History not always what we want: BC, the Olympics and my bowels

The good news is that my fever has broken, five days and counting! The somewhat bad news is that I have not been boxing and got to read the exciting notes from the teleconference on ‘bowel maintenance.’ The most unusual suggestion was a Carbon Dioxide enema, you literally put a CO2 canister at your anus, and um, blow. It is only recommended for those who have high level breaks as the bloating is significant, and like the saying: when the trumpet sounds, all come out!

OW! It hurts me to think about. The presenter seem confused that it was not marketed or sold to the SCI community but to the gay community, hence a difficulty getting a supplier. (eye roll)

As for me, I have increased my water intake to 2 liters a day, and that with a mild daily irritant and grape juice does the deed. It is hard enough to manage to find time and energy to eat meals but I don’t dare get dehydrated.

Great Jumping Goat of Ghenna! Is that what the blog has been reduced to: my bowel reports! I know I wanted to narrate my life and disease but if I find the whole ‘regimen with a gun at my head’ tiresome, how worse to listen to it! Here, join Zheleznovodsk, Russia’s Bronze monument to the enema, and the slogan, “Let’s beat constipation…”

So, turn up the juice…let’s talk um…..clean ceilings.

A friend visited over a weekend and helped us with the physical things I could not do, helped Linda with that and one was cleaning the bathroom, including bleaching the ceilings. Here they are in all the glory! Linda went around happy for several days in a time when things seemed very much out of control going, “Clean Ceilings.” Also, though hard work (mostly our Linda and our friend), we found that we have a living room again, one I can wheel in and out of. And in a promo offer we are watching the Olympics, at times, hooked up to basic cable. It will go when the Olympics do, as I can see that commercials have not changed for the better in the last 10 years. It actually makes the dog food commercial of the little chuck wagon going around on the floor seem quite clever (that usually showed up during Bonanza!). I promised Linda that we would watch…..ice skating. No, no, not the speed or endurance skating I WANTED to watch but the figure skating. We saw the men’s routines and the narration was well, surreal. There is a guy who is obviously gay (OBVIOUSLY CAMP also like blowing kissing and giving little hand at shoulder finger waggle waves) in a country where it is LEGAL to marry so why not come out and be GAY. He is wearing a boa, fur, satin and sparkles and the Television commentators are talking like this is a boxing match and how he has come here to ‘stomp’ skater X and how ‘I hear he has been doing some ‘trash talking’ and today we will see if he has brought his game face.’ – what? This isn’t pro-wrestling! Don't mistake me, I WANT gay and out men and women - what is the point of having the all the rights and protections then having the 'hetero games'. He did quite well, blew kisses to his mom, cried and will probably win a medal. It is just annoying that we don’t hear about his partner or future plans but how he will ‘shove those skates in the face of his rival’. Wha?
Apparently this guy, who pinged my gaydar is not gay or has a 'beard' (is dating a female), he just likes to crossdress, like so many North American males (over 10% heterosexuals do it regularly!). Not gay, though he has feather gloves which he says 'match the music' - the music, 'the Firebird' is a typical ice skating piece for the female ice skaters, a first Olympic use for men in medal competition I think. Oh, a classic case of the dudes raiding our closet again. Plus he is the tallest ice skater in the Olympics, so you think that outfit or gloves are going to fit again when he has stretched them out? Oh wait, he bought this, so that is okay as they are going into some US Hall of Fame probably. Also probably next to a sign saying, "We are Americans: we get Gold.... and we are straight!"

I am not proud to be Canadian or from BC. Our commercials show a white only society, or one which lacks the true complexity which exists. We put up the Jason Hunt's Kwagiulth Killer Whale carving with the lighting, having found the right place for it, so that we can enjoy it frequently. That carving is part of BC history and culture, and so is the whole story of how our Christian Nuns and Priests destroyed the Potlatch, burned the carvings and masks. British Columbia history is also how the Grey Nuns built the hospital I was born in.

