Trading Up...

Usually when people are looking to buy a new house, they try to trade up from their present living conditions to something a bit more upscale, perhaps with running water and electricity.

When folks want another car, they usually find something newer, perhaps with all the bells and whistles, in a color they like.

So, you have to wonder, what on earth was Jesse James thinking? He's married to a lovely, charming, talented, funny, beautiful, intelligent woman -- an Academy Award winner, for goodness sake -- who loved him; why would he cheat on her? What on earth makes some men do these things? Honestly, I just shake my head...

Maybe it's time for Sandra to trade up.

Lemon Tree

Every once in a while there is a movie so beautiful, it draws you in and makes you part of it. You are no longer the observer sitting in a darkened room or theatre, but have been pulled through the invisible wall that divides you from the story. Such a movie is "Lemon Tree". It's an Israeli movie, and it takes place on the border between Israel and the West Bank. A Palestinian widow, Salma Zidane, has inherited her family's lemon grove, and it is her only source of income. The Israeli Defense Minister and his wife move into the house next door, and the Defense Minister orders Salma's lemon grove to be cut down, arguing that it could be a hiding place for terrorists. Security forces set up a guard tower and barbed wire around the grove, and order the trees to be uprooted. Salma is forbidden to enter the grove to pick the lemons or to tend the trees, and they slowly begin to die from lack of care and water. Salma decides to take the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and her quiet dignity and determination are magnificent. The actress who plays Salma Salma, Hiam Abass, was also in "The Visitor", and she is an amazing actress.

In "Lemon Tree", Salma and the Israeli Defense Minister's wife, Mira, become friends. Mira has great respect for Salma and empathy for her plight, and she is disgusted with her husband's overbearing attitude and the way he bullies Salma. She understands Salma, and they develop a bond that transcends the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. I have often thought what a wonderful world this would be if women had the chance to run things for a while. Perhaps they might give a whole new, more humane perspective. Eran Riklis, the producer of the movie, said, "I wanted to populate this film with a lot of faces and give each character their own moment of grace, even when, on the surface, it's one of the 'bad guys,' so to speak... This film does address the ugly side of occupation perhaps, yet no blood is spilled." The movie gives a sympathetic view of the Palestinians, even though it is made by Israelis. The movie is not about war or peace, it is about the beauty of living a simple, day-to-day life. The New York Times named it a 'Critics Pick' of 2009. Well, it certainly gets Jo's 'Critics Pick'.

Google Street View

I absolutely love Google Street view. Isn't it fun? Thanks to the folks at Google, I am able to visit all of my old haunts without ever leaving home. Yesterday I was curious to have a look at the little house where I grew up on Vancouver Island (it's slightly bigger than it looks in these pictures, and you can click on the pictures for a better view).  I was able to get a 360 degree view of the street and my house, and I was able to see all of the neighbours houses.  Our house has changed a bit.  My mother always had a wonderful garden, and our house had been featured in a couple of magazines.  I still have the pictures.  We had two lily ponds -- one in the front yard and one in the back.  When the water lilies bloomed, they were a mass of pink lotus blossoms.  The ponds were stocked with goldfish that grew into carp.  My brothers and I used to take live worms from the compost heap and hold them over the ponds and say, "Here fishy, fishy, fishy..." and the goldfish would leap out of the water and take the worms from our hands.

But I digress...

Have you used Google Street View yet?  It's amazing.  You just type in an address, a map comes up with a marker on it. You click on the marker, and it takes you to the street view. From there you can actually drive along the road and look at the entire view at a 360 degree angle. So I was able to "walk" past the house and have a look at it from the other side. My mother and father built the house themselves from a piece of property in the woods. So they saved some of the large trees in the forest to keep near the house.  The large monkey puzzle tree that my mother had planted is gone, but there is a smaller one there now.  There was also a lovely, tall poplar tree in the back, which is also gone.  I used to love to listen to the wind in those trees. There are several large Douglas fir trees where I live now, and I understand why I am most comfortable living near those big, old growth trees.

If you haven't tried Google Street View, give it a try.  It's just way too much fun.

Cheers,

My Little Corner Of The World...

Now that I have switched to this new Blogger format, I can publish lovely big pictures like the ones I have admired on all your blogs. I can't take credit for this photograph, however, nor for the gorgeous spring day.  I can take credit for the wonderful mood it puts me into, however.  I can hardly wait to walk home at the end of the day.

A Light exists in Spring
Not present on the Year
At any other period —
When March is scarcely here

A Color stands abroad
On Solitary Fields
That Science cannot overtake
But Human Nature feels. ... Emily Dickinson

Irish Humor For St. Paddy's Day...

