Comfy Pants - Uncomfortable in life.

So it appears I disgruntled a loose waisted wedgie-ridden wiggly bitted reader in response to the thorns distributed by the Fashion Police last week in the Courier. (It is posted on my last blog entry.)

 He wrote:

"Dear Ms. Fashion Police for June 17th. Your poor attempt at humor lost most readers. You are right we are not Paris. Never will be. Where do get off telling who to wear what? This town of Campbell River is a laid  back town of country living. I think people wear what they choose out of comfort. I feel sorry that your life is just one big dress rehearsal. For many of us it is not. We use our money to support and raise families. Not on over prices clothing for your viewing pleasure. Vanity is a sin."

Signed Comfy pants in Comfy River

Well now! He told me! Being one who cannot back away when "stercus accidit" I have sent roses to this chunky monkey.

To comfy pants


I think the fashion police were trying to ask people to have more respect for themselves and others and no where did I read that they told you what to wear, but what NOT to wear. I too have witnessed embarrassing attempts by people to be "comfy" and it can be horrifying. The latest was a person using their bum cleavage to hold a cell phone. I don't think it takes the over priced clothing you assumed it would to be decent and respectable and I think your assessment that the humor of the rant was lost on most people is about as wrong as probably your comfy pants are. I think you need some roses to mellow out and not be so defensive. While you use your money to support and raise your family the fashion police just want some proper fitting clothing and the use of underwear to be included in your budget. Vanity might be a sin but so is indecent exposure.

Back up to the Fashion Police


WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?? I read the Roses and Thorns weekly and more and more it is becoming not just an arena for the discontents but a slippery slope into meanness, spitefulness and maliciousness. Aside from the nice roses of thanks to people for doing the right thing (becaus these days we have to praise that as being unusual and unexpected) people are thorning grieving pet owners and turning their tragedy into a rant about leashes and dog poo and training cats to come when they are called!  As for Mister Comfy Pants, go find your horn rimmed glasses (you are probably sitting on them) and re read the initial submission from the Fashion Police, you got in wrong on all counts. You  now have the right to remain silent. Please do!

Roses or Thorns?

Thorns   Crocs full of thorns to the crimes of fashion being committed in our community. Now I realize we are not Paris or London and we don't expect Shoppers Row to be navigated with Gucci stilettos or men in Armani, but seriously Campbell Riverites, one of you almost caused a car accident the other day when your skirt blew up in the wind and your lack of underwear took my mind away from the road. Just what would I have told ICBC? Swerved for full moon? Rear ender caused by rear end? Now this skirt flipping might work for Marilyn Monroe but she doesn't live here! We don't need to see suspender leggings, underwear worn as outerwear, skinny jeans when you are not, sweat pants with writing on the bottom (note to wearer, letters disappear!) and t-shirts with rudery written on them. (Although the "drunk chicks think I'm hot" was probably an honest reflection.) We don't want to see pants that would make a plumber blush, pajamas in the grocery store, flip flops with dirty feet flip flopping, boxers impersonating Bermuda shorts paired with a white t-shirt that makes you look like you are walking down the hall at 3 a.m. to get a glass of milk rather than shopping at a public market. Where is your wife? Keep your tailbone tattoos for family viewing, and speedos for a funny Halloween prank. Men please do not go commando with grey sweats despite how comfortable that might be for YOU, and women don't cut off your jean skirts any further. Finally, please, please PLEASE if you have a belly wear a t-shirt long enough to keep it from peaking out at us. We might be the Salmon Capital of the World but we should refrain from baiting the fashion police with your wiggly bits! Arrests are imminent!

Don't ask Don't Tell!!

My mother babysits for me during the day when I am at work. This morning she called to tell me she was going to be late because she had lost her dentures. She said she doesn't take them out when she sleeps (for the same reason I no longer sleep naked!) but they must have popped out while she was in the land of nod. She sleeps with her husband who is almost 80 years old and a temper to match Genghis Khan. I giggled when I imagined a similar scenario to the infamous cartoon of the fat woman looking for her lost puppy (for those who haven't seen it, go to) https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjb49ois5WAgcUyORMSXcpT0Exc4j5Vi_NEIqwJvUsacvE6eAbYls20tLAB0a78vCB-5iSU_0LahPFvpohOS_lfUMPrc4EOVwOe9MUpzMVhsXcnuVFruCTrG7eUhQKeqYUiGBVmia_sK6E3/s1600/funny-dog-cartoon-lost-puppy.jpg.

