sense of place

My sense of place has been challenged often, both by the natural evolution of circumstances and also by personal tragedies.

Before my house burned down when I was 12, we had a small but awesome house. It was originally a 1970’s trailer but my dad had transformed it into a dream house. He had built on to it and made it everything we would ever want or need. My mother had a spacious kitchen, a breakfast nook, and an almost-full length veranda. My dad, who was on long-term disability for pulmonary fibrosis, had his own space for working with his hands besides his dilapidated shed that was not conducive to respiratory illness. The house was wheelchair accessible for my brother, who suffers from spina bifida. There was plenty of room for his wrestling memorabilia. Most importantly, I had a huge bedroom with my own set of bunk beds. It was sleepover central, which was partly because I was too chicken to stay at my friends’ houses.

Though my bedroom was awesome, my back yard was my place. It was my kingdom where I was happy and everybody who lived on my road wanted to be there. There was nothing overtly special about it. I had a swing set with just two swings, a shed, a babbling brook, and enough heaps of left-over construction junk to keep our imaginations running wild for days.

My backyard was where I learned of unconditional friendship and companionship, the kind that survived arguments over toys, thoughtless teasing, and what seemed like ever-widening age gaps. My backyard was a location to some, a play space to others, but to me it was where I knew for sure that I belonged in this world. It was my place.

That may seem heavy for somebody who was just 12 but I was a deep kid. 

After the fire, we built a bigger house and phased out the yard that once had my entire identity wrapped up in it. The swing set was made smaller and moved to an inaccessible area. Instead of a small hill leading down to an expansive yard, it was now a steep embankment that lead to the shed door. People stopped coming over to play because I was the youngest and had started junior high. It was just not cool to have swinging contests or catch bugs anymore.

I lost more than just material things in that fire. I lost my ability to attach myself. I had this sense that if I was attached to something, I would lose it too.

The defining memory I have about place is how my mum always said that our new house never felt like home. I know now that her sense of place had been disrupted and she, too, was having difficulty readjusting and finding her bearings in our new situation. My father’s health drastically declined when we lost our home. Just 6 years later, he succumbed to those health problems. He had never really recovered from the impact of losing the place he had literally built for us with his bare hands. He still had his family but without the structure that he had put so much care into, he felt lost in the world.

 

Pharmacists’ governing bodies be cray

Two pharmacists in my province have literally killed people in the last year and all they have gotten is a slap on the wrist.

Alexandra Willson, who works in a Canso pharmacy, made an egregious error last May when she allowed Bernice Bond’s blister packs to leave the pharmacy with the incorrect dosage of methotrexate.

Methotrexate is an immune suppressant. The more of it you take, the more susceptible you are to even the simplest infections. Poor Bernice was dispensed a daily dose of 15mg when she was prescribed a weekly dose of 15mg. The error was caught before the medication left the pharmacy and Ms. Willson told the Pharmacy Tech to remove the 10mg and 5mg tablets from all of the packs but Wednesday’s, as this was the one day of the week she should have been taking it. The tech removed the 5mg tablets and failed to remove the 10mg tablets.

Before anybody blames the Pharmacy Technician who erroneously dispensed the medication into the blister pack, let’s not even get into her lack of experience. The error lies in the fact that Ms. Willson did not re-check the compliance packs before they left the pharmacy. The Pharmacist is supposed to be the last line of defense. Nothing goes out without being looked at by the all-knowing Pharmacist. They are supposed to re-check a script as if it was the first time they are looking at it. I worked with some real assholes who blamed everybody but themselves for dispensing errors that leave the store but it’s all on them. They are the ones with the higher education, exorbitant salaries, and who carry insurance for that sort of thing.

Bernice Bond died on June 19, 2016 of complications from infections that ravaged her body. Rather than losing her license, Ms. Willson was given a two-month suspension and told to pay $12,500 in fines. There are a few other things like audits and whatnot that she must comply with but wouldn’t you call it a slap on the wrist?

