O Canada.

Watching the Parliament Hill shooting aftermath yesterday, I was filled with horror, sorrow, and rage.

Mostly what's left now is rage.

I like what Rex Murphy has to say.




And in case you ever wondered what an action hero really looks like, here's Kevin Vickers for you.

 


I feel at loose ends. I wish Ottawa were not so far away because my impulse is to go there. I'd like to wear my red and white, and walk through the grounds and talk to other Canadians on the same pilgrimage.

But I can't do that. So I went to the Cenotaph today, wearing the Remembrance Day poppy that the Veterans sent in the mail, and laid a bouquet in thanks for the two soldiers killed this week, and for the heroic action of the Sergeant at Arms.

I can't really do anything, but I can be something: I can be all the things that Canada promises. Free in my choice of religion, free in my choice of lifestyle.

I probably won't ever be called upon to physically defend my country, but if that strange day should somehow arrive I would be glad to pay Canada back with anything and with everything.

God keep our land.

Disrespectful and Juvenile

Seen the new Playtex ads?

Clever? Yes. Amusing? Sure.

Harmless? No.

The one good thing I can say (besides "nice nature photography") is that they at least deal out the body shame fairly between the genders. But men don't have a long complicated history of their genitals being labelled unclean, disgusting, smelly, and a turn-off. As far as being bombarded by media images designed to make a person feel that they are physically undesirable in their natural state, men are new to the game.

These print ads are in magazines, such as Glamour, that target young women. These young women deserve better than this hurtful propaganda.

If you want to give feedback to Playtex on this subject, the easiest way is to leave a comment on their Facebook promo page. It may be more effective, though, to complain to the magazines carrying the ads (probably many, but I only know of 3 - Glamour, Shape, and Sports Illustrated). If a magazine gets enough negative feedback on an ad, they don't run it anymore, and they don't pay for it. Maybe Playtex pulls the campaign.

Given the state of the culture we live in, I don't expect much; but I am hoping, nonetheless.

Argh! You self-involved BIGOT!

I've just seen "The Help". It was all right - kind of racially simplistic but I like stories about women, so I liked it fine.

BUT: watching the extra features is where the whole thing gets ugly. The author of the book refers to her inspiration, which apparently struck her in the year 2001 - actually on September 11, when in her shock and horror over the World Trade Centre attack, she really wanted to go home to -- get this -- the arms of her maid. [!!!!] She says something like "For 35 years I never saw Demitri [her family's maid] out of her uniform until she was in her casket. Then I started wondering 'what was she thinking all those years?'"

YOU NARCISSIST.

You never thought about what she was thinking all those years? It never occurred to you that she had a life other than serving YOU?? We are talking about RECENT HISTORY here, folks! Recent. Look at how she says those two sentences. "I never saw her out of her uniform" and then "I started wondering what she was thinking." Then -- THEN -- this woman goes on to write a smug, tearjerking glurge novel about what she thinks it might have been like for these black women in Mississippi, totally immersing herself in this greased-lens 1963 South, wherein black people are all 'Lawdy, lawdy, I done made y'all some crispy friiied chicken, Miss Ceee-lya." And when they get sassy to their bitchy Junior League employers we're all meant to nod self-righteously and clap, and admire their quaint accents, and think smugly to ourselves about how times have changed and isn't it so nice, aren't black people so funny and boy, those Southern folks sure used to be racist and ignorant.

The producer, a guy about 40 years old, at the most, has just said "I didn't grow up then [the '60s] but the social structure [when I was growing up] was largely the same." Are you telling me in that in the South white people STILL have black maids which they keep in their service for a lifetime, who are entrusted with raising their employers' children, and whose thoughts nobody even bothers to wonder about? Guess so.

What have the last 40 years been about, anyhow?!


APPARENTLY TIMES HAVEN'T CHANGED ALL THAT MUCH.

That...that's just....man, that sucks.

