I’ve been listening a lot lately to some of the works and essays of Carl Jung. Recently, I was listening to his thoughts on people who choose to cut off family for the betterment of their health, and because this is something that happened to me, I found it resonated well. For those of you who’ve read some of my earlier books on growing up with a narcissistic mother and emotional abuse, you may appreciate why this resonated with me.
If someone hasn’t worn the shoes of living stuck in a toxic environment and finally finding the courage to exit, they shouldn’t judge others. Jung says, “It is not weakness, but strength that helps us leave a toxic relationship.” Many choose to blame the person who exits a relationship without understanding the daily hell that person lives through being emotionally battered.
The fixer, the golden child, the blacksheep, whichever noun chosen, is a common target of the narcissistic mother. Family doesn’t always know us, we are who they need us to be, sometimes with no understanding of who we really are. Cutting out family is typically not impulsive, as Jung says, “It’s death by a thousand cuts.” After what can be a lifetime of hurt, after clarity strikes for the final time, I finally chose self and sanity. I love that Jung quotes this as, “Chosen bonds are stronger than biological accidents, the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.”
Guilt operates on many levels – surface guilt, suffering in silence. And I can say that it stays quietly, despite the need for that separation. Staying in toxic situations doesn’t only hurt us, it carries down to next generation. Walking away is healing despite how it seems to outsiders. The world doesn’t understand self-preservation until our own is attacked. We are taught family comes first always. Society tell us to forgive and endure. But why should we stay in abuse when those who are supposed to protect us are our abusers?
Family estrangement is a choice to end a connection. It is pain that has reached the point of the last straw that fell, which finally invites the awakening. When you grow up mostly walking on eggshells, you learn young how to read a room, leaving us questionning why the people who are supposed to love us the most, hurt us most.
Some relationships will not move no matter what is done. After all the discussions, words of forgiveness, and many unfulfilled promises by the abuser, we learn we can’t change a sick person single handedly. We are not the fixers. It’s time to go. When the result is the same every time we try to make things better, the balance is off and the cycle repeats. But once we leave, the weight lifts, but don’t be fooled because the grief remains for what we no longer have – or sometimes, never had.
Judgments come. People who know nothing about emotional abuse preach how we only get one family, telling us we must go back. But what if you feel you aren’t part of or never felt like part of that family? Leaving is a painful choice, but less painful in the long run as we rebuild our lives and take care of ourselves.
Family isn’t always blood. Family are the people who stand by us through good times and bad. They offer their ears and compassion. But sometimes they don’t. Good relationships have love and care and concern. This goes for both – blood relationships and no blood relationship.Blacksheep often become happier and healthier when removing themselves from toxic environments and people. I know I surely did. There is no rule stating because we are blood we are condemned to taking abuse from someone for the rest of our life. The choice is ours, and ours alone. The heart and soul know when capacity has been reached from hurt. No other person can gauge that for us, and also has no right to judge.
Cutting contact isn’t necessarily about hating someone, it’s about self-preservation. Also, you can still love someone and not be in their presence. Sometimes we have to prune the family tree to either, stunt the growth of rot, or to give it a new life to grow stronger new branches.
It takes more strength to leave than stay. The estrangement road to healing can be a long road, but the healing price that overcomes us is worth the price of the journey. When you can look back on your life and see growth instead of continuing to minimize ourselves to fit in or appease, that’s peace.
The family curse ends when it’s cut off and when self-love begins, with the courage to walk away. I chose healing over pretense and hurt. Hurting people on purpose isn’t an accident, it’s a conscious decision. And blood or no blood, NOBODY should have to stick around it and endure – not a child, a spouse or even a stranger should have to put up with anybody’s verbal abuse – whether it’s from a parent or anyone else! So thank you Carl Jung for understanding this from the victim’s point of view instead of condemning.
Have you ever had to finally walk away from a toxic relationship or environment?
I was going to post something else today, but when I came across this article and video clip I felt it something that needs to be shared to spread awareness for travelers.
