The Liberal Leadership Race

Actually "race" is far too animated a term. It's more like the Liberal Leadership Potato Sack Competition.

Scott Brison, the token openly-gay Conservative-cum-Liberal MP from the Annapolis Valley has thrown his name into the stew. Finally a little colour! It's about time, this non-event is only interesting by virtue of the fact that all the potentially clear front-runners decided they did not to become the leader of a party that could lose to a guy like Stephen Harper. It is admirable for a captain to go down with a sinking ship, but to report for duty when the ship is resting on the ocean floor is just stupid.

I thought Frank McKenna had a lock on the job. Chris was sure it would be Brian Tobin. Allan Rock? Lloyd Axeworthy? Beaker (aka John Manley, who bears a remarkable, frightening resemblance to Dr Bunson Honeydew's faithful assistant on the Muppet Show)? Squealing Sheila Copps? Hedy (short for Headcase?) Fry? Nope, not a one. They all ran screaming into the night.Belinda Stronach decided not to run because her mastery of the french language n'est pas si grand. Sure Belinda, it had nothing to do with the fact that you want nothing to do with riding a dead horse.....

So now we have political heavyweights like Joe Volpe, Michael Ignatieff (the "celebrity" candidate), Maurizio Beviacqua, Martha Hall Findlay, Stephane Dion, and as of Monday 24 April, maybe Carolyn Bennett, and Bob Rae, just for comedic relief. Y-A-W-N.

Stephen Harper must be thinking God is smiling at him.....this motley crew is making him look competent. Pierre Trudeau, where are you when Canada needs some drama? Even dead, you are more likely to challenge the Harpies.Thank God for the NDP. Go Jack go!!

Depression Is A Family Illness.

I refer to Clinical Depression a lot. To some it may appear as if that's all there is of interest in my life. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have a very full, rich and rewarding life, and on good days, I realize how blessed I am. I have a life partner who stands by me through the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have chosen family that brings me joy. I have good friends, a great career, and, of course, I have the Goonies, my furry kids, six beautiful reasons to get up every day, six souls who love me with every ounce of passion they can muster.

Some days it is fairly easy to be positive, other days it feels as though the blackness could swallow me whole if I were to stop fighting with all my strength for just a millisecond. Most days it takes a lot of energy just to behave the way I think "normal" people are expected to behave. Even before I was finally diagnosed with Depression, I was the anti Little Mary Sunshine. I was more like her lesser-known cousin, Little Bitchy Rainstorm.

Chris is the person most affected by my mood disorder, and she is the reason I am willing and able to battle my demons. It has not been easy for her. I'm a difficult person to live with, and it can't all be blamed on Depression. Chris gives me the strength I don't always have to carry on. She also gives me unconditional love and support. Most importantly, though, she will deliver a swift kick in the ass when one is required, and she makes her needs clearly known. She doesn't put up with a lot of bullshit, and I love her for that.

Medications have come a long way in the treatment of Depression and Anxiety Disorders, but drugs alone can't "cure" these illnesses. I'm fortunate that the resources I need are available, and that I have supportive family and friends. So many people don't, and lose their battles with the darkness. I tried, several times, to find a permanent solution to end the psychic pain. I'm lucky, I failed, many don't.

The highs and lows of my daily life may someday change from Mount Everest and the Grand Canyon to something a little less dramatic. One can hope. As it is now, life is not boring. Scary, yes. Unpredictable, yes. Boring, never.

Today, The World Is A Sadder Place.

Yesterday Angelina, my friend Alexa and I sat with a sweet, beautiful, elderly Pit Bull and cuddled her, brushed her, hugged her, whispered sweet nothings in her ear, fed her sirloin and cried bitter tears into her soft blonde fur as she died.

Her name was Lacey.

Lacey died surrounded by a wall of love that protected her from the reality of being euthanized in a shelter. She had friends holding her head, her paws, keeping her warm and safe as she left a world that offered her nothing but pain.

Lacey was dumped in the gutter, literally. Left on the side of a busy street by an uncaring bastard who decided he (or she) no longer wanted the responsibility of an old, sick, hurting dog. She had a fused spine (the result of an untreated or poorly treated massive injury), untreated arthritis that made any and all movement painful, fleas, was underweight, had been skunked, and had a mouth full of rotten teeth.

In spite of all her pain and suffering, Lacey maintained her spirit. She was a loving dog, loyal to those who took the time to show her affection. She was playful, fun-loving and smart. Lacey was loved for her strength, her spunk and her beautiful soul. The abuse, neglect and abandonment she suffered did not destroy her, it made her a survivor.

In the end, Lacey's body failed her, and the pain became too much for medication to combat successfully. The decision to help her die was made with compassion and love for Lacey, but it still hurts. We searched long and hard to find a home for Lacey, a place where she could die quietly, peacefully and with dignity. We failed. Lacey died in a shelter.

May her "family" rot in hell.

You are loved, Lacey. You will always be my Loverdog.

Giving Birth To An 11 Pound Head.

Okay, so it was all a dream, but it was such a vivid dream that the first thing I did when I woke up was to look for a Caesarean Section scar.

A kick ass new combination of medications has allowed me, after literally years of interrupted, fractured or non-existant sleep, to get 8 hours of quality sleep pretty much every night. Woo Hoo. The caveat is that I now dream, and unlike before, when "sleep" meant exhausted wakefullness, I can't wake myself up from dreams I'd like to escape.