A man stumbles up to the only other patron in a bar and asks if he could buy him a drink.

"Why of course," comes the reply.

The first man then asks: "Where are you from?"

"I'm from Ireland," replies the second man.

The first man responds: "You don't say.  I'm from Ireland too! Let's have another round to Ireland."

"Of course," replies the second man.

Curious, the first man then asks: "Where in Ireland are you from?"

"Dublin," comes the reply.

"I can't believe it," says the first man.  "I'm from Dublin too! Let's have another drink to Dublin."

"Of course," replies the second man.

Curiosity again strikes and the first man asks:

"What school did you go to?"

"Saint Mary's," replies the second man.  "I graduated in '62."

"This is unbelievable!" the first man says.  "I went to Saint Mary's and I graduated in '62, too!"

About that time in comes one of the regulars and sits down at the bar.  "What's been going on?" he asks the bartender.

"Nothing much," replies the bartender. "The O'Malley twins are drunk again."

Happy St. Patrick's Day...! And remember, on St. Patrick's Day, everybody's Irish.

The Tunnel

The human mind is a very strange place, and I can't begin to understand some of the strange things that have happened to me. I am a pragmatic sort of person, and I don't believe in the supernatural, or psychic occurrences, and yet these things keep happening. One day a few years ago I was on an inter-city bus, going to visit my brother who at that time lived in a suburb of Vancouver. As the bus turned a corner a few blocks from his house, I began to feel strange. I had the feeling I was in a speeding car, and I had no control. I began to have a feeling of panic as the car entered a tunnel. My breathing began to quicken and the feeling of panic overwhelmed me. At the next stop, I got off the bus and composed myself, walking for a few minutes and breathing the fresh air.

When I got to my brother's place, the feeling had passed and I was completely myself again. My brother offered me a cup of coffee and a snack, and we chatted, and I felt as if nothing had happened. But the strange event stayed with me, and I could not forget it.

When I got home a few hours later, I switched on the television to see the news report of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, in a tunnel in Paris. With the time difference between Vancouver and Paris, I determined that the accident had happened at precisely the same moment I had had my strange incident on the bus.

I had never felt a connection with Diana, and I wondered why our minds had chosen to connect across the universe at just that moment in time. And then I thought perhaps we are all connected on some level -- with one consciousness. Some of the strange thoughts that pop in and out of our heads may actually be the echoes of other people's thoughts -- a sudden craving for a Crispy Crunch chocolate bar, a piece of music, thoughts of a friend who is just about to phone us, and we pick up the phone knowing who it is. These things happen to us every day, and they remain a mystery to all of us.

Who Do You Think You Are...?

There's a new series on NBC called "Who Do You Think You Are?" based on the popular BBC series that has been running since 2004. The premise of the show is to trace the family trees of celebrities. I have always been interested in genealogy, and I would love to trace my family tree. My mother always claimed her family was descended from French barons and baronesses, and my father always used to counter with, "Well, that makes up for the fact that my family is descended from Irish horse thieves." I think for both of them, the truth lies somewhere in between. As with all families, if we shake our family trees, we will shake out a few famous people, and a few infamous.

Last week's episode featured Sarah Jessica Parker. She was amazed to discover that one of her ancestors was Esther Elwell, her tenth great grandmother, who had been arrested for practicing witchcraft during the Salem Witch trials. Esther, along with two other women, had been accused of performing witchcraft on their neighbor, Mary Fitch, causing her death. However, the date of the deposition, November 8th, 1692, happened after the dissolution of the Court of Oyer and Terminer and her case never went to trial. Esther lived to be 82 years old, and she was the last woman to be accused of witchraft in Salem.

How much of our ancestors' DNA do we inherit? I have always felt a very close affinity with Queen Elizabeth the First. When I read about her, and the time in which she lived, I have a very strong feeling of déjà vu. It's almost as if I can remember things from that period of history. And she was a redhead, and there are a large number of redheads in our family. As well as our physical attributes, are our ancestors' memories encoded in their DNA and passed on to us? If so, what memories are we passing on to our descendants? When Sarah Jessica Parker was learning about her ancestors lives, she felt an emotional connection with them. Does the silver thread that connects us remain unbroken throughout the generations? Are we the sum of our ancestors' lives and experiences? Perhaps we are more closely connected to these strangers than we realize.

Who do you think you are?

Back Soon...

Don't forget to move your clocks forward tonight. I have been uncharacteristically busy the past couple of days, and I do apologize for not having time to respond, or to visit you. I'll be back soon.

