It’s day 25 of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. We’re marching towards the end of July and the Challenge. Another red sun in morning and it is 30℃ at 2:19 in the afternoon. My father should be home from the hospital soon. He was to be discharged yesterday but asked the doctor if he could stay another day. He wasn’t ready and anxious about getting sick again. Understandable as he’s had 2 bouts of respiratory distress in the last 2-3 weeks. I was happy that he could as his blood pressure was 200/something when we visited in the afternoon. It would be another round of what should we do if he was at home.
The hospital can be a life saver but at the same time untoward things can happen. For some unknown reason, his blood pressure pills were held for 3 days. Of course his blood pressure went up and up. Then they restarted them. It takes awhile before they could catch up their pace. It did get better and fairly good by morning. I did not pursue why the blood pressure meds were stopped as it would serve no purpose. No harm was done. And I just got a text from my brother he is home.
I’ve had a busy morning. Knowing it was going to be another hot day, I got right down to business with the grass whipper snipper. Then I hustled along with my morning walk to the mall. The trees cast enough shade along most of my walk. At Freshco I bought some bananas for my father, blueberries and cherries for myself. The bananas were a heavy lot. I had to rest a couple times on bus stop benches on the way home.
This heat is here to stay. So are life’s little stresses. I have to think cool, feel strong and heave on. I’ve swept up the grass clippings and washed the walk off. Already hot, I filled the raised beds in the back yard with water and watered the greenhouse. Perhaps I might have a beer with supper tonight. Or I might have it now.
The house feels amazingly cool at 23℃ this morning. It is already 20℃ at 8:30 in the morning. There’s a red ring around the sun. The sky is hazy. No smell of smoke in the air. A good sign. I feel the strangeness of everything in the now. I feel as if I’m in one of Barbara Atwood’s science fiction novels. I haven’t read many of her books. The ones I started, I couldn’t finish. I found them too strange and unsettling. That is how I am feeling these days. I am a chicken shit.
I’m trying to get a start on my day and not wallow in my feelings and moods. I wish I could be more organized and have a plan on how to tackle each day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge like many of my fellow bloggers. Alas, it’s a bit late in the game. We’re into day 24. Perhaps I am not doing too bad as I’ve only missed a day. Still having a plan is better than flying by the seat of my pants. It’s a bit of a struggle living on the fly. Things have caught up and I am in a hell of a clutter.
Before it was mostly paper. The paper still exist. I can’t seem to deal with opening the mail. I toss them on the table meaning to later…Of course the later never comes. Now, I have alot of my mother’s clothes. I have sorted some and donated them. Then there’s the
Today, the 12th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge not only promises to be a hot day. It is hot already at 9 am. I woke at 6:30 to 24.5℃ in the house. It felt cool to the 28℃ at bedtime. I had to put my housecoat on. It’s all about relativity. Now it is heating up and I am seeking ways to block out the sun in the sunroom where no venetians are possible. I go through this every summer. I should have been more prepared. One forgets quickly once the crisis is over.
I think I will cancel my walk this morning and hunker down in the house. There are lots to do that I have been actively avoided. It helps to have a plan. I haven’t made a to do list yet. Writing this post would be one. I will do the next step in making my bamboo sticky rice. I will watch the video again before I start. Yesterday I prepped 160 bamboo leaves. They are nicely wrapped in bundles of 20’s in the freezer. I am sure they will be easy to defrost. I’ve measured out 1 pound of glutinous rice and defrosting 1/2 pound of pork belly. It’s a small but good start.
We have so much heat. There’s so much hate. Seemed like a good time to watch Mississipi Burning again last night. It’s a long time since 1964 – 62 years. Things have changed and yet they have not. I asked Ms. Google if the KKK is still active today. The answer is: “Yes, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) still exists, but it operates as a heavily fragmented, shadow of its former self. Rather than a single unified organization, it is made up of dozens of independent, small chapters with an estimated combined membership of just a few thousand individuals.”
