A pair of tulips

I hate season finales....

Heck, I hate series finales.  A couple of weeks back it was the last episode of In Plain Sight. I'm going to miss that show. And  I watched the season finale of NCIS. Damn. Did Ducky have a heart attack? And how are those in the NCIS building? Who's dead?  Like wow. 

Now I have to wait all the way till September to know if my favourite character, Leroy Jethro Gibbs, is ok, I know,... such hardship! 

I only watched like a third of the last episode of Bones and just could not keep watching, so I might actually wait till September to watch it. Yes I'm really weird. 

The cats love the opened patio door and the safety of the patio screen :)

The three amigos, feeling safe behind a bug screen!

The three amigos looking up

Flowers from the unzen garden.

Vinca minor

All the other forget me nots are blue, but this one is pink :)

The weird trillium on my property.

Gardening should be zen

I generally enjoy gardening, except the past few years. I don't enjoy it as much. Mostly because I go out on my property to garden and one of three things happen. One of my neighbours decides s/he wants to chat, or my neighbours kids are out on their property and screeching while playing , or lastly, the neighbours dog barks non stop because he feels I'm on his territory. 

So gardening in my own yard loses it's zen. There's also the neighbours mowing their lawn or cutting down a tree, or leaf blowing that could also spoil the mood, because it's loud and obnoxious.

Of course now that I'm inside I'm not hearing the screaming kids anymore, but I'm kinda turned off. I like to start working on weeding or cleaning a flower bed and just getting lost in my mind while I just work. I never get the chance, I keep being assaulted by sounds and stimulation that I desperately do NOT NEED!

I look forward to being in the middle of nowhere so that I can be zen in my own garden. Heck I could be naked in my garden and no one would know or care for that matter!!!

Happy mother's day

I was reading that the woman who started "Mother's day", didn't like how it got commercial pretty quickly and spent the last years of her life, trying to kill the concept of "Mother's day". 

Flowers were associated with Mother's day from the very beginning and florists of course loved the concept. Yet another reason people flock to their stores to purchase flowers.

I already got a mother's day card and present about 2 weeks ago, so I'm not expecting to hear from anyone today.

Smoke bombs in metro = mischief, not terrorism.....

You can see the terror in the people in the metro right?

Un message circulant présentement à travers Facebook:

J'attire votre attention, vous les étudiants sur le fait que la mafia gouvernementale n'a aucune gêne à utiliser contre vous des armes létales dont un de vos co-porte-parole à Victoriaville a faillit perdre la vie et exige de vous dissocier et de dénoncer la moindre action non publicisée par vos porte-parole. On appel ça diviser pour régner.

Comme retraité de la STM, je peux vous confirmer qu'il y a des activités de nuit qui génèrent beaucoup plus de fumée qu'une banale bombe fumigène sans aucun danger et les postes de ventilation pouvaient éliminer toute fumée en moins de 30 secondes. De plus on ne ferme jamais les stations pour un suicide qui passe souvent inapperçu. Donc ce jeudi matin les policiers n'avaient aucune raison de fermer toutes les lignes du métro si ce n'est le désir gouvernemental d'ameuter abusivement la population contre vous.

Je vous invite donc à cesser de vous soumettre à toutes les demandes démagogique du gouvernement corrompu. Dans le passé, les syndicats ont fait bien pire et ont exigés l'abandon de toute poursuite. Je vous invite à faire de même et de ne plus être duppe des opérations et manipulations purement criminelles de ceux qui nous gouvernents.

English Translation [Mostly from google so it's not perfect]

A message currently circulating on Facebook:

I draw your attention,  to you students to the fact that the mafia government does not shy to use lethal weapons against you which one of your co-spokesperson in Victoriaville has almost lost his life and requires you to separate and to denounce any action not publicized by your spokesman. We call it divide and conquer.

As a retiree of the STM, I can confirm that there are night activities that generate a lot more smoke than an ordinary smoke bomb without any danger and the positions of ventilation could eliminate smoke in less than 30 seconds. Also we never close the stations for a suicide that often goes unnoticed. So Thursday morning the police had no reason to close all underground lines except the government desire to stir up the people against you unfairly.

I invite you to stop   submitting to all the demagogic requests of the corrupt government. In the past, unions have done much worse and have required the dropping of all charges. I invite you to do the same and no longer be dupe of the purely criminal operations and manipulations of those who govern us. 

There's still reasons for Occupying

More blasts in Damascus kill many

The regime is up to it's old tricks again. Whenever it seems the opposition is getting too much sympathy the regime places bombs around their own infrastructures to pretend it's the opposition setting the bombs. 

The reality is, most of the time, the areas where the bombs happen are in heavily guarded areas, where due to the checkpoints it would be impossible for the opposition to set the bombs. Also noted this morning by the opposition, how come some of the dead from the blast, had their hands tied behind their backs and the injuries on their bodies look more like they were caused by torture then by roadside bombs. It's all note worthy in any case.

I keep praying for this evil regime to fall.

The times they are a changing.....

It's not looking good for Syria. Not only is it tense in Syria with the opposition being more heavily armed then before, with sectarian undertones, but this peace plan has not been adhered to. Not really. The army seems to go there the UN isn't kinda thing.  Then there was those elections yesterday. How can they say these were democratic elections?