Today’s post is about a new scam going on at airports here in Canada, Toronto airport specifically, and no doubts at any airport globally. I’m sure you’ve heard of drug mules. Ya, it seems that’s the old fashioned way drug dealers get their goods across borders – using humans to transport drugs. But hey, why risk one’s life using that old method when you can be a criminal working as a baggage handler?
Yes, say goodbye to human drug mules and just snatch someone else’s tag off their luggage and if the drugs make it through, the suitcase is picked up at baggage carousel and walked out with a suitcase full of drugs. OR. The bag gets caught through screening and YOU are the one who gets arrested.
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Here’s how it works:
The criminal baggage handler tears off the destination luggage tag from anyone’s bag and sticks it on the bag full of drugs. Those airport luggage tags are fully coded in the barcodes with all our personal information. Then they either leave our bag with no tag at all, or, they stick a ‘rush’ tag on it as lost luggage.This works like a charm for them! So, if the drug bag gets pulled off the belt, it is us who gets arrested.
So far, this scam crime has happened to SEVENTEEN Canadians – and all occurences began at my own Toronto Lester B. Pearson airport. Some of those innocent Canadians are sitting in jails in various parts of the world. The luckier ones were detained in Canada as bags were caught before takeoff.
In the video below, Avery Haines, one of our better Canadian journalists, does a report on what is happening, on our Saturday night crime show – W5, how it happens, consequences, and what we can do to try and protect ourselves when checking bags at the airport. I’d say any airport because scams are like viruses, they spread like fire once the criminals catch on. Fortunately, our Canadian RCMP is quite aware of this new crime because of the Canadians who were wrongly arrested in Canada. One Canadian couple were released from detention after a few hours because of a brainstorm idea. They pulled up the feed from their Ring camera at home and showed authorities the footage of them leaving for the airport with THEIR BAGS. This is now what helps to protect our innocence. Other Canadians stranded in foreign country jails are being worked with authorities and our RCMP, but much tougher to get some out of jails.
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All our personal info is embedded in these tags
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Here is a great Recommendation:
When you place your bag on the airport scale when checking in, take a picture of the bag, the bag tagged, AND, what the weight scale shows. The drug suitcase with YOUR stolen tag attached won’t exactly match the same weight displayed. These three things will have the proof which is our bag and which is not. It’s a sad state of affairs when we have more to worry about when flying, not knowing if our bag will be the next chosen by criminals, putting us in detention – and possibly, jail. It’s imperative we stay ahead of the criminals!
It doesnt take much to pay off a baggage handler to pull off a tag and stick it on another. It’s noted that there is a crime ring attached to this new crime, these people are not working alone. The sad world we live in thrives on corruption because everyone else is doing it. Everyone seems to have an angle, a new way to steal from others so they don’t have to exert themselves in life. Crime and greed are everywhere now so please do your diligence my fellow travelers.
W5 Investigation exposes how drugs are smuggled through Canadian airports
I’ve had this post in draft for a while as it caught my attention before I went on winter blog break. I wanted to share my thoughts on Windows 11 and see what other bloggers felt about it, or if people are aware of just how invasive Windows 11 is.
I have had the Windows 11 update sitting in my updates for over two years now on my computer. I have zero plans of downloading it. My dilemma is what I’m going to do when my extended protection for Windows 10 runs out next year.
I’m going to preface my thoughts by mentioning, when Windows 8 rolled out, most PC users, including myself, didn’t like it at all. There were tons of glitches and the new ‘touchscreens’ began with Windows 8. But with all its glitches, I also refused to download it. It seems that I wasn’t alone in my thinking as many rebelled it. But, within a year, Microsoft quickly came out with 8.1 and that became a gem for me. Although I was hesitant again when it came to Windows 10, I waited a good year before purchasing that version, hoping their glitches were under control. Enter Windows 11.
