to my original plan that was in place with my sons who had agreed among the six of them to spend one day this summer just finishing up the gutting out of all the rest of the old damaged stuff inside the house. I think a U-haul rental is quite low, if it isn't a traditional moving day, so I can actually afford that one way or another. Everything else will have to wait until there is money coming in again from a job. I know I sound like a broken record - for those who recall what broken records were. Now that my arm is working again, I can continue trying to apply for work. Something has to come through sometime soon - right? I still don't understand why a power struggle among the extended family settled on my home renovations for a battlefield, but I am not going to allow or facilitate any further squabbles. I suspect the ultimate target may be my Dad's neighbour, because some of my sibs can't accept that he has another partner other than my Mom. I miss her too, but she has been dead for almost a decade now. My Dad has the right to live out the rest of his lifespan without being buried deep in the past.
Continuing the abscessed arm saga - catching up - my son's buddy had started searching for housing the day he first arrived at our home. I don't think he had any concept of what zero vacancy rate meant. He actually was going out and interviewing people to see if they were suitable to live with him. He thought he had made a find within three days, but when he told me about the people and the circumstances it sounded very dicey. Fortunately the two other renters didn't choose to return his later calls, so I think he was saved by his own innocence. On the Wednesday it finally emerged that the fight he and his Mom had had was over the new "job" he had landed. I have to say I am in total agreement with her, because it is one of those financial operations that works in the shadows of pyramid schemes - just always out of reach, but with a history littered with court cases all over North America, shutting down each evolution of their attempts to fleece both their clients and their sales staff. He even persuaded my youngest to jeopardize his own job to attend one of the recruitment sessions and I think it might have been in his head to set up his "business venture" in my home. Not happening. I pointed out that no one with any sense would take financial advice from two teenagers - him and my son - who had never lived away from home and who had never had to budget for anything but their own personal entertainment. For potential clients too naive or too uneducated to see the danger to their financial safety, the amount of harm the two could inflict through their own innocence - since neither of them would deliberately defraud or hurt other people, if only because their mothers would make theirs lives miserable - would be considerable. Case in point was putting my son's job that he loves at risk for a pipedream session. My son's buddy tried the spiel on me the second morning. Those predators had tried to recruit me into their organization within weeks of the boys' dad leaving, so I had the facts on them long ago. Exploiting a desperate single mom trying to feed and clothe six children on her own is not the sign of a compassionate or caring entity as they try to project. My son's buddy was told within two minutes that it wsn't an item for discussion in my home at any time. By the Friday, he was spouting slogans and cult-like sayings from that company any time he walked in the door in an attempt to try to get my son to return for more "training" sessions. By Friday, he finally realized that what the pyramid company's visions of a good life he was going to achieve working for them wasn't going to manifest in the real world he had to deal with as easily as he thought. He negotiated with his sister to sublet her room in a student housing co-op, while she returned to live with their mother. That procedure would take another week to conclude. A very nice young man, but the timing was dreadful. I had to beg for help with my medical issues with my youngest one day because his buddy was working so hard to pull him into his new world. I ended up having to try and deal with that attitude young adults spew when they are leaving the nest and think that you know nothing at a time when I desperately needed emergency medical care, for example. That young fellow also seemed to think my only purpose in life was to wait to open and close the door for him while he went about his daily affairs. He came and went at all hours, rapping imperiously when he arrived back at our place. I was trying to get enough sleep to deal with the pain in the interim and was constantly interrupted. Add in the late night shouting sessions as he was playing his electronic games and it was becoming overwhelming. Yes I know I should have shown him the door, but it seemed at first it was only going to be for a few days. And yes it probably did contribute to the sickness. He finally removed the last of his gear on Friday 13th and things have been much easier in my home since.
The other issue that raised it's head again during the Thursday/Friday start of Stampede was the landlord for the other side of the duplex again. He went on about how it was time to get rid of my tree. Because I was getting progressively sicker and weaker, I felt very threatened by his continuous damage to my plants as well as the verbal hints and insinuations. I finally called my insurance company to see if there was any protection for me, if he managed to damage the tree so much that it died. No and I would be responsible for any costs if it fell and damaged my home or anyone else's. That stress didn't help me cope with the sickness either. Add in the continuing heat and the effects of the antibiotics and I was rapidly becoming a basket case. The antibiotics were slowly clearing up the infection, but they were taking a very heavy toll on the rest of my body. For example, I didn't eat from the time I had the picnic with my friend on Friday to sometime the week after. Just couldn't handle food in my body, I guess. I know whine with cheese. That was the reason that, even if I could have used my hand and forearm to post to you - I couldn't because of the physical impairment, as well as the knifing pain in them - I didn't. Add in too the brain fog that the Benadryl and the antibiotic together created - hence the lost pills I mentioned earlier - and I don't think anything I would have been able to produce would have made any sense at all.
Anyway I need to get some sleep now. Harry Potter arrives soon and the thought of being able to read it was what kept me sane the past couple of weeks. Good night dear diary.
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