Dreaming of Dublin

I had a dream the other night that Taylor and I were in Dublin for what seemed to be a stop over. We were with two of her friends who are Guides as well as both their mothers who are Guide leaders. There were a few other Guides, but who they were is a bit hazy. They were, I believe, going to Pax Lodge in London. I'm not sure why we were in Dublin, but we had a few hours to spend there. So Taylor and I went up O'Connell Street where I insisted on taking dozens of pictures of her (perhaps to make up for the lack of pictures I took when I was there in reality) and we went to Kilmainham Jail and to Glasnevin Cemetery (two places I should have went to). Suddenly we were at a hospital because some wee girl in our group had injured herself. I was in a fit because we were running out of time and I wanted to be touring. I have no idea what happened after that as I woke up. I hate waking up when I have dreamt I am in another country, it is always a downer to realize that, in fact, I am in my bedroom in Edmonton. I wonder what this means? Could there be a trip to Ireland in my future? I'd even take Pax Lodge, actually, just to go SOMEWHERE. Can we all please feel pity for me that I have not left the province of Alberta in the last 4 years? Minus a few days, as exactly 4 years ago I was in England, having just left the north of Ireland. Sometimes, it seems like I never actually went.

I have had two days in a row off for the first time in what feels like ages, but in reality has only been 3 weeks. It was rather nice, and somwhat quiet, except there were two major blowouts with Taylor (why can't we get along?) Had Thanksgiving dinner at my mum's. I even had things to be thankful about...Saoirse having her first Thanksgiving, William being here, Liam reading a book, even the ever moody Taylor gave me something to be thankful for. Not only is she brushing her hair properly, but she is actually styling it! Good God, will this child never cease to amaze me? All in all, life is quite alright. Now if only I could win the lottery like that old lady in Nova Scotia!

I am sooooo pissed off

I was very excited today to hear that INXS would be going on tour with their new frontman, JD Fortune. William even said he would go with me, although he is not really an INXS fan. And what has happened?

They aren't bloody well playing in Edmonton.

The bastards. I do realize this tour is in January and February and they are the worst two months of the year in this corner of the world. But that is no excuse (and in fact, I am quite sure they would not use that as an excuse.) So what is wrong with Edmonton? Or Calgary? Or Montreal? Why is a band with a Canadian lead singer only playing two Canadian dates? I understand that Vancouver and Toronto are the chosen Canadian destinations for most bands but shouldn't this be a time for INXS to reaquaint themselves with fans from long ago? I know I saw them in two sold out shows back in the late 80s/early 90s (jeesh, am I getting old.) I am sure that at least 10% of the audience of those shows would like to see them again as well. So there's 2000 people, give or take, enough to fill the Winspear or the Agricom.

Again, all I have to say is those bastards.

On an aside, in Toronto they are playing Massey Hall. I am quite sure that the Jesus and Mary Chain played there in like 1984 or something. Another band that couldn't be arsed to come to Edmonton. Bastards! But I still love them. JAMC that is, not INXS. Quite annoyed with them, actually.

Today's Sad News

Today I missed Saoirse's first step. This is what I hate about working. I wanted to cry when William told me. Sometimes I wish I could just stay home and watch what she does all day. But of course on the days I am home, I always seem to have stuff to do...cleaning, or meetings or something that drags me away. I regret getting so involved in things outside of work and home. Except for my stamping club. I do rather enjoy that. Anyway, I am home tomorrow so hopefully I will see her walk.

In today's bad news, there was a notice in the front of Liam's agenda that he has been accused of kicking a kid in the private parts while on the bus and it also said that Liam said the boy was choking him. The bus driver did not witness either. I have asked his teacher to call me as Liam got very upset talking about it. This happened last Wednesday and I only heard about it today. William told me tonight that last week Liam asked what to do if someone fights with him and William told him to fight back. I have told him as well that when someone trys to hurt him (though I was thinking more of adults or teenagers) to kick them exactly where he is accused of kicking this kid. So maybe it has something to do with what we have said to him. But knowing Liam, I honestly don't think he did do this. He's a pretty good kid and generally gets along well with others. But then again this is a new school and who knows, maybe the tide has turned.