Ever since Windows 11 became available, weird things would happen on my laptop. Microsoft’s Edge browser squeezes its way into things while I’m researching, and their A.I. – copilot, follows me around like a leech. Oh, I got rid of those problems by following my tech helpers on Youtube. You would be amazed at how deep we have to go to get rid of bloatware and apps that are hidden deep in our computers – and phones. But what I also learned from these tech gurus is HOW INVASIVE Windows 11 is.
I’ve been reading about how many Windows users refuse to download Windows 11. The A.I. integration is over the top. It spies on everything we do and write in Windows 11 – to the point that hospitals and big corps are concerned and looking to find alternatives, such as Linux to change their operating systems for customer and patient privacy issues. Imagine you’re in a hospital and all your private health information is exploited by Microsoft. This leaves many, like myself, wondering where I’m going to move to after Windows 10 protection ceases.
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Some of the drawbacks to Windows 11 are:
Their recall option feature – this tracks everything we say and do on our computers like surveillance. It also takes intermittent screenshots of OUR WORK every few seconds, and it’s anyone’s guess what they are used for – besides telling them what kind of ads to tailor for us. They are stored for A.I. analysis and UNPROPERLY encrypted.
Apparently, the ads are out of control, permissable by Microsoft for third party spies, so they can make more money off us by selling our privacy. Happily pre-installed, courtesy of Microslop.
Most updates wreak havoc on computers because of bugs.
Copilot A.I. is baked into the system, so A.I. follows us around EVERYWHERE.
I don’t know about you peeps, but surveillance spyware and unwanted bloatware doesn’t interest me. I’m not sure if I want to learn a new computer language with Linux or even Mac, so until something better comes along, I’m not moving from Windows 10.
And my all-time pet peeve is watching a squiggly A.I. mark follow me around pages while I work, trying to put words in my mouth that aren’t mine!
I did have to laugh as I was researching Windows 11 and someone listed all the nasty things about it, they created a word – ‘enshittification’ for baked in ads and A.I. following us all over the pages.
Many businesses in the EU have already moved over to Linux because of privacy concerns.
As I mentioned above, I’m staying with my Windows 10 as long as I can keep protected on it. After that I’m most likely going to learn and use one of the Linux operating systems.
What about you people? Are you familiar with the invasiveness of Windows 11? Are you using it?
Listen below to discover why Dell is done with ‘Microslop’- PC sales down because of invasive A.I. Over 53% Windows users not upgrading to 11and all the flaws built into it.
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Through all my searching, I came across a blog by Kevin Tech Guy who shares info about Opatch, a security update site that will continue Windows 10 updates for a nominal annual fee for those of us not wishing to move to Windows 11
Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m happy to share my review for Cindy Georgakas’s beautiful poetry and prose in her book – Celebrating Poetry.
Cindy Georgakas is not just a wellness therapist; she is a beacon of hope and creativity through her exceptional poetry. Celebrating the profound impact of her written words, we find that her beautiful verses resonate deeply with those who seek to overcome obstacles in their lives. Each poem serves as a reminder that it’s possible to celebrate success, regain trust in yourself, and ultimately embrace love and happiness. The spirituality of the book is of a religious quality.
In a world where many feel lost or disconnected, Cindy Georgakas offers not only words but also a chance for readers to reconnect with their inner selves and rediscover joy amidst adversity. Embrace the opportunity to explore her work; you may find that within each line lies the key to your own healing journey.
This book is a must read.
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My 5 Star Review:
Poetry to inspire by wellness therapist, Cindy Georgakas. This is a book with mixed poetry and prose, some shorter and longer in length, from structured to freeverse, written to inspire, broken up into four categories: Trusting Your Path, From Darkness to Light, Ignite Insight, and Celebrate. Each step encompasses various journeys through life, exploring life related situations with words of wisdom from the soul.
In Trusting Your Path, the author points out through her words, that finding our paths through life are never a straight road. From Darkness to Light are shared poetry and thoughts on how to navigate through the darker moments of life, and the lessons we can take from them. In Ignite Insight, these poems are about growth and learning from our experiences, mindfulness, self-reflection, and communication. In the last section, Celebrate, teaches us to focus on the brighter moments of life.