**caution - disgusting photo in this post**

***second caution - my language is about to get very Saxon***


I'm making turkey vegetable soup for dinner tonight. It's a proper January day: miserable, with a chilly relentless rain, a dark and leaden sky. It has been 2 degrees above zero all day.

January it may be, but in this coastal climate my garden herbs are still flourishing. I put on my wellies and headed out into the wet, a pair of scissors in hand, to snip a few stalks of dark green, rich-smelling thyme, and some spiky, rain-beaded rosemary.

Pretty, isn't it? Still alive, just sleeping.

Then I saw this.

I'm sorry my friends, but I have to use this word. I know it's a rude one, but this is a rude situation.

It's dog shit.

Dog shit right on my beautiful, majestic, English thyme.

To get this in perspective for you, this dog (not my dog, by the way) has shat, somehow, ten inches off the ground. This dog -- this accursed, ill-bred, malicious, and apparently acrobatic dog -- has managed to cover 30% of a large thyme plant with a squashy, soft, smelly, slippery, creamy grey mound of shit.

This is not a low-lying ground cover, my friends. This is a large, potted, three-year-old English thyme.

Moreover, this is a food plant. I cannot simply scrape it off, give it a good hosing, and let it carry on.

I have taken pruners and excised the thyme that Cerberus befouled, and of course prudence demanded that I take every last little bit of plant which may have been actually shat on, which may have bent to graze the enormous grey slippery shit in the wind storms which have ravaged for the past month, or which the winter rains may have dripped onto, having first been puddled on top of the shit. There was a lot, my people...enough to completely fill a large plastic grocery bag. To fill it with shit and thyme.

There's a poem in there somewhere.

To the person whose dog jumped my fence, wandered my backyard and shat on my English thyme, shame on you. Shame on you and your whelp of Satan.

Exercise a high degree of caution

I wasn't going to even comment on the Sandy Hooks thing. It's all a bit much for a nice peaceful, artsy, family-oriented Canadian blog.

But I've gotten a bit upset about it.

And something has just occurred to me.

I think the Canadian government should post a travel advisory about visiting the US, similar to the ones they use for countries like Mexico, Bahrain, and Lebanon. It should read something like this:


There is no nationwide advisory in effect for the United States. However, you should exercise a high degree of caution due to the threat of unpredictable terrorist attacks in public spaces. Be aware that there is anti-Canadian sentiment in places, especially northern regions close to the Canada/US border. Be aware that there are 90 guns for every 100 people in the US.

Or maybe this -- just to keep it simple:

Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada advises against non-essential travel to the United States due to heightened tensions and crime.

Then again, it's probably not necessary - aside from the occasional shooting of a Canadian customs officer, gun-toting Americans seem to stick to murdering their own people rather than ours. If you're a Canadian, just don't go to any movie theatres. Or malls. Or elementary schools. You know - the usual spots where bullets fly.


ACTUAL QUOTES I'VE SEEN ONLINE SINCE THE SANDY HOOKS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL MASSACRE:

1) We (the US) should remove all gun regulations so everybody can have them, not just criminals. [Adam Lanza wasn't a criminal. He was an Everybody. So was James Eagan Holmes. Bet you any money, the next psycho who opens fire at a group of moviegoers or innocent little kids will be, too.]
2) One well-placed firearm at Sandy Hook could have prevented the entire slaughter. [Unless, y'know, the well-placed-firearm carrier was down the hall at the time. But hey - more guns in schools is a great idea! Then the kids can be caught in cross-fire as well as just regular fire. That's what they need - MORE bullets to dodge. A bunch of kindergartners at the O.K. fucking Corral.]
3) Guns don't kill people, people kill people. [Yup, they do. With guns.] You can kill somebody with a ball-point pen, too - why not make THOSE illegal? [You're right. You might find it hard to kill 26 women and children in 10 minutes with a ball-point pen, though. Maybe you could get them to stand really still?]