Today's Good News

I stopped off at Taylor's school this morning on my way to work to drop off a donation for the school dance. My friend Michelle and I hung out in the library to watch morning announcements, which are shown on TVs in all the classrooms. Her son Connor was doing a bit on garbage (those kids are pigs) and Taylor was doing some powerpoint thing on the computer as well as reading about Read In Week. She pronounced Lois as Louis but otherwise did very well.

As we were standing there the resource teacher came in and said she had to talk to me. I said "Oh, do you have Liam's PAT results?" (Every Grade 3 student takes Provincial Achievement Exams in June, and the results have just been released.) She said "This is about your other child." There must have been a look of horror on my face because she said "Don't worry it's good news!"

And it was. The school would like to code Taylor as gifted. This doesn't really mean a whole lot. They used to have a gifted program but she said the kids didn't enjoy it as they were being made fun of for being smart. Really, at this point, all it means is that Taylor will have extra work and will be encouraged to go to some robotics fair. Oh, and the school will get some extra money because she has been coded. I'm not sure about Taylor and extra work as I am hard pressed to get her to do the homework she brings home as it is. I did say I was concerned about how lazy she was, and that her marks do not reflect the gifted title. She said that she and the principal had discussed this and that the marks on the district wide exams were what mattered. And then she showed me those marks. And let me just say my daughter is SMART. Like Mensa smart ( I looked it up and she really is.) Out of 100 children in verbal and non verbal testing only one student would do better then Taylor. In Math, 4 would. I always knew Taylor was quite smart, she learned the alphabet in one go (except for the letter O) at the age of 10 months and she could read chapter books at 4. But because she does tend to be lazy and leaves everything to the last minute her school work tends to suffer. So a kid who should be scoring in the high 90s often only gets 80. There was a huge fallout last week over the 78% in a science exam.

I'm not sure what this will all mean for Taylor. Do I tell her about this or not? I think I might just say that her teacher would like to give her extra work to see how well she does. I want Taylor to try harder and to put in more of an effort. So while I don't want to tell her she is "gifted" I do want her to know that the teachers, and myself, expect more of her. The good thing about her being coded is that it follows her to junior high and the school she wants to go to has the IB program and I suppose it would be much easier for her to get in to it.

What astounds me about all this is how two children can be so different. On one hand, I have Liam who has been coded as Learning Disabled and had to change schools as ours couldn't teach him. Although he is great at math, at the age of 9 still can not read. Liam will not pick up a book while Taylor never has her nose out of one. I think I'd rather have 2 kids in the middle of the pack than have two extremes. I'd sacrifice some of Taylor's smarts to give a bit to Liam. Isn't that a terrible thing to say?

Some meme thingermajinger.

Because Eric over at Terminal Dysfunction has threatened me with eternal bad luck if I don't do this, I am going to do it. I'm pretty sure I already suffer from eternal bad luck, but no use in making it eternal even worse luck. So here goes....

........no English or Scottish pavillions though, so no Rowntrees Fruit Pastilles or Gums.

That is the fifth sentence from my 23rd post, which was entitled Heritage Days and if I had computer abilities I could link you right to it. But I don't. Heritage Days is a big festival here with over 50 countries represented but NOT England or Scotland who had a bit of a tiff with the H.D people. Therefore I suffered without my fruit pastilles and gums. But I got a few packages a week later when Taylor came home from England and some more a couple of weeks ago when Christine sent some from Scotland. They are all gone now. Shame. I could buy them at the British shop, but am too cheap to pay $1 a roll.

So what does that sentence tell you about me? Well, it tells you I love Rowntrees Fruit Gums and Pastilles. And that's really all it says. Read deeper if you must.