The author touches on and offers many pearls of wisdom from her own experiences in life. Her words may also stop us in pause to reflect upon our own situations in life – navigating from the inspirational to more heartfelt poems, but ultimately, offering hope.
There are so many great passages in this book that hit home, so I will share a few here that resonated with me:
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There Is a Place Where You Are Not Alone
“There is a place where you are not alone, where your tears can be held, and your fears can be known to free your from the empty spaces of all you’ve ever known.
I will hold you until you know it in your bones. And when you release me, part of my heart will go with you and rejoice, so you remember you are never alone.”
Welcome back to the final part of my winter vacay in Puerto Vallarta. In the previous two parts I shared some of the fun and food in PV. In this part I will explain what went down on Sunday February 22nd, day six of my vacation.
The Gang War:
There seems to be much confusion for most of the world’s population about Mexico and their Cartel – there are Cartel and there are the CJNG (Cartel Jalisco New Gang) gangs who are a bunch of rogue ex-cops among an assortment of other undesirables whose mission is to take over territories and destroy and disrupt, and who think that they can somehow take over the famed Sinaloa Cartel. This is what the various wars across Mexico have contended with for years. The Cartel are not the problem in many parts of Mexico, as much as the gang wars are. The original Cartel do their illegal thing, they also own properties, which are mostly used for money-laundering purposes, and they mind their own illegal business with zero reasons to come out in public and stir up unnecessary shit. They’re like the Mafia, except in Mexico. Mafia don’t approach innocent people, they do their own thing and take care of their own problems, not harassing the average citizen in the streets. These new gangs have to prove themselves as powerful thugs as they try and take out real Cartel for power, and sadly, whoever is in their line of fire become a victim of carnage. The real Cartel aren’t looking for street action. They own hotels too and rely on the tourism; they want to keep their investments safe, and need their investment properties for money-laundering. I know they own plenty in Puerto Vallarta. Puerto Vallarta is known as one of the safest cities to visit.
An enlarged view from my hotel rooftop – smoke up in the mountains
What happened in February in PV didn’t begin in PV. There has been a price on the head of the CJNG leader, known as ‘El Mencho’, for decades. It just so happened that the Mexican police and Federales received intel on Sunday, February 22nd as to his whereabouts and he was shot and wounded and was being sent for medical assistance, but died enroute to hospital. This occurred in the city of Talpapa, Jalisco, about a five to six hour drive, east from Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco. Only, when gang members heard their leader and son and six other members were killed, they rebelled in various areas of the state. We originally heard the backlash was in retaliation for the shooting of El Mencho, and also because the gang wanted the leader’s body back. In Puerto Vallarta, there were some members up in the mountains who began lighting fires in demand. Many cars in public parking lots were also set afire. It all happened so fast, and just as quickly, the Mexican police and Federales had Puerto Vallarta cordoned off pronto. All traffic ceased, roads blocked, hotels and condos locked down.
I took these pictures when we walked up the empty street the next day and saw these cars parked in the grocery plaza parking lot
Where was I?
It was about 8:30 am-ish on that Sunday morning, when we dashed up to the rooftop pool to secure our sun lounge chairs. We grabbed our pool towels and proceeded to where we liked to sit, when we were told we couldn’t stay at the pool, we must go back to our rooms or to the lobby. We went back to put our pool gear back in our room and I called Zahra to see where she was and if she knew what was going on. Of course she did! She’s Zahra who missed her calling as a reporter or cop, lol. She told us to come down to the lobby and briefly gave us the lowdown on the lockdown. I then went back to my balcony where I had a bird’s eyeview of the layout of the land. I saw quite a few fires burning up in the mountains. I’m quite used to seeing smoke come from the mountains every so often, so it wasn’t shocking. What was shocking was looking at the main drag below and seeing nobody, not a vehicle, not a siren, but the odd army truck or Federale vehicle and the odd police helicopter circling round. As I found out, the city was in lockdown and being patroled by the army, navy, local police and the Feds. It was surreal seeing the bustling city quiet as a churchmouse.