American culture is violent and it glorifies violence*. The weird thing is how shocked we still are when violence happens.
*CAUTION: link to disturbing, mainstream images

So in six months' time, when some Everybody, regular Joe, I-don't-understand-it-he-always-seemed-so-normal American gets tired of the Canadians taking over the CostCo parking lot in Bellingham and brings his Bushmaster assault rifle, or his Gluck handgun, or whatever, and opens fire on Punjabi Canadians who are trying to buy milk (THOSE BASTARDS HOW DARE THEY), I for one won't be surprised.

Maybe we should all rethink our Nexus card renewals, and use our purchasing dollars to boost the economy in our own, gentle, country.

O Canada. Thank you for everything.

'Hop's' Epic Fail

It's Good Friday. You want some family time, and it's a long weekend, and those hot cross buns are sitting kind of heavy, so you think "I know what I'll do! I'll rent Hop." After all, it's a cute little family Easter movie to watch with the kiddies while you pop Mini Eggs and marshmallow bunnies, right?

NO.

Why?

Here's why.

There's the poor little wandering Easter Bunny, just looking for a place to stay for the night. See the gates behind him?

Yes, that's right: he thought he'd try the Playboy Mansion - after all, the guidebook says "home of sexy bunnies", and he is - to use his own words - "incredibly sexy". He has a little conversation over the intercom with Hugh Hefner about whether or not he qualifies.

"They wouldn't understand anyway," says my husband in response to my ranting in the kitchen afterwards. And will the preschool/school-age target audience for this movie know what "Playboy" is? Of course not. This is one of those adult-themed jokes that children's entertainers seem to think obligatory these days. It's like a snide little wink over the tops of the kids' heads.

But when my eight year old sees some idiot's bunny-with-bowtie mudflaps on the back of their pickup in the Thrifty Foods parking lot, she is going to think to herself, "Oh, that's from Hop!" And she will give a little smile and think about candy and laughs and good times.

That's called "branding", and it's one of the hottest marketing concepts of our time. We've all heard about the study involving preschoolers, where they recognise the golden arches. (Actually, our kids have a lot more imprinting than just McDonald's - this is worth a quick read.)

Playboy is just as recognisable a brand as any other. It's one of the original pioneers - if you can call it that - in an industry that is now worth 12 billion dollars a year in the US alone.

And hell - we're advertising to kids already, right? Give them a few years and they won't be kids anymore - they'll be adults: fully integrated consumers...might as well start prepping them now to contribute to that 12 billion dollars a year. Know how much income tax that generates?

And we haven't even talked about the gender issues yet. You can buy t-shirts for little girls that say "Future Porn Star" - you can buy thongs for little girls. And then there are the men's jeans whose care tags read "Give it to your woman: It's her job".

I thought we had come a long way, but I might be wrong. The pendulum seems to be swinging back, and my daughters are growing up in an age where they will learn their place as sex objects, no matter what I do about it.

Last night I had a dream that I was at a party where I was the only one who didn't want to eat the tarantula cheesecake. Huge black tarantulas, with red bits on their legs, crushed up and mixed with the sugar, the eggs, the cream cheese, and the melted chocolate. Horrifying, disgusting, unpalatable, sinister, and probably harmful - in a deliciously sweet and silky dessert.

Because that way, it goes down pretty easily.

Innocence Lost

Want to know a few ugly facts about your backyard?

1. Each year in America, an estimated 100,000 children are sexually exploited.*
2. Human trafficking is currently the second largest criminal industry in the world, netting over $43 billion each year.
3. The average age of entry into prostitution in the US is 12-13 years.

Are you feeling skeptical? Of course you are, because you'd probably rather not believe it. I feel the same way.

A few days ago I was contacted by Child Rescue, an organisation committed to ending the exploitation of children by predators. I spoke on the phone with Lindsay Hadley, the Executive Director of Child Rescue, and she asked me whether I would be willing to post about an upcoming event that the organisation has coordinated. It's a training event for law enforcement officers, to equip them to recognise child exploitation or human trafficking situations in the field, and to manage victims and prosecute cases effectively.