Here's the rules for the people I now have to tag.
Delve into your blog archive.
Find your 23rd post (or closest to).
Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
Tag five people to do the same.

I'll tag...let's see...Frank over at The Land of Ireland, UI (who doesn't seem to visit these days, sigh), Emma at Welcome to Melancholy, Bliss Disclosed and 42 Year Old Loser. There we go then.

Foolish, foolish me

Sometimes (OK most of the time) I speak before I think. And I did that yesterday and again today and I think have really fucked things up. I said things that I don't think are forgivable. I am not sure how, or if I can, make amends. I wish I could erase the last two days and start all over again. I wish that I did not say things out of anger that I don't mean. I wish that saying sorry was acceptable. I wish alot of things, but I don't think wishing will be much help in this case.

Brad and Angelina....once again.

Posting a couple of lines about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie going to Galaxyland had a dozen people ending up at my blog. I don't see the fascination with the them, even though I realize this is the third time I have posted on them. Or the fourth. Oops, maybe I am unknowingly fascinated with them myself. Who knew? Although, let's give credit where credit is due, I didn't run through the mall looking for them like some people did. My friend saw them (and I'm not accusing her of chasing after them) and said he is way too skinny and she is beautiful. I hear they are renting a house in Devon so if you're one of those people using search engines I'd suggest adding that to your query. Maybe you'll get to see them going to Mac's or something. Exciting stuff.

Didn't I say so?

Well, I said JD would INXS Rockstar and I was right. He was fantastic last night and if INXS does do this world tour they are talking about I think I will go. But I wonder where they will play. I don't think they can sell out (or even come close to) a 17,000 seat stadium. And yet, I hardly think they will do a Glass Tiger and play Reds. I wonder. And what makes me think they will even play Edmonton. After all, it's hardly a mecca. But hopefully they will.


In totally unrelated news, Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie took the kids to West Edmonton Mall today and spent the afternoon at Galaxyland. Apparently, the wee boy calls him Daddy.

School Politics

Tonight we had our first parent council meeting at my daughter's school. Everything was running smoothly until towards the end when the principal presented her 'Supplemental Educational Needs' list. This includes such items as gym equipment, 12 sets of drums for music, library books, classroom consumables, a rug! and bussing for field trips. The grand total was just over $48,000.

Tell me how this school would survive without parents doing fundraising. How does any school? I don't know what it is like where you are, but here we are in the richest province in Canada and the government won't provide enough money for the school to sit the children in proper desks. This government has a huge surplus and where is it going? Certainly not to our children.

When I was young, I don't remember my mother being involved in any fundraising, excluding the odd bake sale. Hardly anyone came to our door looking to sell chocolate covered almonds or cookie dough or the thousands of other things people are selling. Sometimes I am afraid to answer the door.

These are the fundraisers we will be doing this year- 10 hot lunches (raising anywhere from $300- $650 each), a school dance complete with raffles, cookie dough, compost and whatever else they decide to think up. It is not a casino year, and I am sure our principal wishes it was, since it made the school approximately $85,000 last year.

My friend attends a public school not to far away from my school and they had talked about revolting, literally refusing to do any more fundraising so that the government realizes parents will no longer cover their shortfall. The problem with that is that it is our children who will suffer now. It will be good for the children starting school in 5 or 6 years, but who wants to make their own kids miss out? And I think Klein and his friends know that. So he can continue screwing us over and over and over and we will continue to take it.

And the really sad thing for me is that now that Liam is in a different school I will have two sets of fundraising duties. Bugger.

Trivia Time

Rightio... I have a trivia question for you all (all 6 or 7 of you now)


Where is Grosse Ile and what is it's importance to the Irish?


Answer this without googling it, people. And believe me, I will know if you cheated!!!!


I may or may not have a prize for the first correct answer.

Talking About the Birds and the Bees

Last night, Liam and I were watching a program (it was child friendly) and it said something about the "abstinence club." I had hoped that the reference went right over Liam's head, as I was not up for a talk on sexuality yesterday, but immediately he piped up with "What's abstinence?