For a chuckle, insert dentures in to the bottom of grumpy old man. Worse yet, you don't really want to see her smiling anymore after they have been located!

My mother loses a lot of things in bed. (OK that didn't quite sound right.) When she was first dating Vlad the Impaler ( I enjoy sticking cute little nicknames on curmudegeonly Cliff) she was much younger and on hormone replacement therapy. For those of you not familiar with the medication involved, it comes in sticky patches that are applied to your abdomen or bottom. They produce estrogen through your skin. She woke up one morning to see the patch stuck to Vlad, and momentarily wondered if it might make him nicer, you know, all those women's hormones, but in the end decided to rip it off along with some thigh hair she hadn't counted on, waking him up with a start. My mother did what any sane woman would do. Collapsed onto her pillow and pretended to be asleep the whole time while maintaining a death grip on the feminine product. Mr. Tough, the Man of all Men, the one whose testosterone defines who he is and what his mood is going to be like, was probably only concerned that it had looked like he was trying to shave his upper leg. He would have kept that to himself. Along with a few milograms of estrogen therapy.

In the end my mother showed up to the house to babysit, teeth in place, no mention of where she found them. Since they both sleep au natural, it cannot be good.

Near Death Experiences

I have had a couple of real near death experiences. One when I was in the ICU I actually crashed and Eliza was looking over me as my eyes drifted to the ceiling. What she didn't know was that I was looking at my parents, who looked the same as they did when they passed, wearing the same embarrassing outfits that always made me walk ten paces ahead of them when we were out (funny how teen age angst is carried over 30 years) and traveling inside the eye of an elephant (you can't make this up and NO I was not dying from an LSD overdose!) It was like a capsule and I was trying to get in and pretty annoyed that they would not open the door. The next thing I knew I was "back" with a central line in my chest and several people fussing over me, feeling like crap. I often think about that experience and since then have had a new found appreciation for the elephant. In art (see Gregory Colbert's collection called "Ashes and Snow") and tell me you are not moved by the talent and the beauty, and in folklore, as apparently, funny enough, elephants are a symbol of overcoming death.
The next near death experience I had was last night. I woke up at 2:30 a.m. from a sound sleep with Criminal Minds re-runs playing on the TV I forgot to turn off, having an asthma attack. There is nothing worse than having one of these sneak up on you in a dead sleep because you go from open mouthed drooling slumber (or so I have been told from some insolent bedfellows) to feeling like you are being strangled and drowned all at the same time. You cannot breath in, you cannot breath out, its like somebody has popped a wine cork down your trachea . Where are visions of elephants when you need them? I was sure this was "it" this time although I have suffered from this before. Only now it was lasting well into a minute and my lips were turning blue and I was starting to panic. It's the panic that will kill and asthma sufferer faster than lack of oxygen will. Panic because you think the next time you try to inhale you will get a bit of air in and you don't. The panic that you realize you decided to sleep naked and now your kids are going to find you dead and rigored in most likely an unladylike position on the floor after the dogs have given you a good sniff over. The panic because now you're pissed off at yourself for worrying about all those things you worried about that day, that really don't matter at all when you are about to hitch a ride on that elephant!
Obviously I lived to tell about it but not without spending the rest of the night awake because I was afraid to go to sleep again and have that happen. Sometimes larygospasms come in twos. So I got on facebook and talked to my friend who was having lunch in Budapest, checked my online bank balance and only got a  little short of breath, and put on a nighshirt just in case.
Morale of the story is: Don't sleep naked and hope that if you see the elephant he won't let you on his back.

Update for my readers; May 18, 2011

I have just finished digging up pieces of writing I have done over the last couple of years and then forgotten about. Many are from my newspaper column "Just Cause" where I write on social justice issues of the day. I have decided that if I had a nickel for every person who had said "you should make your living by writing", I wouldn't need to be writing for nickels. But the truth is I don't have to write, I must write. It is something ingrained in me. By grade 4 I wanted to be a journalist, by Grade 5 I was running the school paper much to the chagrin of the Grade 7's who just couldn't put an editorial together. I still have copies of those papers from 40 years ago, produced on the school secretaries mimeograph machine! But back then we only had black and white tv too. Girls had to wear skirts, boys trousers and teachers shirts, ties or dresses. Our desks were lined up, not put in groups, and we called our teachers by their last name, Mr. and Mrs. not the current "Hey Fred" yelled after the math teacher dressed in gym wear by a student chewing gum and wearing a t-shirt with a rude caption on it. Have we come a long way or what? Maybe I will write about the good ol' days soon and talk about "progress" and what we have really progressed to. I will certainly start writing about my personal life as that, I believe will be my bread and butter when I finally put my book together. I think it might be worth 20 million nickels one day.

