Children funerals are one of life's saddest moments. Hug the kids in your life because there is no guarantee they'll live to adulthood. Bless the people who work so hard in the medical professional to try and get as many kids to adulthood as possible. They're all saints. Today was hard.

It's sobering to see how your neighbours, family and friends react in today's political environment. It was one thing to watch them dismiss your health & safety during the pandemic; it's entirely another to know they're gleeful as they harm and strip your rights away and then mock your tears.

As a born & raised Albertan & proud Canadian I am ping-ponging between raging at my prov govt & feeling sick knowing our fundamental rights & freedoms are being tossed aside for a political win. Canadians outside of Alberta: This will happen to you too. It's coming. This is the conservative playbook

It wasn't fake. It was edited. But Reagan really did spend a five-minute speech – an April 25, 1987, national radio address that the Reagan Library has published on YouTube – to rail against tariffs. It was a full-throated expression of support for free and fair trade. https://cnn.it/4o5pBGv

make journalism great again

Real life has kicked my arse these past two weeks. Real life as in dead kids, disease, disability, aging, worst life altering decisions. It has made politics, both Canadian and USian, unbearable and a harder pill to swallow than normal.

Here we go. Alberta Teachers' Association say they are going on Monday, but add they have resumed exploratory conversations with the province.

The joy I feel looking at a bright blue sky against a forest of yellow and orange and red leaves is undescribable. It's almost enough to erase the horrors of reality we all muck about it. Almost.

I had two skin biopsies done yesterday, leaving me with 8 stitches. A full day of dealing with a tiny terrorist with grabby hands, I'm down to six stitches. Take care of your skin, people. Maybe don't agree to watch angry babies afterwards, or at least until the freezing comes out.

Late night kim-chi may have been a poor choice for my middle-aged stomach that grew up on predominantly bland unflavoured povo white people food. Worth it tho.

I will add, I went to the school to address my concerns about this discrimination and was blown off. I may indeed, be one of less than a handful who are even aware of the implications of this policy and its harm. It felt a little gaslight-y, and very dystopian. But this shit matters.

I may be laying down my whistle & ending my journey as a volunteer (girls) basketball coach because I cannot stomach any participation in eroding women's rights. I will remind people, trans kids are STILL just KIDS.

An enormous Great Grey owl just flew out of the woods and landed on my grass about 30 meters from me and stared at me. It held my gaze for what felt like an eternity and then unfurled its wings and flew in front and away from me. This, after spending all day honouring deceased children.

I've spent HOURS emailing and calling members of the AB government to address the upcoming changes to AISH that will kick ALL severely disabled people off the program until they prove they can't work or are actively dying, and I've received ONE form letter in response to my efforts. I just CANNOT.

I’ve spent hours writing my MLA, the premier, and various cabinet ministers about: the AISH changes, vaccine access, gender declarations for little girls to play sports, Alberta separation and more. This Ab government is chewing up my time and my energy and harming all of us along the way.

And I would like to remind Albertans, and Canadians, that the AISH (assured income for the severly handicapped) is a program for people with SEVERE disabilities, usually permanent lifelong injuries. These people have ALREADY had to jump through medical hoops to PROVE and justify their eligibility.

Attended the Premier Council's town hall for the AISH changes the Ab government is ramming down severely disabled throats & became increasingly more incensed. This govt is unconcerned with the harm they create or the devastation of forcing SEVERELY disabled people into further poverty.

Vaccines save lives.

Things I'm raging about: corruption the AB govt has (allegedly) engaged in; the restriction of access to medical services incl. vaccinations; the reduction of my severely disabled son's monthly income by $200; the school book ban or how girls 12-17 are being targeted in sports. THANK U UCP voters.

I knew today would be rough out here in Battleriver-Crowfoot for progressives like myself; but when I saw the handwritten sign “thank you BR-C voters” stuck to a giant Poilievre sign, it felt a bit soul crushing. I do not understand why people keep voting against their own interests.

Voted in the by-election today. SO MANY voters in the polling station in the middle of the day. Our constituency is dedicated to making progressives weep. But I'm going to hang onto the hope that Poilievre loses.

America just keeps getting great...

What a day. I had to actually start a fire in my wood stove because the house temperature dropped to 16 degrees with all the rain, oh, and the dictator of Russia made the President of the United States look like a chump in front of the entire world.

WHAT THE F*CK, I do not like this timeline.

I'm on day six of caring for a 9 week old newborn and let me tell you, if you're not in menopause or infertile, BIRTH CONTROL is your best friend because at aged 49, I'm way too old for 2 hour feedings all through the day on top of the diapers, the laundry and crying. This baby is AGING ME.