This workshop is coming up soon - June 1, 2011, 14 days from now. The administration costs and the event fees are all covered by corporate sponsors, but individual officers who wish to attend (some from Canada) will have travel expenses not covered by their policing organisations.

It's strange that such a horrifying activity, which we'd like to think of as a "Them" problem - affecting people in other places, other countries - gets next to no press in North America. It seems there is an overwhelming apathy when it comes to protecting our children - strange in a culture where parents are increasingly hovering and paranoid. It's a weird dichotomy.

I'm asking you to click over to Child Rescue, read about their organisation and their mission and, if you are able, to consider donating, or sponsoring a police officer to attend the training. It's not likely that you or I will ever be in a position to offer first-hand help to the victims of child sexual exploitation, but these officers could potentially encounter these children every week while on the job. I think the least we can do is help prepare them for what they'll need to do....for where they'll have to go, and what they'll have to see.

Child Rescue main page. (Click on "Make a Donation" or "Donate $3 a week", upper right.)

Law Enforcement Sponsoring page.

-------------------------------
If you have a blog, you can get a button from the Child Rescue blog (see my sidebar) to send people their way, and raise awareness.

-------------------------------
* Statistics from childrescue.org

Argh

When I got up this morning at 5:15, unable to sleep any more for wondering what the dress looked like, I discovered that my PVR didn't record the Royal Wedding. I'm devastated...I will have to watch the highlight show like some sort of yob.

Oh, HELL no.

Leaving the dollar store today, I saw a minivan parked up against the curb, with no one in sight except a toddler in a car seat in the back. This is something you notice a lot more when you're a parent with young children - you hesitate near the car, peer inside, and then usually a harassed-looking mother, standing within about 15 feet, will lean out of the gas station/convenience store/phone booth and call out "I'm right here, don't worry."

This time, nobody was around. I waited for a minute and went inside to the cashier (staying within sight of the vehicle) and asked her if there was any security staff. "No," she said, taken aback, "but there's mall security - why do you need it?" Just as I was explaining the situation, a woman came through the other cash register, left the store, and got into the van. "Oh," the cashier said excusingly, "she only came in here to return something." (That makes it okay, then.)

I left the store and, by coincidence, followed the minivan through the parking lot to the grocery store at the end of the mall. The van pulled into a space, and I parked a couple of rows away, deciding to leave a note on the windshield when they went into the store, telling her that I had seen her leave the child alone, and that she was lucky I didn't call the cops.

As I rummaged for a pen she got out of the car, gestured towards Thrifty Foods and said something to the child, then to my utter shock she left the child in the backseat, and walked into the store.

"OH HELL NO." I said loudly to myself. I went over to the van, and as I approached I could hear the child crying her eyes out.

Before the mother came back out, I had time to stand there dumbfounded, accost a passer-by for her mobile phone, call Mr HSB to get the non-emergency police number (no answer at my house), call 911 and give all the information, then wait for several minutes longer, listening to the little girl sobbing for her mother.

She came out of the store after 7 or 8 minutes...by now I was in a towering rage and I let her have it with both barrels. "I suggest you wait for the police to get here - I've called 911 about the toddler you left in your van."

"What?!"

"You heard me. You might as well wait for the police since they're on their way."

"How dare you! You don't know anything about me!"

"I know one thing about you - you left a toddler alone in a vehicle. How old is that child?"

"She's three! And she's fine!" And then again, "You don't know anything about me! You don't know what kind of person I am!"

"I know exactly what kind of person you are. You are the kind of person who leaves her child alone in a car twice in one afternoon - I followed you here from the dollar store and you did the same thing there."

"How dare you!" she gasps.

"Do you know how long it takes someone to steal a car? Thirty seconds. You were in that store for more than FIVE MINUTES." (I'm nearly shouting now.)

"It was locked!" (She's shouting right back at me.)

"Tell it to the police. You left that child in the car, which is both ILLEGAL and WRONG, and you KNOW it's wrong: that's why you're so mad."