Windfalls..and other shockers.

Many Campbell Riverites are deciding what to do with a $3400.00 cheque coming their way. The current circumstances in B.C., with the worst rate of full-time job losses, the second worst performing economy and the highest level of child poverty in the country defines the outcome for many people in our community who have found themselves on social assistance and waiting for this money.

In the last six months, the number of people on welfare rose 26% to just over 50,000.
Of that, two parent families on welfare increased by 71%.
Why? Job losses mainly. Our employment insurance program is not working, so many unemployed have turned to social assistance and that meager income places demands on food banks and homeless shelters for those who do not have enough money to eat or pay rent. Since a significant portion of people on social assistance have not been on it very long, and at one time had the money to invest in our local CRTV, they will be among those receiving this windfall.

Unfortunately, they will not be permitted the luxury of buying their kids some long overdue clothing, to get that dental work done, paying off the hydro arrears, to do some real grocery shopping for a few months, or to just simply get ahead.

In 2002, many of the incentives and earnings exemptions that came along with receiving social assistance were eliminated. You could no longer keep a portion of your child support ($200.00) or earn some money on the side ($200.00)without it being deducted dollar for dollar. Monetary gifts or goods in kind, honorariums, or any earned or unearned monies not issued by welfare had to be reported and were now deducted dollar for dollar from their next welfare check. Transportation costs during the first month of a new job – gone. A “transition to work” benefit of $150.00 a month to assist with childcare, work clothing, transportation costs for the first year of employment – gone.

A single person on welfare in our community who is classified as “expected to work” receives up to $610.00 a month. A two parent family with three kids receives up to $1151.06.

So imagine yourself in a position you are not used to, trying to pay for everything just to maintain a basic standard of living. Then imagine you cannot do that anymore on your current welfare income, and suddenly you cannot shop in every aisle of the grocery store anymore, your kids are wearing last year’s shoes, bill collectors call you every day, your whole family is depressed, and you are basically living in struggle and starve mode. Now you are about to find out the light at the end of the tunnel this month has been switched off.

The Ministry of Housing and Social Development has announced that the share dividends from the sale of CRTV are considered unearned income. There are no earnings exemptions for this kind of unearned income for recipients of social assistance and as such the money will be deducted dollar for dollar. The income has to be reported. If it is not reported, and you receive your welfare cheque the next month, and following months, you will be in an overpayment situation. There is no discretion to apply exemptions to this income and dividend income will show on your income tax records so the Ministry will eventually be notified you got it, and sanctions would likely be applied against you for trying to rip them off by trying to live with some dignity for a change.

Most people will only lose their next month’s welfare income so have to budget for that out of the money they receive. However, depending on a family’s circumstances, and what they currently have in “assets”, there could be some recipients who are impacted beyond the following month if the dividend money puts them over their asset level (single person: $1500.00, Couples or one/two parent families: $2500.00, Disabled person: $3000.00, Couples or families with one disabled person: $5000.00). You could not receive a welfare check for quite some time and be expected to live off the money at the rate you get on welfare. In other words, your life continues to suck.

This situation applies to those who are receiving provincial disability benefits as well so any plans you had to improve your daily living with medical, dental, or nutritional extras are probably going to have to be cancelled.

There is just cause to shed a light in this dark tunnel on the fact that in 2002 when the social safety net was taken apart, the Deputy Human Resources Minister was offered a $15,400 bonus for cutting welfare numbers by 2% her first year on the job. She was also asked to come up with policies to reduce the number of people receiving disability assistance. This bonus would have topped her $154,000 salary. While welfare rolls were cut by 26% (and homelessness went up) she was not able to figure out a way to stop people with disabilities from qualifying for supports so she only got part of the bonus.