Normalizing lies...👇 Repeated exposure effect on moral condemnation of fake news www.nature.com/articles/s41... @dgrand.bsky.social "...frequently seen headlines receive lower moral condemnation" "Without this condemnation, the publication & spreading of online misinformation may be more common."

I'm taking care of my 2 month old grandkid for the next few days while one of his parents undergoes a medical procedure and recovers and I'm here to tell you that 49 years old is too old to be dealing with a newborn's nightly shenanigans without a nanny.

I got to Omi my (surrogate) grandson, cousin to my (biological) grandson and let me tell you, there is nothing quite as soothing as listening to a little wee bairn sigh sweetly with contentment as you cuddle them. It heals all types of soul wounds. Love is love, whether you are blood kin or not.

A downside to living in a forest is all the critters. Porcupine stripping trees, moose taunting your dogs, deer & bunnies destroying the garden, robins nesting in your BBQ, mice finding their way into your house. I can handle most except mice. Mice gross me out. Guess what I discovered yesterday?

Please read "The Inconvenient Indian " by Thomas King for a backstory of Indigenous people & activists in North America. You will learn and appreciate more.

I'm getting new neighbours today, for the first time in 26 yrs. I am both excited by this fact and saddened by the loss of my old neighbours choosing to downsize and move away. Trying to gauge on a scale of 1-10 how weird it would be to bring a pie and welcome them this weekend. Intrusive or no?

I'm so grateful for today's rain. I've lived on this property for 26 years (wow, does that make me feel old,) and it's NEVER been this dry. The forest is thirsty, the large slough on our property almost entirely dried out and my grass is crunchy. Even with all the June rain, my area is tinder dry.

I'm so mad at this Alberta provincial government. They do their performative town hall meetings, they smile as they offer their sugar coated lies while ignoring the hard truths and facts of how their actions will have terrible repercussions for Albertans and most voters just *shrug*.

I know most Albertans don't pay attention to AISH. Most don't really know what it's for, or how much it is and it's one of those things that people don't care about until it touches their lives. But this government is HARMING OUR MOST VULNERABLE COMMUNITY MEMBERS, including my son. It's shameful.

Every time I buy something that isn't an American product, a democracy-loving liberal smiles and a fascist gets a hemmorhoid. It feels good spreading wealth, knowing I'm contributing to economies that aren't building concentration camps for immigrants. Sayeth the granddaughter of an 🇩🇰 immigrant.

A new level of life joy has been unlocked: When your adult child swings by unexpectedly to drop off coffee and pastries and brings the newborn grandbaby for sweet cuddles. There's a lot of toxic crap to wade through in our current timeline but coffee and cooing babies are an antidote.

I do not understand how SCOTUS became a prop to not only support a dictatorship but actually helped create it, after undoing 250 years of precedent and norms, but here we are. Scholars will study this *specific* court for generations to come.

Some days I can read the gongshow of news headlines (local, national and international,) and shrug off the heavy wet blanket feeling of doom they instill. Then there are days like today when a report of a rabbit twitching its bunny tail breaks my soul.

I do not know what babies dream about but this kid seems to be having a good have time. I'm just going to pretend he's thinking about hanging out with me, his Omi.

Poilievre starts campaigning in Alberta

Stephen Harper was the Prime Minister of Canada when Russia was booted from the G8. Justin Trudeau attended his first G7 meeting in 2016 in Shima, Japan, long after March 2014 when Russia was kicked out of the G8 (for annexing Crimea and increasing military intervention in Ukraine.

Remember when American presidents were presidential? Seems like a good moment in history to review…

It’s a forest management day today and my husband left me alone in the woods and a grouse is trying to pick a fight with me while a squirrel is screaming at me and it isn’t a terrible way to spend the day.

It's finally happening x.com/elonmusk/sta...

as ever

My kid had a kid and now I'm an Omi and I suddenly understand why my grandmother kept bowls of candy everywhere in the house and my grandfather planted copius amounts of rhubard (my favourite) and snapdragons (also my favourite.) I love this tiny human more than words can amply express.

SOMEONE MAKE THIS HAPPEN

It's hard watching Trump try to humiliate world leaders and reporters in his office as his lap dogs sit about him in a circle, vacuously nodding their heads while smiling, or staring into their laps, scared to make eye contact with others. It is not becoming of the office, or basic human decency.

The @nejm.org is cratering its credibility by publishing an article by Prasad and Makary that contains factual errors about Canadian vaccination policy. They include a table implying Canadian COVID vaccine recommendations are limited to high risk groups. Read it and weep, liars. /1