"Do YOU even have any children?" she asks me, as though she thinks that if I had, I wouldn't mind what she has just done.

"Yes I do," I replied coolly, "I have two. And they are supervised at all times."

I thought she was going to punch me for that one.

She gets the child out of the car, so I stop talking. She's holding the little girl now, and we stand there for a few minutes waiting for the cops. The daughter says, "Why are we standing here?"

"Because this lady thinks....thinks I'm mean to you."

I don't say anything - it's not my place to make a mom look bad in front of her child...not that this chick needs my help looking bad.

"I'm calling my husband," she suddenly says. She puts the child back into the vehicle and climbs into the driver's seat. "Hi, it's me.....I was at the store and I left Nora* in the car for thirty seconds and I come out and this lady is screaming at me that she's called the cops.........I don't know!........no, just a lady in the parking lot........now the cops are coming and this is ALL YOUR FAULT IF I HADN'T HAD TO COME DOWN HERE FOR YOUR STUPID TAPE NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED!!!!" (She's in the car sobbing and I am standing at the rear bumper, watching for the cruiser, arms crossed, the picture of "WHEREVER THERE'S INJUSTICE, I'LL BE THERE!", trying not to have inappropriate laughter at this 'tape' remark.)

She hangs up, gets out of the car and comes up to me, tear-stained but defiant. "My husband says I should go home so I'm leaving. If the cops want to talk to me they can come to my house."

"Sure," I say politely.

"I'm sure you have my license plate number," she says scornfully.

"Yep," I reply.

And off she goes.

Here's where it gets interesting. I stood there in that parking lot, waiting, for nearly an hour. Not a sign of a police cruiser anywhere (though an ambulance came to the parking lot - and the attendants went in and came out with bagels and Pom, and a fire truck came by on its way to the salmon barbecue fundraiser in the next block).

Finally I marched into the grocery store, politely requested the phone book, and got the girl to dial the non-emergency police number. By this time all my anger was completely displaced onto the RCMP. Here's what I said when they answered.

"Hi. I can hardly hear you, by the way. Look, I phoned 911 nearly an hour ago about a toddler left alone in a vehicle in the parking lot of Thrifty Foods. The mom came out, I had words with her, and she has left, and I am still standing here waiting for you. Are you coming, or what?"

"Oh, uh, yes, uh, hang on a second...Yes, the car assigned to you got held up with another situation, but he's on his way now."

"So, I should stay here and talk to him? Because I have been here for an hour. If I had called the SPCA about a dog in a car, they'd have been here in fifteen minutes." (You should have seen the faces on the people in the nearby lineups, listening to this conversation.)

"Uh........yes he's on his way now."

"Good. Thank you."

He did show up, eventually, and heard the whole story. I told him, "She might tell you I was screaming at her, but I wasn't. She asked me if I had children and I said yes, I had two, and that they were always supervised....I think that was a little inflammatory. But I wasn't screaming."

"No, that's okay," he said, shaking his head, "I'LL scream at her. I'm going to call the Ministry and we'll go to her house."

"Yeah, put the fear of God into her," I said, "hopefully she'll be scared to do it again."

He did apologise for keeping me waiting - citing "limited resources", if you can believe it - and I think he was taken aback when I said "Yes, I understand you have other situations I'm not aware of, that you have to prioritise. I am concerned, though, because there was a child involved and it did take you an hour to get here."

I was fairly polite and respectful, though - aware, as I am, that cheeking the police can get you into serious trouble.

As loth as I am to be the instrument of someone's family drama, I am even more loth to stand by while this kind of crap goes on. As a parent of young children, you DO see this stuff - you see little two year old dudes wandering around WalMart trying to find their mums, or a little guy burning around the aisles of the grocery store, laughing like a maniac all by himself. But you usually see, or hear, a parent rushing around calling "Austin! AuSTIN!" And, if you're like me, you follow the kid around, at a non-threatening distance, until he gets reunited with his parent.

Leaving a toddler alone in a car, with one window three inches down, for nearly ten minutes, outside two stores......that is not happening.

