Thanks, Susan B.!

People Wait in Line to Say Thank You and Pay Homage to Voting Rights Activist Susan B Anthony

By Sarah Jones on Tue, Nov 8th, 2016    2016 Elections, Editors' Picks, Featured News, Hillary Clinton  

People in Rochester, New York are waiting in line at the grave of voting rights activist Susan B. Anthony so they can thank her and leave "I voted" stickers on her grave.

People in Rochester, New York are waiting in line at the grave of voting rights activist Susan B. Anthony so they can thank her and leave “I voted” stickers on her grave.

Caught on Camera: Donald Trump Makes Sure His Own Wife Votes For Him

By Sarah Jones on Tue, Nov 8th, 2016    2016 Elections, Donald Trump, Editors' Picks, Featured News  

CNN caught Republican nominee Donald Trump looking over his wife's shoulder as she voted as if he needed to verify her ballot for some reason.

CNN caught Republican nominee Donald Trump looking over his wife’s shoulder as she voted as if he needed to verify her ballot for some reason.

five p.m. election night

Monique is coming over at 8 "avec du champagne," she says, so she's pretty sure we'll have someone to toast. Richard, the expert in all things political - who just did a CTV commentary on Prince Harry's very stern plea to the media to leave his new girlfriend alone - says we won't know what way the wind is blowing until after 9. Jon Stewart gladdened our hearts by appearing on the Colbert show last night, goof that he is. Thank the good lord for all the brilliant comedians, for Alec Baldwin and Kate McKinnon on SNL, for the wonderful Samantha Bee and John Oliver and Trevor Noah and all the others, on the air and on the net, trying to get some of us to pay attention, and to help the rest of us get through.

I have faith. I declare this at 5 p.m. on election night; it's already pitch black outside, but still mild and very beautiful. I have faith.

In the meantime, more disintegration, not of the house, for once, but of me - my right eye is bright neon blinding red, absolutely hideous. I turned of course to Dr. Google, who told me it's a broken blood vessel, nothing to be done. A student at Ryerson last night said about my eye, It's Trump, isn't it? Yes, yes it is, it is Trump's fault, as is almost everything bad on earth right now. It's as if he has unleashed the forces of hell, the hidden cesspit of racism, sexism and general vileness dormant in us all. And all this is manifest in my eye.

Ah well, Monique is coming over at 8 with a bottle of champagne. Let's pray we have reason to drink it.

In the meantime, here are some beautiful fall colours for you to enjoy, to take your mind off what's going on in the world right now, to stop you from chewing your nails:

 The corner of Spruce and Sackville, just up the street,

 and just around the corner.

 The last of my tomatoes.

You know where, not looking too bad considering that everything is beginning to fade.

And here, to show the forces of tolerance at work, are pictures I took in the Ryerson women's bathroom last night:

Isn't it amazing how malleable language is? Would we have understood some of these terms five or even two years ago? Humanity marches onward, even if there are some determined to drag us back to the Dark Ages. But we won't let them.

Bring on the champagne. Hooray for President Hillary Clinton!

However. If ever there was a time for this poem, it's now, when a monster with a gaze as blank and pitiless as the sun is loose and powerful in the world:

THE SECOND COMING, William Butler Yeats

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

the heat of November

I've made a decision - with two days left to go before the U.S. election, I am going to ignore it completely. My anxiety, which left me sleepless Friday night, will not change the outcome and only makes me miserable. So I'm going to refuse to watch or listen to anything about it. Especially because I expect some Russian-engineered horror to happen any minute - an attack to attempt to make the orange blowhole look presidential. No, stop, see, there it goes again. I will not think about it.

Instead - this glorious weather. Yesterday was so sublime, it was hard to comprehend - November 5th! I'd hired a friend of Anna's to come help me sort out some of the chaos in the house, especially the basement, but when she arrived, I apologized, gave her $20 as a "consulting fee," and asked her to come back in two weeks when the weather is bad. No way I could spend hours in the basement on such a heavenly day. She was pleased, and I took off for a long bike ride, all afternoon, with Jean-Marc and Richard. We went to the Leslie Street Spit, relishing the hot sun, the birds, the view.

Nine swans a'swimming. In November.

Jean-Marc made a delicious dinner and we lay on their bed to watch the new Netflix series, "The Crown," about the early years of Queen Elizabeth II. A beautiful series, especially interesting to watch with Richard, who was once an assistant to the Lieutenant Governor and is now CTV's official royalty expert. He knows the real story and is outraged by the small changes made, I assume for dramatic effect. Only Richard and the people actually involved know or care that this event actually took place at Balmoral not Sandringham, or "The black dress was on the plane, of course! They didn't carry it on for her. Shocking."

The series shows an intelligent, sensitive, vulnerable young woman thrust into public life long before she wanted to be. As usual with these British series, it's beautifully acted, directed and written. We watched two episodes and as they began to watch a third, I went home. Two solid hours was enough. My first Netflix binge watch; now I understand how much fun that is. There will be more - Rogers is apparently soon giving us Netflix for free. It will be a good winter.

