Winter is Here

I very rarely buy music. I listed to CBC 2 all day. But when I first heard Jeremy Dutcher, I bought an album of his music. I love his voice and how he uses it to advance his culture. He’s a remarkable, earnest and entertaining singer. For his show at Brooklyn’s National Sawdust in September, he wore a special multicolor coat made by French Anishinaabe artist Caroline Monnet. “It was completely woven out of recycled housing materials,” he said. “She wanted to tell a story about the housing crisis. In our communities, housing continues to be an issue, and it has been since the time that my mother was young.”

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I did not talk for the first three hours of yesterday. Finally, though, just after 8:00 I spoke a fluid perfect sentence to Sheba. I had an immediate lift. It seemed to me that I had recovered considerably from the second coming. I’m really thrilled, but I also know that anything could happen with my speech, good or bad, at any time. 

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So, I’m reading and enjoying the latest novel I’m reading (The pIano Tuner), when I got to page 116. Then, the page facing page 116 was numbered 119, that it’s from an entirely different novel set in the United States in modern times. It seems to be a story of farmers and that story coontinues from page 119 to 246, and then, comes page 245 of The Piano Tuner, and the Piano Tuner continues to the end of the story. I paid $25 bucks for parts of 2 different novels. 

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Thrusday was a glorious and sunny day, but it was below zero most of the morning. In the afternoon, it warmed up to 10°, so I got another hour of wood splitting done. It felt great to do it, but it is hard on my back because it is so low on the ground. We may need to build a platform on which to mount it for using it.

I ran into my neighbour, Alwin, who told me the latest about our notorious neighbour. She’s in her 70s, I reckon, and last year she took her dog for a walk, very late in the day, without a flashlight. And she chose to walk on an unfamiliar trail. Well, she got lost and had to spend the night in the massive 707 park. 

The next morning, she found her way home and wrote scathing letters to our newspaper and to the two agencies that husband the park. She became notorious because she blamed everybody but herself. I had a run in with her long ago, and so I avoid her whenever I see her. She’s one of those people who won’t stop talking to you.

On Wednesday evening, she was returning to Gabriola from the big island and she got herself into a set-to with the ferry workers who called the police. Both ferries was delayed for an house because of her. She was taken into custody and not released until today.

I feel for her. I reckon that she has a mental health issue and it’s causing her to make unfortunate decisions. She could be in the beginning stages of frontal lobe dementia, judging from the way she’s acting. 

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Damn! I wish the CBC would leave Buffy St. Marie alone. The woman is 82 years old and she’s a champion. She is not someone who, late in life, adopted a false personal history for gain like other Pseudo Indians. I’m deeply sad for her and I’m angry with the CBC’s Fifth Estate, even if their story is true.