View from my balcony of the mountain fires and the ominously, quiet main drag below
A view from the rooftop pool as quite a few vacationers were also looking down at the carnage
I began checking the news, looking up Canadian media sites and Youtube to see if the world was aware of this incident, but nobody seemed to be talking yet about what was happening. I decided to contact our local CTV news channel here in Toronto. I sent an email with what was transpiring, along with some images – and then I totally forgot I’d sent the email and literally, never checked my email again until the next night where I discovered journalist, John Woodward, replied to my email asking if I’d do a live Zoom with him. I burst out laughing as I read the email much too late, and told Cheryl about the email. I replied with some more facts, and my opinion about how much the media was blowing up everything to epic proportions from what I’m seeing on both Canadian and American news. I told him the event was handled and over by 5pm the same day, so anything I had to report was late in the news cycle spin, but if he still wanted to Zoom or see my footage that I’d be happy to. I didn’t hear back from him.
I could have been a star! Below is some short balcony footage I took from my balcony after we were sent back from the pool– with my amateur commentary.
As soon as lockdown happened, the hotel took all the emergency exit doors by elevators off their hinges – just in case.
Yellow alert from red, lockdown over next afternoon, with nothing still open except the big grocery store across the street, and we could see the lineups blocks long just to get in. We were allowed out, but nothing opened until Tuesday, and it was full on business as usual everywhere then, but a ghost town on Monday – save for the busy grocery store. Sadly, Zahra and her hub were leaving Tuesday morning, so their last two days were spent locked out from doing anything. But their flight got out on time as scheduled. Cheryl was staying another two days and then I’d be moving over to Liz’s rented condo next door.
The Grand Venetian didn’t give me that same old comfortable vibe. First off, the outdoor pool tables with umbrellas and chairs were moved from ‘our’ section. This section offered breezes despite the sun’s rays because of its strategic location. Instead, management placed potted plants around the area and argued the tables would make it difficult for the gardeners to water them. So the few tables left are further down along poolside where the sun blazes from 11am onward with nary a breeze. I found myself sitting by myself on the cooler part while ‘the gang’ sat around two or three tables, gabbed and drank under an umbrella, daily. The forging of tables somehow forged a few groups of people together – expanding our circles. I began to feel excluded among my once familiar surroundings – save for my dear friends Brenda and Saul, and Liz. I’m very selective who and where I choose to spend my time with, so I didn’t feel comfortable auto-pulled into a cluster of people I didn’t prefer to hang around. I was also a bit peeved at two events planned with reservations with ‘the group’ for outings that I wasn’t even considered asking to attend. I don’t hold grudges and move on, but I also prefer to disappear and slither away silently if I’m not into the scene. That’s how I’ve always rolled. I also didn’t feel like the welcomed guest I did the previous year when I stayed at Liz’s, which was taking an internal toll on me to both, endure and keep my thoughts zipped. Without elaborating, I will state – this had nothing at all to do with Liz.
Something was definitely in the air with that blood moon, lunar eclipse, mercury retrograde, that hit the last week of my vacay. Each of these planetary happenings have a tendency to affect me. And this clusterbomb was a lot. Which brings me to the real energetic forces working against me, beginning on my long awaited massage day. It began early morning when I took the elevator down to lobby and walked to the spa in the next building – I got stuck in the elevator for ten minutes. No thanks to anyone’s help, I finally got out. After my massage, when I went to pay, my Visa card wouldn’t go through. It was my last few days in PV and I didn’t want to run out of Pesos, but I told the girl I’d bring down the cash. While I was upstairs I called my bank to see what the problem is and there apparently wasn’t any. After I went back down to pay the girl, I found out that other Canadians were having trouble with their Visa cards there as well. The same day, my email morphed into some weird configuration right before my eyes, nothing looked familiar, no current emails, only emails from 2022. It took me over an hour of Googling and Youtubing in search for some aid from whatever morphed onto my screen, to get it back to normal. Then to top it all off, I grazed my hand over a cactus plant and had to then pull out MANY needles. It was a day that kept on giving.
