AMAZING!

Hummm. 'Someone had to go to Town today".

If I were a 'Bet Taking Woman' these are the "Nay" odds I give that one of the following will be brought home:

1. Roses --- 15 to 1 .
2. Chocolates in a heart shaped box--10 to 1....
3. Diamond earrings (faux) --20 to 1.
4. Real Diamond anything --Double down 150 to 1.
5. A NEW car.---All Bets are 20 -1. With cash down--no limit.
6. A bottle of red wine --the bubbly kind--in the fancy red twist off top plastic container--5 to 1.
7. A big bag of Cheezies---3 to 1.
8.The cake that I have already ordered from the Bakery-- that has "Happy Birthday Irwin " written on it...which I put on the list- is actually picked up. --2 to 1.
9. A new broom from the Co-op (advertised special)--3 to 1.
10. Lingerie--aka--Lace for the Potato--7 to 1.
11. That he comes home at all-- All bets off.

The house does not make book on certainties.

BETS are ON !
...5 will get you 10 if you can guess the 'rest of the story'

 Valentine Surprise was...

 A Five pound box of pork breakfast sausages that were on sale.

A surprise is a surprise..

 I suppose,

          'sigh'
       
                   I suppose.

Bonanza!

Where is this month going? 

 February is almost done.

 It is almost Valentine's Day.

 We will soon be at the end of the shortest month of the year and we will soon have Marched our days into the next artificial demarcation of time and space. A demarcation which will involve not only the changing of the calendar month but also in some parts of the world, for whatever feeble and misunderstood reasoning contrived by modern man, even the hands on the clock.

Fifty years ago to nearly the day, I stayed home and babysat my two younger siblings as our parents went to the neighbour's for a visit and a game of cards on a dark midwinter's Sunday eve. 

It has been said that the recklessness of youth is a result of the combination of the misuse of power too soon granted combined with choices too numerous and dubious to describe and serves as a recipe for regretful rumination repeated in reveries of regret. 

(Okay, it was  I who said it.)

  This regret is then often threaded into the tapestry of a life of self doubt, self deprecation and second guessing that covers every future decision and stays as fresh in the individual's  psychic  as if one has never left that time and place continuum.

I can speak of this time shift phenomena with the authority of a veteran having experienced my own choice not well made as it was I, a twelve year old girl, living in rural Canada on the Great Plains of North America, who ultimately switched the television station to the only other channel that was offered to watch something long ago forgotten by all, probably even by the producers of whatever was telecast on that station that night, due to this very unfortunate sense of misplaced power combined with immature decision making.

As Bonanza* was just finishing up and the CBC news cast of the evening was about to begin around 11:00pm that fateful Sunday February night, my parents returned from their visit. 

  My dad came to the living room door and said, "Did you see those wild guys on Ed Sullivan?  What a bunch of  kookie looking long haired guys!  Girls were screaming in the audience.  It was crazy.  They looked like girls themselves!"

I remember thinking, "Yeah. Right. Big Deal."  as I turned off the set and went up to bed and slept what was to be my last regret free night absent of sober second guessing and carefree confidence.

Actually that isn't really what I wanted to write about.  I wanted to write about the Olympics and the flag issue and the gay issue.  I just really wanted to say that if having the Olympics in Sochi will help bring light to the inequalities of a group of people who are being denied their human rights and helps to bring illumination to all the injustices of this group around the world, then maybe, next time,  we should have the Olympics in  central Africa , Afghanistan, or even Iran and other countries where starving children, women, and civilians  are forced into slave labour, the military, and prostitution. 
Maybe flags  then would then be raised to protest those injustices and  athletes could bring their adopted foster  foreign children to the podium to enlighten the world ..or would that be too flagrant an exhibition? 

  I do remember a  time in  Olympic history when South Africa was not allowed to participate in the games 1964 -1988 due to apartheid  and also seeing Civil Rights activist athletes holding up their fists in a  peaceful Black Power protest as they stood on the podium.

 In the meantime perhaps this might be the  theme song of the closing ceremonies in Sochi.

The link obviously is not working...but if I remember correctly I think itcwas a link to a Beatle's song.

* The television production of Bonanza was aired following the Ed Sullivan Show every Sunday night and was watched faithfully by television viewers of the era even more so than Ed Sullivan unfortunately in this instance at least.