I'm Published!

Nearly 5 years ago, a girl found a place to open her loud trap over a useless matter, and it was there for a lot of people to see.



Yes folks, before I became a Master Blogger, or a Bossy person with a blog, I was a loud mouth IN PRINT. Let me take you back through time on a journey. It's the story of a grumpy jerk Premier and a jerky grump Me.

The scene: a cold November, 5th, 2002. Fancy is thumbing through the Edmonton Journal, and comes across an article about how Premier Klein is advocating keeping the minimum wage at it's current low of $5.90/hour because it's "primarily students" who earn minimum wage. Tired of hearing 'Tough-talking Ralphy' crawl even further up the bum of industry, and not liking the tone of the article, Fancy gets proactive. Sitting down at the computer, she fires off an articulate, and concise (275 words) letter to the Editor. The next day, Rod takes a call from the Edmonton Journal, letting Fancy know that they are going to make a minor revision, and print the letter in the November 7, 2002 edition!

So yeah, I got to open my big trap because I lived and saw proof daily at that time that there were plenty of people my age and older were making ends meet...or not, on $6/hour. It was so arrogant for Ralph Klein, who at the time was noted for his superb well of arrogance, to assume that $6/hour was a liveable wage. I wish I could print the letter here, but it's copyrighted by The Edmonton Journal, and I'm not about to cross Canwest Media, or whoever owns the Edmonton Journal this week. If you have access to a school library, or a database that subscribes to and keeps electronic archives of the Edmonton Journal online, you can find it in the Editorial section (A19) of the November 7, 2002 edition. If you can't find it, you're missing a chance to see me as a Grown-up instead of a missish brat with a free platform (ie. my blog).

It's just so sad and so unexpected

Mr. Potatoe Head is caught smuggling drugs into Australia

He was always so cheerful...he loved making children laugh and smile by making clownish faces for them. Now I don't know what to think. There's no doubt in my mind that he was abusing ecstasy as well as smuggling it...he was just always so happy and loopy. But if he's willing to confront his problem, I'm sure we'll all rally around behind him. I'm in shock.

A day late!

Crap, okay, it's a day late, but that's okay. What do you get to make up for a forgotten anniversary? A new template? A new weblink? Some really impressive HTML?

Any ideas? I forgot that yesterday was my 3 year Blogiversary...I'll never live this one down. And 'Now What?" will never let me forget it either! *sigh*

Black October Confusion

Greetings! If you are ready this, then I, in fact, survived my class field trip to Whatcom County, Washington. Yes, that's 4 days in the backwoods of America. In the cold. In the Rain. In the car. In the most dire need of cold medicine.

Tired, cold, sick, crabby and lost, I was okay until I was called a downer by one of my passengers. Then I wasn't okay. That hurt my feeling. I'm having a bad day, and instead of a little something to cheer me up, I'm banished to social Siberia...oh, and I had to continue to drive them around for the night and the weekend! Bah. It's done with. Moving on.

So, everyone who's known me for years knows that my very, very least favourite time of year has rolled around yet again, and this year, there is a particular poignancy to my Black October. Back in 1994, over a period of 20 days, 5 people of varying acquaintance in my life died, including my second cousin, Robert. About my age at the time, he died from complications due to Hepatitis C, which he contracted through a blood transfusion in the 80's. He was an unfortunate victim of the Canadian Red Cross tainted blood scandal which afflicted tens of thousands of Canadians with HIV and Hepatits C across the country. And this year, just two days ago, five men were acquitted of criminal responsibility in the processing of tainted blood.

I don't know my mother's cousin, Robert's mother, and I don't know how she felt about the criminal trial or the verdict that came down. I didn't know Robert either, outside of family christmas cards. But he was my age. And he was afflicted, while I wasn't. So this year, Robert's death takes on a new, confusing meaning for me. I'm less than a year from a wedding. I'm finishing school for the second time in December. I'm laying around watching TV, blogging, and wearing a big, fuzzy housecoat. Experiences that negligence, criminal or not, stole from members of my kin. I'd never ask 'Why him, not me?' He suffered from a blood illness, I do not, and our biographies determined a set of circumstances beyond either of our control. It's just sad that my biography is still being written because I had different genetic markers, and because I wasn't exposed to the negligent procedures and controls that took the life of someone who shared common genetic material.

Criminal? I'm confused.