Despite the crackdown, Jason Hunt’s grandfather was a handful of men who had been taught, in secret, the carvings, as they were done originally, unique to that nation. He taught others at the Royal BC Museum Carving Shed. That the Haida, frequently portrayed in the B.C. commercials, due to famous art, did slave runs each year down the coast of this island is our history too. Jason’s Kwagiulth nation had a treaty: greet, lodge and feed and they don’t get taken as slaves. The Killer whale dance was the dance which welcomed the Haida canoes, the same dance Jason and his brother danced at Potlatches. The revolt of the Haida carvers in the 1930’s against the Christian influence to ‘normalize’ the carving by changing them to 'acceptable', tourist shapes by denying the argillite stone unless traditional carvings were made is BC history. So is Jason’s carving. The image must reflect only the Kwaguilth image and was inspected by his father, as his grandfather inspected his father’s carvings. The wood to make this carving came from Kwagiulth cedar and it represents his skill as a carver, and the continuation of the Kwagiulth art. We are only those who keep the art until the next generation.

B.C. history is complex, and does not show up in a 30 second commercial of white people smiling going, “Hey, Super…Natural….BC!” We are a Province of draft dodgers from Vietnam (and entire island up the main island a bit), of a dying forest industry, of strange leaders (one Premier decided to spend millions giving everyone a bible and lived in a theme park), and ancient beauty. Where else can you travel on a 50 year old ferry and see pods of killer whales, seals, sea lions, or grey whales? I live where I can see an bald eagle fly over me (and do!), and cougars still wander into town (tranq and sent up island!).

My town has the oldest China Town in BC and yet it, along with almost everything was and still is fighting against being wiped out by developers. The workers who tore down the heritage house across the street are now doing drilling and working on digging up the street so I don’t get a lot of sleep. My city has the highest rate of child abuse in the country. We could change it….but we don’t. The Anglican church in the ‘lower town’ opened a homeless shelter in the basement until a lawsuit by the store owners made them close it. the Anglican Cathedral church in the ‘upper town’ has a manse, a school, and refuses to feed the homeless, lest they hang around. It does however have opera society shows for $20 a ticket. We were the route for three gold rushes, we told US Blacks during the civil war to come to this city, then ended up putting them off on the north point of Salt Spring island, until almost all left or died. We were the end port of the Sea/rail journey from the UK for hundreds of thousands of immigrants taking the ships to New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. We were the end of the line for tens of thousands of orphans, including my own grandfather. That is a fraction of BC. The histories of this new and old land are still mixing, and will for some generations to come.

History isn’t always what we want it to be, the fact that store owners and lumber mills made far more than miners ever did in the California or Yukon Gold Rushes isn’t the dream, but it is the reality. Indeed, we have the California gold rush to thank for Instant Coffee. James Folger came to San Francisco to the Gold rush and didn’t dig, he made...instant coffee. Folgers’ Coffee, sold in a brick, was something that could be carried easily over rough terrain and sold for high value when eggs were going for $10 at the mining camps. Folgers also sold tea, it is just the Coffee did better.
They say that North Americans made the worst coffee in the world, constant brew with egg whites thrown in to keep the particles on the bottom of the kettle of your camp or farm coffee. I remember, as a child, friends of my grandfather throwing in the egg shells (mostly because I had an odd habit of eating the egg shells too – and they would tell me to ‘leave some for the coffee’) in the ever going coffee pot. Instant Coffee – is history. I wouldn’t mind seeing a commercial of some guy with a tooth missing holding some camp coffee, throwing in egg shells and pouring this black, brackish liquid and going, “Super…..BC!” – because it is the British Columbia I know.

Today, down in James Bay, there are three coffee houses (two 'independent'), and the beans are fine roasted and from places even I haven’t heard of (Did you know that Juan Valdez and his donkey were actually CREATED by the coffee board so the US would have the slightest idea WHERE coffee came from – Brazil, and who grew it). Brazil figured if Americans knew where the coffee came from they would buy more – it worked. For years, a nosy Swedish woman, Ms. Olsen, advised wives on how to make their husbands happy, “Mountain Grown” – the longest running single ad campaign in history).

Apparently the commercial is 40 years olds, yet that’s the way men and women are SUPPOSED to behave, so says the Olympics (except male ice skaters). Take it from Mrs. Olsen!