P.S. Listening to "Sunday Morning" on CBC radio right now, Michael Enright with esteemed guests discussing ... guess what? THE #@$#@ ELECTION. And I'm riveted.

Sigh.

the KKK, the KGB and the FBI all love Trump

At the end of Bill Maher's unfunny comedy news program last night, during which he used the word "fascist" a number of times to describe the possible government of the U.S. after Tuesday, he apologized for the show's negative rhetoric during past elections and remembered fondly the decent human beings of the former Republican party - the previously reviled Mitt Romney and John McCain now look like kindly and smart if a bit misguided gentlemen. George W. Bush looks like a wise elder statesman. Bring them back. And never did I think I'd be saying those words.

As someone pointed out, this is the first time in history that the KKK, the KGB and the FBI are all backing the same candidate. And that could not be worse news for our planet. It's terrifying. Maher went on about this being a far-right-wing coup, engineered in part by Russia in collusion with the Republican party and the FBI. We've just seen what a careless, blind, anger-driven, media-manipulated vote did in England. And now we have to watch again.

At the beginning of the show, Maher showed a clip of an interview he did with the brilliant, thoughtful President Obama at the White House. It is impossible, truly impossible to believe that the nation which elected that man might now elect a giant orange blowhole. What happened? I know, there will be many books written about it all.

Okay, got to move along or I'll sink into depression about mankind, and that's no place to be on a mild fall weekend. Yes, our incredible autumn sunshine continues to give us record-breaking highs. What country am I living in? There is confusion.

Despite the turmoil south of the border, here it feels as if life has finally settled a bit after weeks of chaos, and I will try to focus on the cheer of that. Yes, wires gone in the garden. Yes, functional washing machine. Yes, working home phone. Yes, at last, as of 8.15 a.m. this morning when Edgar from Rogers - originally from north-eastern China - delivered and installed a new PVR cable box, the television brings in the channels I actually watch, including, for a few free months, the Sundance channel and Book TV, which may be the most boring channel ever, watched only by 17 writers. The fact is that after all that, I will still hardly ever watch. But if I want to, I can, and that's what's important.

What's important today is that my daughter and her boys are winging across the country, off to Saskatoon to visit Anna's best friend Ashley from university days; Ashley lives in Lloydminster and has two kids just a little older. There's a plan: after the long flight and for Ashley's kids the long drive to the airport, they'll spend an hour in the airport itself letting them run, then drive an hour to a McDonald's that has a playland where they'll spend another hour, then the rest of the drive home. They know what they're doing, these moms. I went across town to say hello and goodbye and take them to their favourite sushi restaurant. Ben is now walking non-stop; he walked almost the whole way home, crazily, like a drunk, veering as often as possible into the road, while Eli zoomed up every wall and across everyone else's front lawns. Could I love them more? Guess.

And here, after all the ugliness and horror of the news cycle, is a shot taken just up the street - O Canada. I'm so glad to live here.

clean at last

As you all know, I am a simple woman with simple needs. And right now, here's what is simply making me happy: there is a working washing machine in my basement which just washed two large baskets of laundry; my new Macca CD is playing in the kitchen and a large piece of peanut butter on raisin sourdough toast sits beside me. I found out by mail that I do not have colon cancer this year. Yay!

Hallowe'en was its usual extraordinary event in my neighbourhood - hundreds of children and so many houses decorated, ghosts, goblins, gravestones and giant spiders everywhere. After teaching, I went to Jean-Marc and Richard's for a grown-up Hallowe'en party, homemade pizzas, wine and many interesting people, all of whom live within a five house radius. Wonderful.

My neighbour Monique getting ready for the hordes.

So. She's feelin' good. Tho' not so good this morning, a tiny bit hungover. And my new phone sort of works and sort of does not, along with most other things in this house, including me. I have been so immersed in wires, washers, technological decisions, teaching, So True et al, I have not done any writing work for ages, both body and mind disintegrating. Time to get going again. The weather helps - it's glorious out there, incredible for November. For another week, they say. Please. Before reality hits.

The CD attributes a surprising number of the songs to both Paul and Linda McCartney. It's too bad one of my fave songs, "I'm Carrying," isn't on it. Imagine, 67 beautiful, very different songs, and there are still lots more out there. Here's "Early Days," a song about his boyhood friendship with John, his voice rough and old, and brave.

Okay, I'm faithful to my earliest loves, Paul and peanut butter, and really REALLY boring.

Today I heard from a dear friend who is featured in my new memoir. I gave it to her to read. What would I have done if she'd hated the way she was portrayed, when she's in so much of the book? It would have been difficult. But luckily, it seems, she did not. It's one of the difficulties of memoir - that we are writing not just about ourselves, but the people in our lives, whether they like it or not. It is a beautiful piece of writing and one of the most interesting bits of writing on l’Arche I have ever read. Very moving in that it rings so true. I enjoyed reading it immensely. 

This, too, is the sweetest music to my ears. I wonder if Paul could write it into a song.
"And your inspiration, long may it last, may it come to you, time and time again," he sings.