In 2007, Gordon Campbell voted himself a 54% pay raise which took his annual salary to $186,000.

I guess they have to get the money from somewhere.

Of all the gifts to the human race, what is sweeter than a child?

There is just cause to worry about the children in our country and the fact they have very little protection of their rights and wellbeing.

For children in care who die under suspicious circumstances, or after children in bad homes are seriously injured or killed, most of the intervention happens afterwards because the authorities have to wait for something to happen first. The child welfare system is in crisis with 49 critical injuries and 30 deaths of children in provincial care in a four month period! Gross underfunding means not enough staff on the front lines to protect our children.

In our criminal justice system, it is ok to leave little ones to bake in hot cars while you enjoy a cold one at the bar, and it is ok to molest young girls if you marry them first and call it religious freedom. Winston Blackmore, 52, and James Oler, 44, were charged with sexual exploitation, statutory rape and the trafficking of young girls across international borders for sexual purposes. But, the charges were dropped as were the best interests and safety of their child wives.

Child poverty, vowed by provincial and federal governments to be eradicated by 2000, has thrived, and BC leads the country for the sixth year in a row with one in five children suffering in poverty stricken circumstances due to chronic under-funding and cuts to social programs since the Liberals came into power in 2001. Over half of children in poverty live with working parents.

Things are about to get worse. It is very difficult to provide a comprehensive review of all the cuts children are about to receive. Policy analysts, service providers, and media are frustrated and the government is being smug and refusing to provide a list. What has been pieced together is as follows.

There will be no additional funds for childcare for the latch key kids whose parent(s) cannot afford or get space in local daycare facilities. There will be no additional funding for BC Housing, so children can continue to live in unsafe and unhealthy conditions, often alone before and after school because there is no childcare for them.

Children will go to schools that are falling apart because maintenance for schools has been cut, and there will be a pathetic display of broken and outdated books in school libraries and public libraries because, along with literacy programs, funding is gone. If a child is interested in sports, he or she will probably not be traveling for competitions, wearing a team uniform, or even having a team to join, because BC School sports funding is no more. The Minister defends it by saying these kids can “dance and play in the park”. If a student is hungry, they can join the food bank line-ups along with the other 60% of families with children. BC school lunch programs took a hit too. While the students are playing in the park, they should know that playground grants have been cut along with half the money to Parent Advisory Councils. Maybe they can find some dirty needles to play with since so many of our homeless and addicted cannot get into housing or treatment.

High school students who looked forward to applying for the Premier's Excellence Awards should be made aware of the finalists this year, who, in good faith, went through the complicated application process only to find out, without prior notification, that the whole program which started in 1986, had been cancelled. They did get a hard lesson in crisis budgeting though.

Special needs children have also received devastating cuts to services. Notably, early intervention programs for children with autism have been cut resulting in over 40 layoffs of specialized staff at Queen Alexandria Hospital. Books for Babies is gone. It sounds like an obscure, cute little program, providing parents of newborns with a bag with a book, a CD, and information about library services, but it goes along with the elimination of 16 regional literacy coordinators and reading centres across the province. More than four in ten adults struggle with basic literacy skills and the next generation will probably be worse off now.

Healthy Choices in Pregnancy, aimed at reducing the number of infants born with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, was cancelled a year before it was slated to finish and leaving Vancouver Women’s Hospital with the bill!

For children exposed to violence in their homes, domestic violence programs and Transition House budgets are on the chopping block. Since children have the best chance to be screened for exposure to domestic violence if they go through a Transition House, more of them will continue living in terror and pain.

In the 2005 Speech from the Throne, the Government of British Columbia stated that “B.C. will become the healthiest jurisdiction to ever host the Olympics.” Healthiest jurisdiction for whom?

In 2006, B.C.’s Liberal government dealt its top political staff a 25-per-cent pay hike, 2 years later, more raises ranging from 22 per cent at the low end to 43 per cent for Premier Gordon Campbell’s deputy minister.About 20 other deputy ministers were dealt a raise of 35 per cent, with salaries rising from $221,760 to a maximum of $299,215. About 80 assistant deputy ministers go from $160,000 to a maximum of $195,000.
Gordon Campbell voted to give himself a 54% pay increase - an extra $89,000 a year.

There is just cause to conclude this is the healthiest jurisdiction for the children of our senior bureaucrats and politicians.