So although I will keep hoping for Bashar Al-Assad and his regime to fall, I'm not sure how long that will take and if it will take the whole region into war, or if it will stay inside Syria. Hard to tell, but it looks grim. It doesn't help that even the activists outside Syria don't see eye to eye on certain issues and it creates tensions even in Montreal.

Then there's the student strike in Montreal in it's 13th week.  The students aren't backing down. It sucks however that they want to ban people from protesting anonymously.   As a friend pointed out, she always has a bandana with her and she will put it over her face if she sees police using pepper spray.  Now it will be illegal?  I'm noticing our rights being eroded just a little bit at a time, this way no one really pays attention.  Soon it will be completely illegal to protest just you watch?

North Carolina has banned gay marriages, but you can marry your first cousin, just not your double cousin..... and it's weirder.   I had a good giggle. I don't ever intend to live in North Carolina.

ADHD and self control

Another short video clip where Dr Russell Barkley talks about ADHD, this time about self-control.

     

One more, short video, also about emotions, moods and emotional impulsiveness in ADHD.

ADHD and Raw Emotions

I've spent most of my life being told to control my emotions. That my reactions were too intense. That I needed to fix that. Everyone complains about it.  Dr Russell Barkley explains so well what happens to me in this video.

He explains my raw emotions, and the fact I'm extremely excitable without having a mood disorder. I apparently do a good job at controlling it some, since I've been working at the same company for 20 years and have yet to throttle a supervisor :)

Interesting representation of Kali

The artist is called Jamie Lee, and I really love his representation of Kali and of Shiva as well.

Tulip Little beauty

 

From my backyard, I love those little tulips.

Another nasty law about to be passed under our noses....

Proposed law -

*****************

Backbencher's bill on masked protesters gets Conservative backing
Ottawa- The Canadian Press
Published Sunday, May. 06, 2012 1:57PM EDT
Last updated Sunday, May. 06, 2012 2:06PM EDT

The Harper government is throwing its weight behind a private members' bill that would give police the power to arrest anyone hiding their identity during a riot or unlawful assembly.

Conservative backbencher Blake Richards is proposing penalties of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to $5,000 for protesters who wear a mask or disguise.

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson has formally announced the Conservative majority will support the legislation, meaning it is all but assured of becoming law.

Mr. Richards says the bill is designed to give police more power to prevent the kinds of riots that have caused so much damage, including the current student riots in Quebec, the Stanley Cup riot of last spring in Vancouver and the G20 protests in Toronto two years ago.

Mr. Richards says he sees the bill as primarily preventative in nature, allowing police to step in before violence and property damage escalate.

But civil libertarians are concerned that the legislation will give police the power to break up peaceful protests, which are frequently filled with people in costumes, masks or even face paint that could be construed as concealing identity under the new law.

************************************

 

Here is a link to a page that helps you beat facial recognition software even if you cannot mask yourself. 

Active in pregnancy is healthy

I couldn't believe that a pregnant woman who was jogging,  was called a selfish cow, by another woman. People have some weird ideas about pregnancy and what women should do while pregnant. 

The saying about eating for two is a fallacy. My OBGYN used to say don't eat for two, eat twice as well. Also in all the books I've read, it says that if you were active and exercised regularly before pregnancy you should continue to do so while pregnant, with some exceptions such as contact sports like hockey. But sports like jogging, with your doctors blessing is a big help while pregnant. 

Other weird misconceptions is that if you're petite, you won't be able to give birth to a normal sized child. I beg to differ. Despite being all of 5' nothing and weighing about 98 lbs when I first got pregnant, I was able to deliver a 7lb baby girl as my first and a 9lb 10 ounces baby girl as my second. I delivered both vaginally without any complications, epidural or forceps. 

Then there was the idea that I wouldn't be able to breastfeed my children because I didn't have large breasts. Well after giving birth I had much bigger breasts and they provided sufficient nourishment to both of my daughters the first few months of their lives, along with healthy antibodies. 

Another misconception, as long as you breastfeed, you won't get pregnant. Well it might be true for some women, but in my case, although I breastfeed both daughters, I had my period again 3 months after the birth of my first.  The down side to this is that the days where my period was heavy I hardly had any milk to feed my baby. 

Passenger train bridge to Ile Bigras

Serenaded at a spring pond in the woods near the White Horse rapids in Pierrefonds

I'm not sure what type of bird serenaded us, but isn't it pretty? 

Edit: 09/05/12 - I think it was frogs that were singing. 

It's just amazing things that can be found in a woman's purse.

Some of the contents of my friend's purse!

When we went shopping Tuesday night, my gf complained that her purse was heavier then usual. I tried lifting it, it weighed a ton. She did remove 2 cans of soup she had in there the next day, but did clean out the purse when we got back from Ikea.  The photo includes some of the things that she pulled out of her purse. 

Yes.. including a rubber duck! I always carry my rubber duck in my purse - because rubber ducky, you're the one..... and if I took a random bath, I'd need my rubber duck :)

Giant Tiger - revisited - Tigre Geant

So for the 2nd time in about a year I've ended up at the Giant Tiger in Ville St Laurent. This time I was a little happier with this store then last time. 

I actually bought a dragonfly wind chime and a Navajo print top for the summer.  I still find it small compared to a Zellers and a Walmart, but if I think back of the stores of my childhood, like Rossy and the like it's similar.

We could not believe how many people there were. We ended up waiting in line at the cash for a long time, considering it was lunch time? We even had to wait for the changing rooms.