This week the St. Catharines Standard ran an editorial about a Mom whose daughter has cancer.

(Barbie worst role model when battle’s life or death, Mon., Jan 12, 2012)

The Mother is putting pressure on Mattel Toy Company to make a bald Barbie.  She figures that it will be a doll with which her daughter will be able to identify.

She has started a face book page and is evidently getting quite a lot of support.

The editor was appalled by the idea.

I was appalled, too.

At first.

Then I remembered the day that I executed Betsy Wetsy.

It happened in my bedroom when I was seven.

I marched her right up the imaginary scaffold and put the noose around her neck and let her drop.

I can’t remember if BW had any last words.

She dangled and swayed in mid air while I changed roles from cruel executioner to sorrowful family member.

Blumpy, my stuffed elephant, and I sobbed piteously.

I remember being so satisfied with the performance, that poor Betsy Wetsy was executed several more times that day.

Play is the work that children do to help make sense of their world.

And sometimes the world can be a dark place.

Bald Barbie might not be a bad idea.

This week the St. Catharines Standard ran an editorial about a Mom whose daughter has cancer.

(Barbie worst role model when battle’s life or death, Mon., Jan 12, 2012)

The Mother is putting pressure on Mattel Toy Company to make a bald Barbie.  She figures that it will be a doll with which her daughter will be able to identify.

She has started a face book page and is evidently getting quite a lot of support.

The editor was appalled by the idea.

I was appalled, too.

At first.

Then I remembered the day that I executed Betsy Wetsy.

It happened in my bedroom when I was seven.

I marched her right up the imaginary scaffold and put the noose around her neck and let her drop.

I can’t remember if BW had any last words.

She dangled and swayed in mid air while I changed roles from cruel executioner to sorrowful family member.

Blumpy, my stuffed elephant, and I sobbed piteously.

I remember being so satisfied with the performance, that poor Betsy Wetsy was executed several more times that day.

Play is the work that children do to help make sense of their world.

And sometimes the world can be a dark place.

Bald Barbie might not be a bad idea.

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday I bumped into an old acquaintance.  He and his wife are still very active in their church. 

I don’t mean to imply that they are old when I say they are still very active in their church, I mean that unlike me, they never got fed up and left.

 He invited me to give him a call and join their congregation one Sunday to see what they are all about.

“Well,” I said, “I’d love to find a church that is inclusive and progressive.”

“Oh yes, we are certainly that!” he said. 

As we were chatting he told me how much better their church had become since they got rid of their last  minister. 

It seems the minister married a secretary.

I was puzzled for a moment.

“Oh!” I finally got it. “You mean she married another woman!”

“Exactly!” he said.

Maybe it is because I was always too neurotic or self absorbed or insecure to find a husband for myself and I know how lonely being unattached can be,

or maybe it is because I now have two good friends who are lesbians, (The Gay Month of June 6/2/11),  

or maybe it’s because a few of my favourite relatives are gay

or maybe it is just the damned injustice of it all,

but I have to tell you, as much as I have a yearning to go back to church and be a part of a spiritual community I won’t be calling him.

And I wonder when Christians will actually hear Christ’s message.

.

The future of the Liberal Party of Canada that is.

My apologies for using a link. 

I really have not been able to figure out how to upload my scratches to tumblr…

(Source: dat-asterisk)

We were called back to the hospital at midnight yesterday but by 1 a.m. my 87 year old father had stablized.

Awake again at 5:30 a.m. I puttered around, waiting for another call from the hospital.

At about 9 I went out for groceries, clutching my cell phone.

The lady in the check out line ahead of me had a three year old red-headed son with her. 

I guess it was the hair, I suddenly remembered my red-haired Dad telling me how humiliating it was during the Depression to have to go to school in a shirt made out of a sack. 

The worst part was the fact that every button on his shirt was a different size and colour.

I put my sunglasses on and hurried out of the store.

When I left the hospital tonight my 87 year old father whispered, “I heard you crying. Don’t be upset when I die. I’ve had a good life, a good wife, a good family. Who could have asked for more?”