Thanks to my wonderful Chinese-Canadian first cousins, I have learned much about Chinese-Canadian culture and history – which is also mine. It has only been since the end of the Second World War that our ancesters, originally from across the sea, were able to become Canadian citizens in a country where many of them were…

Those with severe mental/emotional disorders can relate to an opression similar to that of racism. Bullying by authority and others has always been rampant toward the mentally ill and those in the throes of drugs and alcohol addiction. I recall seeing a drunken indigenous person being thrown into a paddy wagon years ago. The door…

BRAIN CHEMICAL DISORDERS by Doris Ray [ this was a series of blogs several of which were published in the book “Making Noise: Northern Women, Caring & In/visible Dis/abilities” edited by Si Transken & Lynn Box of Prince George BC in 2007] On Being a Mother Sometimes I think we mothers have no control at…

[Note: the book is categorized as “Fictionalized Biography” but the following incident is from an interview I had with my uncle in 2007. His mother (my grandmother) had worked as a care aide at Royal Jubilee Hospital in Victoria where she contacted the disease] I never met my grandmother but I like this story! “….For…

Oh my gosh! I am low on those so-called ‘single use’ plastic grocery bags! My cute cloth bag made by Elaine W for storing grocery bags is almost empty. I use grocery bags to keep lettuce, etc fresh in the fridge; to contain garbage (if the bag is leak-proof) and for umpteen other household things.…

This was posted on Facebook this morning by someone who knows about love and has experienced grief. It was written by Tim Ofield. “I wish I could say you get used to people dying. I never did. I don’t want to. It tears a hole through me whenever somebody I love dies, no matter the…

From a “Queenagers” Persepective Now that I’ve reached the Age of Consent no one asks my permission anymore. Actually, it’s freeing. I am a person. Not a female, nor a male. Just me. I don’t need the approval or consent of anyone. Except my kids. And they are mostly too busy or too far away…

MY ANGIOGRAM ADVENTURE Angiogram…?? Sounds like a message that once came by wire, Delivered by someone In formal attire. Important wording about something dire, From the Prime Minister or perhaps even higher? Maybe it was from the Queen, Commemorating me for being…. Alive? But a hospital gown was my realization, With doctors and nurses in…

A Poem a Day Project “It’s taken me years to begin searching, to realise that the days are not linear, that time does not simply move forward but spirals closer and closer to a shifting center…” (From “Do Not Say We Have Nothing” by Madeleine Thier”) Why does time so quickly pass When old we…

A Poem a Day Project Happiness is learning your Windows 7 Laptop which had morphed into a Windows 10, thereby developing new digital muscles that act agressively against anything Google, has been tamed; calmed to the point where I can get online without the knashing of teeth and pulling of hair….(mine)