Cheers,

Here In The Backwoods

During the recent health care debates in a certain country just south of us -- which country shall remain nameless -- Canada was used as an example of a country with bad health care. The insurance companies in that country south of us don't want folks to know that not only is health care in Canada some of the best in the world, Canadian residents don't have to mortgage their homes or go bankrupt in order to pay for medical procedures, medications or treatment.

I work in the health care system, and I see first-hand how caring the doctors and health care professionals are, and how they will move mountains if necessary to help anyone who needs help. If you think that sounds a bit melodramatic, it's not. I have seen doctors spend hours with patients who have been diagnosed with serious or life-threatening illnesses, making sure the patients get the help they need with medical attention, diagnostic examinations, treatment and even providing outreach workers to help the patients psychologically in addition to their medical help. In British Columbia, a patient can have an x-ray done at a northern outpost, the x-ray can be posted to a grid and read instantly by a radiologist in Vancouver. The same applies to other laboratory and diagnostic tests. And if treatment is required, the patient receives it immediately. There is a province-wide computer network of all patients' medications, so no patient can "doctor shop" for duplications of medications, or inadvertently take medications that have adverse effects on each other. In other words, we have actually progressed from leeches and blood-letting.

So, I was quite pleased to read the following article in today's Vancouver Sun newspaper:

(Vancouver – March 10) Research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine sheds new light on which Hodgkin lymphoma patients are likely to relapse after receiving treatment.

BC Cancer Agency researchers have discovered that the number of macrophages – a type of white blood cell that normally scavenges foreign material – found in a patient’s tumour had a strong correlation to treatment outcome. The greater the number of macrophages; the greater the likelihood of a relapse.

Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer of lymphocytes which typically affects young adults, but can occur at any age. It is a highly treatable form of cancer, with about 75 to 85 percent of patients cured with initial treatment. However, if the first therapy fails, secondary treatment usually includes a bone marrow transplant, which is only successful for about one-half of these cases.

“The study demonstrates that high numbers of macrophages are associated with treatment resistance in Hodgkin lymphoma suggesting a way to identify the 25 percent of patients who currently don’t respond well,” says Dr. Joseph Connors, one of the study researchers and clinical director of the BC Cancer Agency’s Centre for Lymphoid Cancer.

The research was conducted with funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research with additional funding from BC Cancer Agency Centre for Lymphoid Cancer, the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research, the Lymphoma Research Foundation, and the Cancer Research Society of Canada.

In a perfect world, no one would ever get sick, but unfortunately that's not the case. As I have said many times before, I am puzzled as to why a wealthy country like that big country to the south of us has such spotty health care -- two different systems for the haves and the have-nots. We love our cousins to the south; they're Canada's best friends, and we hope they get their health care problem fixed, and we hope they get it right. Whatever works for them is definitely the best solution. And what works in Canada may not work for them, but perhaps we here in the backwoods Canada may have something to show them, if they'll let us.

Cheers,

The Truth Is Out There...

Do you ever have completely insane dreams, and you wake up the next morning and think ... "What the h*ll...?" I have been doing that a lot lately. The other night I dreamt I was in a tsunami. It's sort of a recurring dream, because I was once actually in a tsunami and it was very frightening. Last night I dreamt I was walking along the banks of the Somass River in Port Alberni, and I was with David Duchovny. We were on a high cliff, and I was showing him how crystal clear the water was. He leaned over a little too far, and I said "Careful, don't fall in..." and just at that moment he fell head first over the cliff and into the water. There was a group of people picnicking on the shore, and I hollered at them "Call 911! Call 911!" And then I woke up.

David Duchovny...!?

David Duchovny doesn't cross my mind from one year to the next -- I have never even watched "The X Files" and it was filmed here in Vancouver -- how did he get into my dream? And why were we walking along the banks of the Somass River?

I also dreamt last night that I was caught in a huge blizzard. I had gone shopping for groceries, and while I was in the store, snow had started falling. As I went outside, the wind was howling and the snow was knee deep. I remember trudging across the road thinking, "Why didn't I wear my boots?"

Where do we go when we dream? The scientific explanation for dreams is that the synapses in our brains are processing things that have occurred during the day. In his book "The Interpretation of Dreams", Sigmund Freud once called our dreams, "The royal road to the unconscious." He also said, "... every dream will reveal itself as a psychological structure, full of significance, and one which may be assigned to a specific place in the psychic activities of the waking state." I do believe there is a scientific reason for our dreams. But why for goodness sake was I dreaming about David Duchovny?

The truth is out there...