---------------
* I changed all the names and locations.

I hardly know what to say

Dear Criminal Who Stole My Bike:

I hate you.

Sincerely,
Shannon


Dear Asshat BikeThief:

You hurt my feelings and almost made me cry.

From Shannon


Dear Parasite:

I hope the bad juju from my STOLEN saddle gives you hemorrhoids.

Shannon


Dear Lazy SOB:

Get a job and buy your own bike like I had to do.

Shannon


Dear Poo Stain:

I hate you for swiping my bike and forcing me to drive my car for every stupid errand I ever have to run, and hence to get fat.

Shannon


Dear Stupid Idiot:

If I ever see you riding my bike I am going to walk straight over and feed you a knuckle sandwich so hard you will be crapping teeth for a month.

Shannon


Dear Cancerous Polyp on the Anus of Humanity:

I hope no one ever knits you anything as long as you live.

Shannon

Woman Against.

Edit:

All's well that ends well



although he hasn't finished with the rocks yet...there are three still to be passed. I have to watch for them. Goodie.

===============

Two things happened to me today.

I refused to turn a blind eye.
and
I realised I love my dog.

Poor little Piper started having some problems this afternoon. He was acting funny: weak-legged and faint, he staggered around the yard listlessly, drooling copiously and crying actual tears out of his eyes. He wouldn't eat and he kept retching up water. When he started having a bit of diarrhea I phoned the vet and took him down.

I was afraid it was Canine Distemper Virus. I looked at the symptom list online and saw that he had all but one - the fever. The timeline for CDV didn't really match up, but since the breeder had told us that he didn't have his full immunity until his second shots (which were scheduled for next week), I was paranoid.

First of all, I have obviously been spoiled by the beautiful and wondrous thing that is the Canadian Health Care System (although I did get a $57 ambulance bill once when my daughter and I were taken to hospital following a cataclysmic car wreck), because when the vet told me it was going to cost $300 just to DIAGNOSE the problem, I almost fell over sideways.

After some bloodwork (all perfectly normal) and some x-rays (perfectly NOT normal) they phoned to tell us that he had been eating something he shouldn't have.

Our puppy is basically a warm, furry bag full of rocks.

Thankfully, in the course of nature the rocks have already begun to return to the outside world. There is no blockage. HOWEVER, the poor little thing is dehydrated and has a very irritated and inflamed GI tract, so he has been HOSPITALISED FOR THE NIGHT to be administered IV FLUIDS AND ANTIBIOTICS.

So here we are at 10.00 PM, and the house is quiet. We had the sliding doors between the kitchen and the living room open tonight because there was no little furry, foxy muzzle poking around the corner looking for his chance to bolt out of his puppy-proof area. I left my shoes right inside the back door, with no fears that they will be reduced to a few fragments of damp, shredded canvas.

And you know what? I miss him. I miss him a lot. I am worrying about my poor little pupster, separated from his family and stuck in the animal hospital overnight, where he will probably be bullied into doing the bigger dogs' chores and have his, you know, kibble money taken or whatever. Alternatively, he'll cry through the night and be convinced, by tomorrow, that he'll never see his family again. In the morning he'll be practising his hitchhiking technique and tying his few meager possessions into a bandanna on the end of a stick.

Seriously, I'm so anxious...do you think he'll be okay?

And when I go to pick him up tomorrow afternoon I'm going to let him lick my pewter inukshuk necklace as much as he wants to, and I'm going to let him have Lean Cuts for breakfast AND supper.

===============

Okay, now the not-so-nice part.

I was sitting on a sunny bench outside a local elementary school today, reading "A Thread of Grace" and waiting for my daughter's Guide meeting to finish. Suddenly I heard banging and yelling coming from a house a few doors down the street, then a woman screaming. I looked up to see a man forcing his way into the house, shouting something I couldn't hear. Through the front window I could see a woman leaning against the door trying to keep him out. She was crying "No!! No, don't!! Get out!" He pushed her backwards into the house. I could still hear her screaming.