I am still reading both Heathers’ (Cox Richardson and Delaney Reese)posts every morning. It’s probably not good for my mental health. Yet it is hard to turn a blind eye to what is happening in our world. Whether we like it or not, it is happening to all of us. It is so hard to witness how much hate there is. Yet I must witness and learn from it. At the same time I must not be blind to all the good there is in us. It is good for me to have a daily plan and not fall into sadness and inactivity. So onward to the end of the UBC, morning walks, more sticky rice and more to do lists.
It’s the 7th day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. I am late coming to the keyboard. Life is busy in this time of my life. My father is almost 95 and every day can be unpredictable. He has congestive heart failure and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We spent alot of time at the doctor’s, walk-in clince and ER last year after my mother passed. We were thankful that this year has been much better. Still there are episodes.
Today was a doctor day. We were fortunate that we got an appointment. He has been seen, x-rayed and on medications. He is tough and still interested in life and this world of ours. I think he will be okay. I have accepted that this is what is and that I still have a life to tend to. I will be okay also. It was just a little difficult to manage a wheelchair and doors alone. Lucky for me that there were many friendly hands to help.
After the doctor, we went and renewed our application for wheelchair parking permit for another 3 years. Then it was time for coffee at the mall with our friends. Life is still very good and beautiful. Good friends to have coffee with help. Then there’s my gardens. My front yard is so beautiful. It is hard to described. It is bathed in a certain kind of light in the afternoon. It reminds me of the opening line in the Bee Gees’ To Love Somebody. For all the issues I have with my father, I guess I do love him.
“There’s a light, a certain kind of light, that never shone on me”.
My front yard has been an issue with my neighbour for many years. She objects growing vegetables in the fron yard. She calls my raised beds coffins. She has reported me to the city about my messy yard. The city does not agree with her. Maybe all of this is because she really does not like me. I find that hard to understand because I don’t have a relationship with her. Now in these times I wonder if it is because of the colour of my skin. And I am an immigrant. I feel my yard is breath takingly beautiful in a certain kind of light in the afternoon, weeds and all.
July 1, Canada Day and the first day of the Ultimate Blog Challenge. My goal is to show up every day in July with a new post. I’m not a new comer to this challenge. As usual I have no planned theme for my writing. I have no business or service to promote. I write because I love words. They are powerful and magical. They can make or break you. So I am careful with my words. Once said, you cannot unsay them. Say the wrong word(s), good will and friendships can be severed, sometimes permanently.
I will try to tread lightly and carefully through July. These are scary and unbelievable times in the USA and the world. I’ve been reading Heather Cox Richardson and Heather Delaney Reese on the political scenes every morning for awhile now. I am surprised at how I am captured by politics as I was never that interested before. I am appalled at how out right corrupt our world is. I am ashamed that I haven’t been paying attention. We should all be paying attention. What happens to one, happens to all. We are all interconnected.
I was born in China during the times of Mao. I don’t know too much about the politics of my birth country except that it is communist and it is considered very bad and dreaded here in the West. I left when I was 6 years old. I don’t remember much but I do have some memories. I remember standing in line with my mother at the market with pieces of paper to buy meat, sugar, etc. Everything was rationed. You were allowed so much and you give so much to the government. I remember hearing the sound of the firing squad. People get killed speaking ill of the government. My mother had to be a witness at one. She said she couldn’t look, pretended and looked at the ground.
With what’s happening in the world today, I am reminded that we are back in those times again. I cannot help but feel sad and bad at all the corruption, injustices and killings. I am remembering my maternal grandmother thrown in jail by Mao and his gang. They took her in place of my grandfather who escaped to Hong Kong. She said heaven saved her and she learned to write her name in jail. Seems ironic now that she didn’t know how to write her name. My grandfather was the principal and mayor of their village. But they were not land owners.
I am, in essence, writing these words for my grandmother and mother in heaven. Hallowed be their names.
