A 5 Point Post

The good: My mother and her new found sense of wanderlust. My mother is an amazing little (4'11") woman. She is the main reason I've made it to the point where I am in life today. She toughed out 15 years of being a single mom to the twins and me. I'd like to think that we all turned out ok and as such have allowed mom to catch up with herself. Now she and my step-dad have seemingly been on fast forward on the catch up thing. They hit it running and have run all over the world together and just got in the door a few hours ago from a trip down to Atlanta, Nashville, bits of Kentucky and Florida. One of the first things she asks me upon her arrival home is to look up air fares to Vancouver for the end of March. This coming from a lady who is already going to Victoria, Vegas and China in May... I should have figured this was going to be the new way when she spent a couple months running around Asia last fall during which she called me one night and said, "oh by the way, we're leaving in a couple days to go to Egypt and we can't be reached while we're there. We just found a trip so we're going to go". I love how almost care free she is right now and good for her too. She fought so hard for the 3 of us so I'm happy to see her live it up. A strange and lovely vice versa this is having the kids watch their parent get out there and spread their wings.

The bad: The mayor of Toronto, Mr. David Miller. I don't know what it says about the people of Toronto that he managed to get elected again, but this man is a disaster. Of all his campaign promises a few years ago, the only on that he's managed to fulfil was to not build a bridge out to the island airport... Never mind the financial and structural promises that have gone by the wayside, nor the fact that he is not a strong supporter of the men and women that I work with. He also sits on the police service board and I honestly believe they are the only service board in the world who actually capmaign against the betterment of the people they manage... Amazing. The only serving and protecting he knows of are for his own interests so it seems.

The funny: The looks people make sometimes. I'm just thinking about the look my mother gave me when I made a glass cracking sound and pretended to break the neck of a miniature crystal guitar she had brought back from Nashville. I swear up until that point the biggest eyes I'd ever seen were from the characters in Total Recall when they got sucked out into the Martian atmosphere. When she realized I was joking she laughed, but I thought my life was over for a brief nano-second. So that inspired this little part about people and their faces when they realize something just isn't right. Sometimes the innocence of a child is just plain old cute but when you mix in innocence and hormones the results are just hilarious. The toppers in terms of emotions that bring about the best faces have to be shock and fear. Nothing like seeing that in a group of people and then trying to pick out who is getting owned the least.

The sad: My friend and co-worker Kirk and how he felt after a dream he had where I commited suicide!!! Yeah, that's pretty bleak eh?!?!? He felt terrible about it and had to tell me about it and was so genuine about how sad he felt about it. I felt so bad for him that it had affected that much but was more than happy to tell him I was ok. The second part come courtesy Mayor Miller again... Last week all the city counselors met to have their annual group photo taken. As the story goes, the mayor and his inner circle had the front row reserved exclusively for themselves and when some of their spots were taken and argeuments ensued, Miller threw a hissy fit and cancelled the whole deal. In addition, just a couple of days ago, it was announced that he had approved an over 6 million dollar renovation to some offices in city hall which included making his bigger and moving his inner circle so they could be located closer to each other... This after pandering to Parliament Hill for more federal financial assistance stating that the city was cash strapped to maintain even basic infrastructure.

The down right odd: A Chinese zoo is running a Big Brother style competition with a difference -- the contestants have to live in a monkey enclosure. Six people will live with the monkeys in the zoo in the northwestern province of Shaanxi to experience the lack of freedom the animals have. The last person remaining will win 11,888 yuan ($1,534) and title of honorary animal lover. There is hopefully no literal implication in the title... It is the first such activity in China, and any Chinese National from 18 to 60 years of age, in good psychological condition with wild animal protection and survival knowledge may participate. Nevermind being in good physical condition, the first requirement is being in good psychological condition!!! One would opine that the reverse would seemingly be the pre-requisite to participate. As of yet, there is no mention on whether the traditional viewing audience will decide who gets eliminated or if the laws of the jungle will take over.