A few interesting images: Setting up for a beach wedding on the public beach in front of the Grand Venetian pool (taken from my lounge chair)
A nightly view from the condo balcony – firework clip (pay no attention to the background chatter)
I felt the time had come to move on, the universe was showing and telling me. But it was all good, although the fun part of my trip was with my homies. 🙂 I did go out for a few more meals, but not many. I went to one of our fav spots with Brenda and Saul – it’s kind of become our ritual to visit Bonito Kitchen. Nobody else appreciates the small little Asian fusion restaurant the three of us love.
A few pics with me, Brenda And Saul:
A few more images at Abulon with me, Kevin and Tina
And I also went back to Abulon with Tina, Laura, Kevin, Brenda and Saul. Liz didn’t come because her husband caught whatever seemed to be knocking someone we knew, down daily in that gang. It wasn’t until I caught the ‘not feeling so great today’ moment two days before I was coming home, I was next. Oh yes, It became a familiar feeling, perhaps a bit milder than the time I experienced Norovirus on a cruiseship. I was too sick to even look at my phone for the rest of the day or night. Keeping my eyes open made me dizzy. The next day I made a point to Google – What on earth is going around Puerto Vallarta making people sick for a day or two. The reply was Norovirus. Boom! Not exactly the best way to spend my last two days – in bed, but very grateful I was well enough to fly home.
It’s been quite a ride! I’m quite sure I’m ready to move on to new pastures next year. Time to let go of my comfort zone and make new memories somewhere else. Who knows where that will be!
Waiting for a cab to airport and my posse – Liz in the middle and Brenda sending me off
Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m reviewing Rhyming Dreams by Nicole Sara. This is a book that combines the author’s interpretation in poetry and photographs.
Rhyming Dreams is an enchanting and engaging collection of poems about the heart’s winding journey through deep wistful longing towards bliss and belonging along the meandering road of love and loss, hope and healing. This book is for anyone who dreams a lot, loves deeply, and has both good and bad days.. like steps on a pathway, be them confident or hesitating, nevertheless tirelessly searching for happiness in the enjoyment of small things around, yet so sweet, that life has to offer.
Each and every poem in this debut collection is deeply rooted in personal moments and experiences but still wonderfully universal, so that you feel taken by the hand and shown the beauty and brightness of it all, thus wholeheartedly invited to gently give yourself grace beyond the sadness of blue gloomy days, the tears or the brokenness.
This collection of beautifully flowing and uplifting verse is a soothing balm for the soul in search of serenity, helping the reader to reach peaceful shores deep within.
for here, on Earth, you and I bearing within us the sky we dance away beneath whispering stars trying to reach beyond rails and bars
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My 5 Star Review:
A light-hearted, great escape read to sooth the soul, reminding there is beauty in the world, in poetic stories written in prose and poetry. Written in two parts – Starry Steps and Petal Pages. The first part explores poetry created from images of nature, the second, stories formed around flowers and gardens.
One of my favs from Starry Steps is the poem, The Blue Strawberry:
Spring has arrived and there’s love in the air
’tis shining around, in her eyes, in his stare,
she told him she wished a day for them two
and he gave her instead a strawberry,
..blue
He pinned it above her heart, on her jacket
their souls as one spontaneously ignited
the stars and the moon rose pale and true
and her heart was no doubt a strawberry,
..blue
She can’t live without her strawberry, ..blue
it has already caught a slightly red hue
it is so full of sweetness, of longing and sun
the strawberry
..blue,
two souls as one
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Part 2 is Petal Pages –
A mix of freeverse and rhyming poetry where images of nature and calm conjoin into beautifully evoked poetry.