A cool rainy Sunday, June 21. The moisture is always a welcome. There’s too much cool and clouds this spring and summer. This is the year like no other in so many ways. First, in the unpredictable weather patterns. Second, in world events, mostly in the United States and the Middle East. I feel slightly unhinged. Real life and age are catching up with me. There are no safe harbours and there is no escape. I must face the music. There is no one I want to talk to about this. So here I am, tapping for my health and sanity.
Once upon a time, there was my mother. Her being there was enough. My world now feels a little wobbly without her. It shows that everyone and everything makes a difference in our lives. It’s only after they’re gone that we notice how and what a big difference they make. I am now living in that awareness. It is not an easy thing. Sometimes I like to close my eyes and just drift away. Everything is a huge effort but I do it and not say I will try. Trying is like hoping. It’s like the saying on a hope and a prayer. It conveys a slight chance of succeeding. I don’t like that.
Once upon a time, not too many years ago, I was full of optimism and energy. I was looking forward to the morning the night before so that I could start doing. I was excited about cross country skiing. I was going out every morning all winter, no matter the temperature. It was so invigorating and so much fun even though I wasn’t very good at it. Now my skis are gathering dust. I am not so excited about mornings. This summer they are mostly cool and cloudy. There is no sun rising at 5ish to wake me up.
Once upon a time, I felt young and robust. Now I feel that those times are past. Though my head doesn’t feel ancient, my body begs to be different. My hands are painful, not just stiff, from morning to night. My hips are grumbling, too. I’m not a cry baby, a complainer. Really, I’m not. I’m just remembering how things used to be, mourning loss youth, opportunities and missing my mother. I am working on how to make this life easier and better. It’s a challenge, I know. That makes it interesting and worthwhile. I am not without hope and prayers. I still dream.
After a couple of sunny days, it’s back to clouds again. I am wary that I won’t get swept under them also. Sometimes it is hard to stand your ground. It’s hard to put on a brave face, never mind pasting on a smile. I’m a born melancholy baby. Maybe I don’t need to pretend but I won’t let it all hang out either.
I’m learning to live with my creeping bellflowers. I just did some minor maintenance in the front yard this morning. Keeping up and on top of things can kill you. I’m looking at the big picture and trying not to focus on every little thing. The leaf rollers are a different matter. Last year it was aphids. I don’t know which is worse. These caterpillars are attacking my pepper plants, chewing them up. I’ve been picking them off and squishing them daily. If I don’t, I might have any pepper plants left. This morning I threw a crop cover over them to see if that would help.
I do have some good news. Two of my bitter melons have a bloom each. The garden is doing well despite our strange weather this year. The lettuce is finished in the greenhouse but I am harvesting the new crop in the raised bed outside. The French Breakfast radishes are a beautiful and delicious addition for our salads. Things are not growing as they used to but they’re still growing and providing food for the table. It’s a reminder for myself to adjust and adapt to what is here as best as I can. And never lose hope and belief that everything still matters.
Everything still matters and even more so than ever. I can’t afford to get distracted by all the corruption that is happening down south by Donald Trump and his merry crew. It bothers me so much because it reminds me of what helplessness feels like. I’ve been in that place a few times in this life. It feels very bad when you know things are not correct but you can’t do anything about it. It is the worst kind of helplessness. Even so, it is the best time and opportunity to put your best foot forward. I have to remember what Lao Tzu said. A journey of a thousand mile starts with a single step.
May 18th. No rain or snow today. But there is a yellow advisory – frost from Environment Canada. How strange! Going to the site, it says severity is moderate. Possible threat to life or property. Freezing temperatures with frost are expected tonight. I would say it is a little over the top. I’ve uncovered the 2 raised beds this morning. I am not sure I have the energy to cover them up again. I will live precariously and take my chances. Right now at 4:20 pm it is sunny at 11℃. In the greenhouse, it is 26.3℃. The vents are opened. I will open the door. Ventilation is good.