Darrell Gibbons was taking methadone for 15 years which helped him combat his drug problem. In 2015, he was admitted to the hospital due to complications from alcohol abuse. In the hospital, he was administered an opiod antagonist called naltrexone to mitigate that problem. When he brought his discharge prescription to Leanne Forbes’ pharmacy in Amherst, it was discovered that naltrexone was not covered by his drug plan.

Ms. Forbes allegedly told him that he would be fine without it, and neglected to inform him of the risks of removing naltrexone from his drug therapy. Apparently, she also failed to inform him that without the naltrexone, his methadone dosage would need to be decreased. She should have called his doctors and arranged for that to happen but did not do so, and as a result Darrell died of a methadone overdose.

Ms. Forbes’ was given a tap on the wrist: 30 day suspension, a fine, and she must write an essay and apologize to the Gibbons family. Just as I never learned from writing an essay as a punishment, I doubt that she will either. I think/hope that the guilt will make her more aware of what she is doing. Pharmacists are supposed to be hyper-vigilant because they not only have to catch the errors that their staff makes but also that of physicians. Doctors will prescribe medications and write dosages that do not even exist. Pharmacists need to get on the horn and call them out on issues with their prescriptions in the name of patient safety.

Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada that has a mandatory reporting system for pharmacy errors. EVERY SINGLE ERROR must be reported to The Institute for Safe Medication Practices Canada. It is unlikely that a system to completely eliminate pharmacy error will ever exist but having to report such a thing is a great way to make pharmacies more accountable for their actions, thus hopefully reducing the amount of errors that are perpetrated. Other provinces are even hoping to implement the same reporting system.

Fun tidbit: When I was studying for my Pharmacy Technician diploma, back when Methuselah was still a baby, our instructor was from Ontario. She was always telling us stories of the hilarious antics of pharmacists up there, like one who was always going to work drunk and another who was known for disposing of expired medications by burying them in his backyard. 

One of our favourite things to do in class was log on to the Ontario College of Pharmacists and read the disciplinary actions and predict what kind of minimal punishment that the pharmacist would receive for their infraction. We thought that it was hilarious because we were a bunch of 18-20 year-olds but as we learned more and got into practice, we realized how horrible it was that these people were at the top of the health care food chain and responsible for our safety. We pledged to hold the pharmacists accountable but the first time I ever corrected a pharmacist, it was not well-received. 

I could not find the allegations or disciplinary actions online from the Nova Scotia College of Pharmacists but if you’d like to see what crazy shit the Ontario Pharmacists are up to, go here.

This guy actually tried to bribe a patient who received the wrong medication.

 

3 Doors Down – Be Like That

3 Doors Down are playing at Trump’s inauguration which means I have to come up with something different to get my husband for his birthday. We will not be going to a 3 Doors Down concert unless it’s a Weekend at Bernie’s situation and we’d both have to be Bernie.

Please enjoy this incredibly lame and super simple parody of “Be Like That” by 3 Doors Down, as performed by President Barack Obama.

He spends his nights on his Twitter feed
Watching the stars on the TV
And then he sits awake and he wonders
Why don’t they like me?

It’s ’cause his feed is filled
With all these denigrations
And a lot of things
He’d rather not mention right now

Just before he says goodnight
and “Thanks for all your help Barry”
…he says

I have to be like that
Oh, I’ll say anything
Just to make myself
Feel good

I have to be like that
What should I do?
What would you do?

We never dreamt that he’d run

He spent his days like Scrooge McDuck
Rolling in money and acting like an ass
And all we want to see is his tax return history
Is that too much to ask?

He made me feel unsafe
And brought me to my knees
Made everybody want to see my birth certificate
And wouldn’t concede

Yeah, if I had been like that
America wouldn’t have
Kept me one more day
Past the first term

If I had been like that
What could they do?
What could they do? Yeah yeah yeh oh oh

I’m going to miss
America, let’s run away

 

 

 

There you have it.