Bloom and Butterfly – image – blooming garden of flowers
Rustle and rays,
and fluttering wings
woven with shadows of breeze
as if spurred by a star on a path made of yearning
with murmur of dew and of trees…
Arrivals, touches, smiles
reflections,
serenity
and recollections…
August and June
The sky was so orange
she could barely breathe…
and the evening exploded with light
the breeze was astir,
the air was a bliss
and her eyes would shine beyond bright
Her name was June
and she was aglow,
the rays danced away through her fingers…
her hands softly touching time’s lonely sweep,
sweet oasis
that quietly lingers…
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If you enjoy the calm and serenity of beautifully evoked poetic stories in nature, you are sure to enjoy this book.
.If you enjoy poetry that evokes calm and serenity, you will enjoy this book.
Welcome to my Sunday Book Review. Today I’m reviewing Laura Lyndhurst’s book – Social Climbing: and Other Poems. This book was done in collaboration with Clive Thompson, photographer. Lyndhurst created short poetic stories to accommodate images captured by Thompson.
I had no plans, after publishing Poet-Pourri, to write any more poems; at least not in the near future. But while I was in the prepare-to-publish stage of that book, I made the acquaintance of photographer Clive Thompson and his large archive of photographs, put together over quite a lot of years. Scanning through these on the internet I found the picture of a discarded Father Christmas chocolate-bearing Advent calendar, which immediately said ‘poem material’ to me. I wrote the poem and presented it to Clive, who loved it; and there was born the idea of a collaboration, my poetry written to the prompts of some of his photographs. The photographs I have used for the pandemic-themed poems were taken quite some time before that ominous word had become a part of all our daily lives, but they seemed to fit the subject and I therefore took the liberty of utilizing them in that way. The results of my poems joined to Clive’s photographs I present here, as Social Climbing and other poems. It may not be the catchiest of titles but it works for me, and for Clive, and for you also, I hope. Enjoy.
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My 5 Star Review:
I enjoyed this shorter read of narrative poetry, a clever method of putting the book together. It was unique the way the book flowed with longer free verse poems and short stories interpreted from the author’s perspective of each image. The book is broken down into three parts – Life’s a Beach, Poems of the Pandemic, and Every Walk of Life.
In the first part of the book, Life’s a Beach, I enjoyed the stories, and my favs were – The Naked Truth, a wonderfully inventive story the author created pertaining to two individuals sitting back to back on a beach. I also enjoyed the story created about a girl about to go on a date, and the importance of having a suntan, in – Go For the Burn.
The next part of the book shared stories pertaining to the pandemic. From stories about shortages of bread and toilet paper to vaccines. A Call To Arms – A plausible little story about letting the people know vaccines are available!
The third part – Every Walk of Life, contains stories the author created to accompany photos that spurred stories about people. A rather cynical story resonated with me about Christmas – So This Is Christmas, accompanied by a picture of Santa and the story of Santa’s lament about how Christmas has become over-commercialized. Another story that struck at truth – Due Process – Having your day in court, when it’s all been pre-arranged.
A nice variety of tone and mood in these stories – some humorous, some not so much, but a good mix of evoked sentiments. Like some other reviewers mentioned, this would make a beautiful coffee table book, especially with the striking cover.
I’m going to preface my thoughts about speed cameras by saying, I hate them. Our city of Toronto is a mess in so many ways, but this post is focused on the amount of (almost, inconspicuous) speed cameras going up around town.
First – A waste of money. Sure, maybe a handful of locations of the current 150 of them now, are useful. The first problem is the fact that our WHOLE city, EVERYWHERE is 24/7 congestion. And if it’s not bumper to bumper congestion, it’s man-made congestion by the SLOW POKES this has created in the last couple years. They don’t know speed limits, are afraid of cameras, so too many drive 10 – 20 below the speed limit – always one in each lane so nobody can bypass. It’s so ignorant.