It’s hard to go out and do just one thing. I opened the greenhouse door. Then I put the green cart out for curbside pick up in the morning. The rain had left a pile of elm seeds on the walk. I spent some time sweeping them up to put in the green bin. I didn’t think I had the energy so I’m feeling good that I did it and not feeling done in. On the other hand, I’m not feeling terrific either. I don’t feel quite right. I wonder if it is the topsy turvy weather we’re having. I wonder how it affects us physically and emotionally.
I ask Google the question of how does wonky weather affect us physically and emotionally. It answers back with:
“Wonky weather shifts your body and mind out of equilibrium by forcing your biology to constantly adapt to sudden environmental changes. When barometric pressure drops, temperatures skyrocket, or sunlight vanishes, your nervous system, hormone levels, and cardiovascular system react directly.”
So it is not my fault and I am not just weird. Sudden weather changes can trigger bodily symptoms like joint pain and stiffness, headaches and migraines, respiratory issues, fatigue and lethargy. I have the joint pain and stiffness, fatigue and lethargy. Emotionally it can cause irritability and aggression, anxiety and restlessness, depressed mood and SAD, disturbed sleep. I have all of that. Aren’t I lucky? It is good to have confirmation that weather can affect us in these ways. I don’t have to blame myself, feeling deficient and weird.
May 17th. I woke to another snowy morning which turned into a rainy day. It’s hard to feel any hope for anything these days. But the moisture is welcomed. The garlic is loving it. The windows are getting washed without me doing anything. So never say there’s no hope. There is always hope. We just have to work to make it happen.
This morning reading the 2 Heathers, I almost cried over what is happening down south in the USA. One Heather reported on Kash Patel taking a VIP snorkel at USSA Arizona, a Pearl Harbour military cemetry. Both writes of the Selma march for black voting rights. Heather Cox Richardson gives a very detailed history account of the fight for voting rights for the blacks. The fight still has to go on in 2026. This is the part that makes me cry. We are still defined by the colour of our skin.
This is where I am on this rainy/snowy day. I am sleepy and lethargic. I feel discouraged with my weight loss effort though it is barely a week. I almost gave up with the black tea/coffee. I longed for a cup with cream and honey. I said almost. I didn’t give in. I feel small, small results. I’m not feeling as bloated. I’m ok with 1/2 cup cooked rice with my meals and smaller meat portions. I’m doing the veggies. I will hang in for another week and then see.
I’m not making huge progress in other areas either. I’ve long abandoned #the100dayproject of sewing log cabin quilt blocks. My Bernina sewing machine sits idle on the table with my mess of fabric scraps. I’ve been meaning to tidy all that and more but somehow it hasn’t happen. That could be my 100dayproject. I will start it today. I am going to start it today.
It feels like winter is reluctant to leave us. When I woke this morning, it was 0℃ and feeling cooler than that. It hasn’t gotten much warmer, sitting at 5℃ and feeling like -5℃ at 2:40 pm. The sky has remained grey. There’s a strong wind blowing though not as bad as yesterday. The planted snow peas and celery in the raised bed remain under covers.
It’s a good day to cosy up with a hot cup of tea. I’m sleepy, tapping and trying to keep up my joie de vivre. I’m finding I can choose how I feel. I choose the brighter side unless I’m too cranky. Sometimes I revert to my childish side and slip over, Then I have to give myself a talk to get my adult self back. It’s all okay to slip, stumble and fall. It keeps me humble.
It’s almost Mother’s Day. How does one celebrate it without a mother? She’s been gone a year and a half now, a short and a long time ago. It’s short but long enough that the pain is not the sharp searing kind. I’ve adjusted to her physical absence. Her essence is, of course, forever in me. I do not need to do anything for Mother’s Day. I no longer have a Mother and I have never been a mother. Anne Lamott speaks so well on the thing about Mother’s Day. Here it is from 2025:
“Here is my annual Mother’s Day post, ONLY for those of you who dread the holiday, dread having strangers, cashiers & waiters exclaim cheerfully, mindlessly, “Happy Mother’s Day!” when it is a day that, for whatever reasons, makes you feel deeply sad. I told Neal last year that I didn’t think I’d run it, because I always get so much hate mail, and he said, “It’s never stopped you before.”