I immediately reached for my cellphone and called 911, just as I heard another male voice shout "Get your hands off her, @sshoIe!! Get your hands off her!!" The speaker was a neighbour, running over from across the street and following the first guy into the house. The dispatcher answered and I told him everything as it played out. He asked me to get the address...I had to walk down most of the length of the field to see the number. He asked whether there was a vehicle - I couldn't see past the hedge.

Just as he was finishing up my address and phone number, the first guy - the violent, abusive oppressor - came out of the house. I heard a truck start, then saw a beat up Range Rover pull out of the driveway and take off down the street. I told this to the 911 dispatcher who seemed, unlike me, completely NOT relieved by this latest development.

His voice became suddenly sharp. "Can you see the female?"
No.
"Can you hear the female?"
No.
"Can you see the other male who entered the house?"
No.
"Can you hear anything at all?"
I can hear a baby screaming. Maybe a toddler. (And now I've just realised what he is thinking.) You should hurry.
"The boys are on their way, I promise you. Please tell me anything that happens."

It seemed like a really long time. I mean.....a really long time. But it was only a few minutes. Two cars came roaring up, with huge men in bulletproof vests who strode into that house like they owned it, to find who-knows-what. They were unafraid, but wary. I tell you this: in my entire life no man has ever laid an abusive hand on me, and even I was relieved and reassured to see them.

I don't know what happened, but judging from the lack of an ambulance, all was (physically) well with the woman. I hope all was well with the child, too.

I could write a lot here about what it must be like for all these people. The girl behind the door. The children in a house where such things happen. The dispatcher who gets calls like this every single shift. The "boys", heroes of our time, who jeopardise their marriages, their sanity, their health and their lives following up on every call. They go right up, knock on the doors, walk through the house room by room, check on everyone. They ask the woman if she's okay, if she knows her attacker, if this has happened before.

If she wants to press charges.

They look at the little tear-stained child keeping well back, or maybe sitting on the couch with a neighbour or a sister, and they ask if she is all right. They assess. They think about Victim Services, wonder if a call is appropriate. They ask about license plate numbers and places he might be found. They take names, and numbers, and talk about restraining orders and safe houses and shelters and do you have someone you can call?

And then the worst part - or what I imagine must be the worst part. They give one last piece of advice, take one last look around the place. They glance over at that little person who has seen what no person should have to see, and they walk back out the door. Drive away. Make their report. Finish their shift.

None of us can really do anything, can we? I mean, nothing changes. This probably won't be The Last Straw that causes a complete break between them. This probably won't be the thing that convinces her that he's a worthless sack of shit who should be kept away from her and her child. The best I can hope for is that they track that abusive bastard down, arrest him, and in the process intimidate the hell out of him. I can hope the coward realises that someone will hear, someone will see, and he will have to answer for it.

But, whether it changes anything or not, by God no man gets away with that kind of crap anywhere near me.

A Profanation of Holy Writ

Dear Person Who Last Borrowed Aran Knitting from the Library:


I borrowed this book both before and after you did. Did you think I wouldn't notice?


I don't know who you think you are, but if there's a hell you have earned yourself a special place in it for slicing four pages out of an out-of-print Alice Starmore reference and pattern book.





I can assure you that anything bad that happens to you in the future, whether during the knitting of St Brigid or at any point thereafter, is entirely and completely due to your cowardly desecration of this most sacred of texts. Not only is it a STARMORE book, but it's ARAN KNITTING and it's A LIBRARY COPY, you utter Philistine. You deserve whatever punishment heaven and the knitting gods mete out for your crime. Get ready to be jostling Judas Iscariot for elbow room in the ninth circle of hell.


And I'm TOTALLY TELLING. The library and Ms. Starmore will BOTH hear about this disgusting show of selfishness. They may not be able to do anything to you in this world, but be sure you will get your comeuppance in the next.


Indignantly yours,
Shannon


PS: With all my heart I wish you moths.