The city is making an inhumane fortune on robo tickets, because in the olden days, when police would actually be on the roads just waiting for a customer to speed and hand us a ticket, there was humanity involved. It used to be pretty much a given that if you weren’t more than ten kilometres over the limit, they wouldn’t even stop us. It’s an ‘unspoken’ thing drivers know that at 100 kilometer max on highways, many (who can) will go to 120 or a tad under and mostly wouldn’t be stopped because they are looking for real speeders. It used to be, if we went over 15 k on the steets there were also demerit points that go on our license for 3 years, and subsequently, passed on to insurance. Depending on the day and the cop, they could lower it to 15, so we learn a lesson, pay a fine, but no points. But those days are sorely missed. These spy machines are like robots, they take in speed and plate numbers and people who’ve never had tickets in their lives getting notified by mail of a fine to pay. And MANY of these charges are for less than 10 over!
Yes, my friend Ameliana, came to the gym one day and was letting off steam about a ticket she got in the mail for going 64 in a 60! Are you kidding me?
Besides all the nit-picking over a few kilometers, and BECAUSE of all the tickets people are getting AND CAN’T AFFORD, people are driving like turtles. There needs to be fines for people going severely under the limits for no reason. It’s not enough that we don’t have enough roads for the amount of people who live here and traffic is always bad, but these sneaky fines have most people driving like snails. Ask anyone who lives here.
Often you can’t even see the speed signs – which change quickly in some parts from a 40 – 60 in a blink of an eye. School zones are 40, but there are signs that add, during September to June only in the school zone. Nobody reads the fine print and won’t go past 40 off season. But most of all, most hardly ever go 40 – including on main streets where it’s 60. I am developing road rage. 🙂 I think the cops should get back on the roads and start giving tickets to the SLOW POKES holding us all up.
My other peeve is 80% of the time while waiting for the left turn arrow, the person in front is busy scrolling on their phones because they can’t not have something to do for 60 seconds, so half the light is gone where 15 cars could easily have turned, if they knew how to drive, instead of 4 or 5 only getting through.
It’s gross! I can’t stand driving. I have lost many of my patience. I have perimeters. My gym is literally up the main street that I live on, about a five minute drive – in the olden days. My classes start at 9:30am and I must be out the door by 9, in order to drive there among the lost sheep, go through the supermarket once there, up the (many) stairs to the women’s gym, get to my class and change my shoes and set up, to make it on time.
I may have digressed there, but since many a citizen have been complaining about and writing to parliament to complain about these continuous fines – for some, as well, a few of the cameras have been hit, run over, hammered down, you name it, it came to light on the news recently that our Premiere Ford (equivalent to a US governor) is siding with the people – despite the revenue it brings as a cash-cow.
Now we do also have red-light cameras at very many red lights, soon to be everywhere, it feels like. I’m all for those. People burning red lights need to learn, despite the odd innocent few who get nabbed because when they first came out, people were wondering what the rules were: are we ticketed if it turned yellow at the line? As we’re going through it? Or does it only catch you going through red. This was a dilemma for many, including myself. Thankfully, I never had one of those, but I used to get anxiety when they first came round my area, if the light was green, but turned yellow after my tires touched the line – should I stop fast or continue through? Seriously. So I kind of got the groove now. But these slow down cameras have to go. I hope Doug Ford gets it passed, as he’s asking for the speed cameras to come down. He called them a cash-grab and unfair to citizens.
Sure, speed kills. But honestly, it’s almost impossible to speed in this city. There’s nothing wrong with putting speed bumps in school zones, or flashing lights to slow down. And if they put police back on the roads, it could give them something to do, bringing back a little compassion and humanity too.
Below is a quick short clip of one of our news channels interviewing people on the steet for their opinions on the cameras – especially two of the same ones that have been broken down 4 times!
Below find the quote from Global News, by Doug Ford:
“This is nothing but a tax grab, folks,” Ford recently proclaimed. Later, the premier offered evidence from the City of Toronto suggesting drivers were being unfairly dinged for minor speeding infractions.
“I’ll use the stats just in Toronto because I know 32,000 tickets for going two kilometres over, four kilometres over, sometimes 10, 15 kilometres over — in three months,” Ford said.
For the full article, which I found interesting because Ford ordered these spy machines in 2019, and he’s the one calling them off, thankfully.
DGKayewriter.com 