I found myself hugely pregnant, about to deliver, and on the phone with Christine, who said she had to stop by Starbucks before she came to the hospital. When I tried to explain why that course of action was unacceptable to me, my beloved; the other mother of this child, my rock, turned off her cell phone.

Things quickly went downhill from there. Angelina scared the nurses. My doctor (40 + and pregnant with twins) told me to suck it up. Labour was a bitch, and when Chris finally arrived to start her coaching duties, she used all the ice chips for her Pepsi. She forgot to bring the CD I had chosen to create a warm, comfortable atmosphere, so she ran out to her car and grabbed the first disc she could find. Tori Amos. Oh nice. "I'm atonal, my songs make no sense, only 11 people even know I exist, but my tractor loves me and I love her, too" I swore that if my daughter grew up listening to "my husband died, my lover, too, my dog hates me and I'm so bluuuuue" I'd have to kill someone.

The baby (probably scared by the Tori Amos "music") was in no rush to come out. Hours went by, Chris remembered that she had to get to BlockBuster before it closed, and left.

The baby ended up being an 11 pound head. Oh, there was a tiny baby body, with 8 fingers, two thumbs, 10 toes, but her head was 11 pounds. Labour was getting us nowhere, and I had visions of giving birth to a triangle with arms and legs. That's when my doctor decided to do a C Section.

All of a sudden there are 20 people in the room. None of them is Christine, but I recognized a bunch of her friends. The head was delivered just as Chris arrived (she had to stop at Cob's), and the doctor asked whether she wanted to cut the umbilical cord. She said she didn't want to get her hands dirty. The doc said she'd need to wear gloves anyway, but Chris complained that she didn't have any hand cream.

The 11 pound head was born healthy, with huge blue eyes. I wanted to breast feed her immediately, but got vetoed. I actually got shoved into the hallway while everyone else in the room had a party. The 11 pound head didn't make a sound, she just gave me this deer-caught-in-the-headlights look, poor baby.

I woke up totally pissed off at Chris. I've forgiven her now.

The Ramblings Of A Tired Brain.

Getting into a deeply contemplative state of mind at 4:00 A.M., with no sleep while in a nasty mood is not great for the soul. That's when one might start doubting whether one even has a soul, and if one does have a soul, does it more resemble that of Nelson Mandela or Saddam Hussein?

I'm funny, ask anyone. I keep people laughing, have always tried to, sometimes more successfully than others. Laughing people don't generally want to hurt the person making them laugh. At least not at the moment they are laughing. It appears that "being funny" comes naturally to me. Not so much.

What I am is a sarcastic bitch who gets lucky. People seem to be drawn to entertainers, regardless of real talent. Loud, outgoing people get attention, and people want to be a part of that energy. I'm not so much funny as observant, not so much comical as caustic. People put up with my brand of "humour" because it appears to be cloaked in cotton, iron fist in velvet glove style. I'm short, fat and harmless-looking, those almost mean things I say must be funny. Nobody wants to be a killjoy, everyone wants to be seen as having a sense of humour, right?

During healthier, brighter times, I do tend to see the potential for humour in almost every situation I encounter. That's not necessarily a good thing, because good day or bad, my fine-tuned sarcastic wit is just a way of being "acceptably" aggressive.

I know this is a problem, but there is little I can do to change this behaviour, short of becoming an elective mute. I've tried, but sarcasm is second nature, and people laugh which is very rewarding.

I've reached the conclusion that I'm not a terribly likeable human being. Not a bolt of self-awareness that is especially welcome as I hit middle age.....

King Ralph Is No More.

Alberta Premier Ralph Klein, "King Ralph" to his court jesters, has been dealt a crushing defeat at the Alberta Conservative Convention (isn't that a lot like calling the ocean "really wet water"?). He received only 55% support from the rednecks, I mean delegates in attendance.

At the last meeting of the good old boy club, he received 97% support. The wild and crazy people who made up the three percent that kept King Ralph from garnering 100% were hanged from trees in Red Deer as a warning to the townsfolk about what happens to traitors.

Poor Ralph. Never was there a person so sure he could do a job for which he was so ill-suited. Reality wasn't a hindrence to "The Teflon Premier". He thought he was Matt Dillon, we knew he was Barney Fife. He thought he was Donald Trump, we knew he was Jed Clampett. King Ralph's jesters let him do whatever his alchohol-pickled little brain wanted to do, and watched the dollars roll in through the oil patch. Ralph Klein might be an obscene, spousal-abusive, racist, homophobic, alchoholic, gambling-addicted, anger-fuelled buffoon, but he could seemingly create more cash flow than Enron, and in Alberta, money is the only thing that really matters.

When the dust settles, and King Ralph goes back to private life, (I can just hear all the members of the best Calgarian enclaves saying "he's not moving here, we have bylaws, fences and guns to keep him out) maybe he'll find another career calls out to him. He'd make a great used car salesman, or he could run a perpetual yard sale on his front lawn.

What a bitter disappointment for a nasty little man who defied the odds and the laws of nature to become premier, and then mooned his critics by winning four majority governments. We all know bad things happen to good people. In this case bad things are finally happening to a bad person.

My only fear is "who's next?"