Work to Rule is ruining my life (but not in the way that you think)

I support the teachers who are involved in strike action right now. I even joined a Nova Scotia Parents for Teachers group on Facebook which, if I’m not mistaken, is the universal sign of support. I respect the living hell out of the teachers and what they are trying to accomplish.

What is ruining my life is how much stress I am under, trying to defend said teachers from the trolls of the world. Is this my job? No. Am I obligated to do so? Probably not. Do I still feel like it is my duty? Hell yes. Why? Because parents need to step the fuck up and defend the people who are treated as glorified baby-sitters.

If I have to read another tirade about how Suzy Snowflake’s teachers are big meanies because they wont write her a reference letter defending her lack of academic prowess, I might scream. If Suzy Snowflake had cared about her academic performance before now, she probably wouldn’t need a letter explaining why she shit the bed in English class.

I do understand that some bursaries require a letter of reference but most institutions understand that during strike action, students may not be able to obtain such a thing so the rules are bent a bit to allow for that. In fact, if you look here or here, universities have already done so.

Why in the world isn’t the college/university entrance essay a thing here? Wouldn’t that negate the need for character reference letters? Let a college entrance essay and your academic transcript be the deciding factors and leave the teachers out of it. I mean, what kind of position are the teachers put in when a kid that they just don’t think deserves a reference letter asks for one? A fucking awkward one. 

I thought that perhaps I would address some of the more Frequently Asked Questions of Work to Rule. Obviously I am not as eloquent as others

Q. Are kids still going to get a March break? 

A. Yes. Duh. Summer vacation is up in the air though. (No it’s not. It’s a go)

Q. Why can’t all of the teachers except for my kid’s go on strike so that my kid will not suffer?

A. The way a union works is that everybody participates in the strike action otherwise it undermines what they are trying to accomplish with said action.

Q. Well why can’t my kid’s teacher make an exception? 

A. Getting caught failing to abide by the strike action of the Nova Scotia Teachers Union involves standing before a disciplinary committee and likely being kicked out of the union. Do you know what subjects that teachers who are dismissed from the NSTU can teach in schools in Nova Scotia? Nothing because they are not able to teach in Nova Scotia without being in the union.

Q. What are the teachers even fighting for if they hate our kids so much that they would allow pizza days/Christmas concerts/Ski trips/Whatever thing your kid(s) didn’t get to do to get cancelled?

A. The teachers are fighting for the ability to just teach. They are overloaded with so much extra BS that they are voluntold to do, sans compensation such as supervision,  administrative tasks, and bureaucratic nonsense. They just want to be able to teach our kid(s). I am sure that they do not want their students to miss out on all of those extras but if they don’t take a stand, our kids will lose out on a quality education and will likely live in your basement forever.

Q. Anything that starts out with “I support the teachers BUT…”

A. *shaking my damn head*

 

There you have it. I now understand more than ever why my teachers always seemed like they were close to having a nervous breakdown. I wasn’t exactly an easy student but the brilliant ones rarely are.

 

Broke as a joke

Yesterday, I called the Enviro-Depot in Inverness to make sure that I will get money for my recyclables, because otherwise what is the point of even recycling? They said that if I brought more than four bags of bottles for refund, they have to be counted. Stupid me, I totally neglected to ask if I have to count them ahead of time or if he meant that they would need to count them. Now I’m trying to decide if I should go ahead and tear into the bags and count them all or hope to Gaia that he will want to count them when I get there.

I know that I could have called at 10:30am when they opened and asked but that seemed silly. Why would I want an answer five hours before I bring them and save myself the hassle of counting a mountain of Coke cans that, by the way, I did not drink because I have been off the pop since Christmas.

I need that money, man. Because I’m a mother-of-three, in debt up to my eyeballs, and also a student, I have no money until my baby bonus goes in. If you aren’t familiar with the baby bonus or “Canada Child Tax Benefit”, it is a monthly stipend that is provided to parents in Canada that is supposed to lessen the blow of having to raise kids you probably didn’t even want to begin with.