This is for those of you who may feel a kind of sheet metal loneliness on Sunday, who had a sick or abusive mother, or a mother who recently died, or who wanted to have kids but didn’t get to, or had kids who ended up breaking your hearts. If you love the day, and have or had a great mom and happy highly successful kids, skip this piece: I’m begging you.
I did not raise my son, Sam, to celebrate Mother’s Day. I didn’t want him to feel some obligation to buy me pricey lunches or flowers, some obligatory annual display of gratitude. Perhaps Mother’s Day will come to mean something to me as I grow even dottier in my dotage, and I will find myself bitter and distressed when Sam dutifully ignores the holiday. Then he will feel ambushed by my expectations, and he will retaliate by putting me away even at a PlaceForMom.com sooner than he is planning to — which, come to think of it, would be even more reason for me to resist Mother’s Day.
But Mother’s Day celebrates a huge lie about the value of women: that mothers are superior beings, that they have done more with their lives and chosen a more difficult path. Ha! Every woman’s path is difficult, and many mothers were as equipped to raise children as wire monkey mothers. I say that without judgment: It is true. An unhealthy mother’s love is withering.
The illusion is that mothers are automatically more fulfilled and complete. But the craziest, grimmest people this Sunday will be many mothers themselves, stuck herding their own mothers and weeping or sullen children and husbands’ mothers into seats at restaurants. These mothers do not want a box of chocolate. They may have announced for a month that they are trying not to eat sugar. Oh well, eat up or risk ruining the day for everyone.
I hate the way the holiday makes all non-mothers, and the daughters of dead mothers, and the mothers of dead or lost children, feel the deepest kind of grief and failure. The non-mothers must sit in their churches, temples, mosques, recovery rooms and pretend to feel good about the day while they are excluded from a holiday that benefits no one but Hallmark and See’s. There is no refuge — not at the horse races, movies, malls, museums. Even the turn-off-your-cellphone announcer is going to open by saying, “Happy Mother’s Day!”
You could always hide in a nice seedy bar, I suppose. Or an ER.
It should go without saying that I also hate Valentine’s Day, even those years when I’ve had a boyfriend or random husband.
Mothering perpetuates the dangerous idea that all parents are somehow superior to non-parents. Meanwhile, we know that many of the most evil people in the country are politicians who have weaponized parenthood.
Don’t get me wrong: There were a million times I could have literally died of love for my son, and I’ve felt stoned on his rich, desperate love for me. I felt it yesterday when I was in despair. But I bristle at the whispered lie that you can know this level of love and self-sacrifice only if you are a parent. What a crock! We talk about “loving one’s child” as if a child were a mystical prancing unicorn. A majority of American parents secretly feel that if you have not had and raised a child, your capacity for love is somehow diminished. They secretly believe that non-parents cannot possibly know what it is to love unconditionally, to be selfless, to put yourself at risk for the gravest loss. But in my experience, it’s parents who are prone to exhibit terrible self-satisfaction and selfishness, who can raise children as props or adjuncts, like rooms added on in a remodel. Often their children’s value and achievements in the world are reflected glory, necessary for these parents’ self-esteem, and sometimes, for the family’s survival. This is how children’s souls are destroyed.
But my main gripe about Mother’s Day is that it feels incomplete and imprecise. The main thing that ever helped mothers was other people mothering them, including aunties and brothers; a chain of mothering that keeps the whole shebang afloat. I am the woman I grew to be partly in spite of my mother, who unconsciously raised me to self-destruct; and partly because of the extraordinary love of her best friends, my own best friends’ mothers, and from surrogates, many of whom were not women at all but gay men. I have loved them my entire life, including my mom, even after their passing.
The point is, have a beautiful, wonderful Mother’s Day if it is a holiday that brings you joy, but just be conscious that for many, many people, it isn’t. Proceed thoughtfully. Deal?