Very foolishly, because the show was about teenagers, I said "It is what teenagers who choose not to have sex are practising." I was about to correct myself and say people instead of teenagers and I thought that would be that when I heard the dreaded question...

"How old were you when you first had sex?"

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What do you say to that? I think that I have always been very open with my children, they have always known that to have a baby a man and a woman have sex. They know it's okay if they are gay or straight, although Liam says it would be gross for men to kiss each other (but come on, he's 9, he thinks girls and guys kissing is ucky,)they also have been told that can ask me anything. But for some reason I was not expecting that one. So what did I do? I hemmed and hawed and avoided the question. I answered a question that he didn't even ask. I told him how old I was when I had my first proper boyfriend.

I look at the teenagers in my neighbourhood and I think that not one of them is old enough or mature enough to be having sex. I am sure they think they are and are acting on it. And I also know now that I was not mature enough all those many years ago. I don't think that I would go back and change anything, after all my mistakes have made me somewhat smarter, but I would hope that my children don't rush into sexual relationships. Because, frankly, I don't think their mother could handle it.

Oh Villa...how could you?

I just read the previous post and it makes no sense at all. I'll put it down to the fact that I was eagerly awaiting the Villa game and only had a minute or two to write.

There are times when I wish we had never left Birmingham and today was one of them. I would have loved to have been at the game today, even if they did let a win go in the end. There were lots of empty seats, which doesn't say much for Aston Villa fans.

Shame that it was Robbie Keane who scored the equalizer. Against any other team it would have been alright, but not against this one. Oh well. It was a great game anyway, very entertaining. I think that sometimes Aston Villa can be accused of being somewhat boring, but not today.

Chelsea 2 Charlton 0

Chelsea is my number 2 most hated team (second only to Man U) so this result was a sadly disappointing for me. I would love to see Chelsea lose a game and I am sure it will happen eventually. I hate the money some teams have to throw around, it's just like the Rangers in hockey prior to the salary cap. I LOVE the salary cap, in fact I might even watch hockey this year. I'm off topic here...I do like Chelsea's Joe Cole just because when I was in Ireland I watched some sports quiz show that he was on and he was so very stupid that it was rather endearing. I don't think he played for Chelsea then, I have West Ham in my head. Must check that one out. Will do a search now....I knew it was West Ham. Joe Cole has his own site, and it is slightly tacky.
Time for the Aston Villa game. I hope they win this one.

I Adore Quizzes

I came across this quiz on http://42yearoldloserorami.blogspot.com and thought I'd give it a go. I was a bit stumped by question 16 Abortion should be a)completely legal and available or b) restricted, discouraged or illegal. While I personally could never have an abortion I respect a woman's right to do so, but I don't think it should be used as a method of birth control. And I have met people eho have used it as such. This quiz is American and therefore some questions are moot for me as a Canadian. We don't have a policy of No Child Left Behind for schools, not as far as I know anyway, nor do we have Affirmative Action, not by title at least. And every Canadian is entitled to medical care, you'll just get bills that no one can force you to pay.
Your Political Profile
Overall: 15% Conservative, 85% Liberal
Social Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Personal Responsibility: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Fiscal Issues: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal
Ethics: 0% Conservative, 100% Liberal
Defense and Crime: 25% Conservative, 75% Liberal

This quiz is from http://www.blogthings.com/liborconquiz/. Do it, damn it.

I Love Michael Moore

Friday, September 2nd, 2005Vacation is Over... an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It's Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren't there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn't want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don't like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don't let people criticize you for this -- after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don't listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers' budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn't cut the money to fix those levees, there weren't going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them -- BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn't stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It's not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C'mon, they're black! I mean, it's not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don't make me laugh! Race has nothing -- NOTHING -- to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.
Yours,
Michael MooreMMFlint@aol.comwww.MichaelMoore.com
P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.