Fin de Siècle

The wheel of life completes another cycle at midnight.

The joys, the sorrows of the old year are over.

It is time to let go, move on.



To face what lies ahead with courage.



(I'm talking to non-Leaf fans here.  There is no doubt in MY mind that

they will win the Stanley Cup.)




Best wishes for 2014, everyone!



***

The Tree of Souls

Are they coming or going?

It probably doesn't matter.

We leave the Source of all Life and we return to It.


Always.

Angry Faces

Hasn't been the best of times.

Kinda more like a bah humbug festive season this year.

Thrusday night I made an appointment to have my tiny, bossy cat Claude put to sleep hoping that by Friday morning he would be better and the vet would say his cancer had gone away.

It didn't and he didn't. 

The house seems so empty and of course just when I need to get out and tromp around in the woods there's an ice storm and Flynn and I are house bound.

Consoling my self with some angry faces on my drawing board.

Wishing everyone a happy and joyful Christmas

but personally I'll be glad when it is over.


***

What Are Friends For?

Narcissus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was raised to be polite to people and to ask them questions about themselves when conversing.

And that works okay, as long as the other person plays by the same rules.

The danger is that a narcissist simply talks about him or herself and at the end of the interaction the polite person is sucked dry of any feelings of self worth.  

 

Sometimes a 'friendship' with a narcissist can develop if there is enough entertainment value in the relationship, you have shared experiences and/or there are open doors that that would otherwise be closed to the polite person.

 

(I didn't say polite people are smart or even overly moral people.)

 

Anyway, I've had a lifelong 'friendship' with a narcissist.

 

Or I did.

 

After dropping contact with me during a very bleak period in my life a few years ago she suddenly phoned yesterday.

And immediately launched into a monologue about her relationship with her husband & how it has been hell for years & that's why she hasn't been in touch but it's okay now, and her mom has Alzheimer's but she doesn't care and hey she's got this great little website going now, blah blah blah.

No apology. No how are you.

In the old days I would have spent hours listening.

Because that's what friend's do. Right?

(Remember what I said about polite people not always being smart people?)

 

Okay, okay.  I listened yesterday too.

I'm Canadian. I can't help it.

But the difference is that I could feel myself getting more and more enraged as she blathered on.

And then I had a meltdown.

I didn't say anything like I should have said, but I said enough.

And then I hung up.

 

Score one for painful personal growth.  sigh.

Cold Knees

 

 

In the 1950s in Merritton, Ontario, most women and girls went  to church

 

on Sunday.  We wore hats because if we didn't we would die and

 

go straight to Hell.  We wore gloves because...

 

 

Actually I don't know why we wore those white gloves, we just did.

 

 

My Dad didn't go to church because when he was clawing his way

across Europe in 1944 some army chaplain told him it was possible to get

into heaven without going to church. 


And that guy must have given that same message to a lot of men because

church was largely a women and children thing.


Except for the person in charge. 

That was always a man.


But we didn't question those traditions.

Not then anyway.


We just went to church as if it was a bodily function that was automatic.

Like eating, breathing and shitting.


And I didn't mind it, even had fun sometimes.

But holy cow I always had such fricken cold knees!




***

1955 Girls

Something different for my sketchbook.

I took this idea from a black & white photo of me, my Mom and my aunt.
 We were standing in my backyard in Merrittton and it was about 1955 I think.

Both Mom and her sister my Auntie Kay Weaver Cowan died of or with Alzheimer's.
No hint of it on that summer day so long ago.


***

I'm So Pretty

I've been getting into the movies on a discount ever since I found out that everybody over twenty-one looks sixty-five to the teen agers who sell the tickets.

Unfortunately my wild and radical days of sticking it to the conglomerate media outlets by gipping them out of a tooney every couple of months are coming to an end.  In February I really will qualify for the senior's discount.

I decided to do a selfie in honour of the occasion.


PS

If this is not the way you see sixty-five year old women then you need glasses.