My January baby bonus is mostly going towards paying my tuition but I also have to throw some of it at my Koodo and Nova Scotia Power bills. I also have to buy my husband’s birthday present with it. I bet you’re wondering how a tiny little government payment will take care of all of that. The answer: it wont. I am fucked.

Luckily I have way too much shit in my house so I’ve sold that off like we’re moving to Abu Dhabi. Unfortunately, I am terrible at sales. I let people walk all over me which I guess is why I am studying to eventually become a teacher. I have been selling items for way, way less than they are worth used.

I have been collecting Avon Cape Cod dishes so that I could eventually have a set for everybody who would be coming to a family dinner. Since Frost’s younger sister isn’t even married yet, I’m not going to worry anymore about having a place-setting for her potential kids so I decided to keep twelve of everything and sell off the rest.

These are vintage dishes that I am talking about. People sell the dinner plates for over $25 each. I live on Cape Breton, otherwise known as Unemployed Island. I wanted to sell them for $10 each, which is far below what they go for on ebay and regular Kijiji ads. I ended up getting an offer that worked out to $1 per piece which put me at a loss of like, $10,000 but who is counting?

In addition to my vintage sales, I’ve been making handicrafts that are selling like incredibly old, stale, microwaved so incredibly hot but not heated evenly cakes. I have planned a craft sale in time for Valentine’s Day so hopefully some desperate husbands will come in looking for a last-minute gift for their poor unsuspecting wife and I can convince them of the allure of scrabble tile magnets spelling out their wife’s name, or better yet “Love”, “Kiss”, and my personal favourite “Be Mine”. Fucking hell. 

Well, that is it for now. I really need to formulate my thoughts better. I’m a mess.

 

The roads are fine

There is nothing wrong with our road today. There was nothing wrong with it yesterday either. Our school board and the bus drivers in it have decided that it would be too dangerous to travel on anything but paved roads, putting many kids including my own at a huge disadvantage but giving me two indentured servants for the day.

What will I make those poor, unsuspecting lassies do first? The older one has one chore that I expect of her daily (do those dishes, girl!) and then I give her other tasks as I see fit, while lounging on the chesterfield eating bonbons or what have you. Sometimes it’s laundry, sometimes it is picking up after the two smaller pains in the neck. Usually it’s a laborious combination of things.

She does it with such class!

Right now she is making a massive pot of coffee so that we can get through our day without incident.

Speaking of coffee, I once saw a widget on a blog that allowed you to purchase a cup of coffee if you appreciated the content. Having had a rough time with a recent GoFundMe campaign, I know that I wouldn’t be swimming in cups of coffee. People don’t appreciate me or what I have to offer, not that this blog is any indication of my sanity or abilities.

I should probably get back to real life now. Au revoir!

Whoomp! (There it is)

I thought that I’d start my blogging foray with a joke.

Knock knock

(You ask “Who’s there?”)

Boo

(You ask “Boo who?”)

Don’t cry! It’s only a joke.

<insert canned laughter>

Thank Gaia that’s over! Let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, shall we? I plan to talk about sweet Jesus nothing in this blog while hopefully developing material for a book or suicide note. Here goes!

I have an unhealthy obsession with Twitter. I speak more of @evilpez4 and @sack_vegas than my own beloved progeny. I know more about what is going on with @midnight #HashtagWars than with the war on terrorism or whatever conflict has been newsworthy as of late. I decide what matters to me based on what is trending in Canada. @bengleib started following me on Twitter and I told everybody I know. Do you know how many of them know who Ben Gleib is?

I thought that I would care much less about tweeting once school started back up after Christmas but now I find myself formulating asinine statements about the Royal Geographical Society, like I even know who they are or what they do. They are just a source for a whole slew of articles that I must read and dissect for GPHY101.

By the way, I bought a wood burning kit instead of a textbook for Human Geography.

I can see the reactions now.

Why yes, yes I am.

How was that for a blog post hardly worth reading? My iPhone is telling me that it is time for bed. I do what my phone tells me because it logs my biometric records. If something can frame you for a murder and demonstrate to the world how truly fucking lazy you are, you must obey it.