I miss my girls…

http://tinyurl.com/kxhor

The insurance fairy came again today, along with a regular schedule for return visits. So we won’t actually be LIVING in the mini-van any time soon.

Woot! Maybe we can duplex it and take in a boarder!

Dana Reeve died of lung cancer last night.

http://www.cbc.ca/story/world/national/2006/03/07/danareeve_obit060307.html

This is a family who have suffered far more than their share.

In looking for a silver lining, one might say something like “at least now they’re together”, but I don’t know any parents anywhere who would choose to leave their only child, not yet grown, behind. No matter how wealthy the child may be.

Their work through the Christopher Reeve Foundation has touched many lives, and their example has given strength and inspiration to disabled people everywhere.

Sometimes bad things happen to good people.

Life is both random, and horribly unfair.

There’s a bit more of that “perspective” I was talking about this morning.

If you need me, I’ll be in my corner, counting and recounting my blessings.

Hurricane Owen has once again, spent the morning with his underpants on his head.

He refused to get dressed without them.

Teach your Toddler how to dress himself!

These are proud moments for a parent.

First a question or two: Is there any update regarding the underpayment for stat hours in December?

It’s been a month since you told me you’d correct the issue with payroll.

When the new quarterly bonus program was explained, there was also a payout for “generic service award name that will not reveal what company I work for” awarded in the quarter, beginning with two. I got three. There was no mention of them with my bonus.

The Great West update:

Things the new attendance policy REALLY didn’t go out of it’s way to make clear:
Our Unnamed Company, for all intents and purposes, has decided that it does not pay sick days any longer, in spite of what’s written in our “offer of employment”. (An accrual rate of 1.2 days per month will force employees to choose EITHER vacation OR bank their vacation time as it accumulates, in the event of a future illness. They can’t have both, since one week off in the summer will effectively reduce the accrued time in the bank to 0. We no longer allow employees to “borrow” against future time, even though they WILL earn it, to pay sick days. The vacation time must be already accrued. We still let them “borrow” for vacation days, thus ensuring a continual negative balance = no sick days)

Great West has a waiting period of 7 days from the start of disability, for which employees get NOTHING.

For a company in the “EDITED TO PROTECT IDENTITY” business, this REALLY doesn’t seem to model the values we were sold on during our orientation. I continue to maintain that by looking to punish employees for absenteeism rather than addressing the morale issue at the heart of the problem is barking up the wrong tree. Watch this year as absenteeism becomes still greater attrition (something we can ill afford). Paid sick days are an attractive benefit. One we no longer offer. This seems a very shortsighted decision from a company that CAN be such a great place to work. Add to that wages $2.00-$3.00 an hour below the call center down the road, which DOES pay sick days, and it’s a good thing you have a revolving door.

Over a month since my first sick day in Jan.

Benefits paid to date in 2006: $0.00

Nothing you can do. I’ve already spoken to GWL.
That’s just the way it is. They operate under the assumption that my employer is paying sick time for
that first week, as MOST EMPLOYERS DO. Just thought I’d let you know what’s waiting for anyone else on the
team, should they become ill.

Grania

On February 14, 1981 after the Advisory Council on the Status of Women president resigned in protest when the government CANCELED a scheduled charter debate on equality for women, over 1300 women from across Canada stormed the Parliament buildings and held their own Ad Hoc Women and the Constitution conference. They rallied for a stronger equality rights clause and a specifically worded guarantee of equal rights between women and men. Because of them, in spite of obstacles DELIBERATELY thrown in their path by the government at the time, both reforms were included in the final Charter.

Sexual assault within relationships has only been illegal in Canada since 1983.

It has happened in our lifetimes girls.

That’s how new “equality” is.

Many of us are still only too well aware of earning less than our male counterparts for work of equal value, or accustomed to seeing less qualified male counterparts promoted over us because that’s what’s expected.

Today, women everywhere are dropping from exhaustion, because instead of the choice our mothers fought for, we got all or nothing. Now we’re struggling to maintain homes, raise children AND climb the corporate ladder, all while having to be twice as skilled to earn approximately 1/3 less than our “equal” counterparts, often at the cost of our own physical and mental well being. Then our well meaning partners and husbands at home look on in puzzlement trying to figure out what the big deal is that they left a few dishes in the sink. Even today, very few of our partners struggle in the same way to balance the demands of home and career, because they haven’t been raised to feel the same sense of PERSONAL responsibility for housework and child raising that is ingrained in us from birth, or the sense of PERSONAL failure that we do when these things are not done well. Most of our loving lads were raised in households where if Dad did housework, he was “helping Mom”. That attitude persists today, with housework, child raising and maintaining relationships with both sides of the family being seen by many of our partners as something they “help with” as a favour to us, instead of as a personal obligation that they share equally.

To make matters worse, instead of being a pillar of support, our own mothers are often our harshest critics on the domestic side, all too willing to jump in and kick down the crumbling remains of our self-esteem by telling us how much better they were at it when WE were children. Very few of them ever had to contend with working a 44 hour week, plus commute and overtime, AND raise kids AND keep a home. Most of our mothers were a second income at most, while almost all of us today either share, or even BEAR the responsibility of being the breadwinner as well. (Single mothers have ALWAYS been superheroes in my book!)Many of our moms had a neighborhood network of family and/or friends to share the childcare with, or at the least a coffee kerb where they could exchange war stories and offer support to each other. Today’s women do not have that structure. We’re the loneliest moms ever. The best we get by way of mutual support is the sympathetic exchange of weary glances on the subway at 6:00am, or in line at the grocery store when we stop on the way home at 7 o’clock at night, or (my favourite) the shell-shocked nod from the woman sitting in her minivan in front of the bank, with kids crying in the backseat, briefcase open on the seat, cell phone ringing, keys in hand, and not the faintest idea whether she was coming, or going. Our moms, ever eager to step in and tell us how great they were at raising us, while simultaneously criticizing our parenting skills today, are, for the most part, completely unqualified to judge a situation so vastly different from their own experience. Why so many choose to be critical instead of helpful continues to baffle a generation of women who were counting on a little support from these pioneers of women’s liberation, and got a knife in the back instead. I thought it was only MY mom, but in recent weeks of online discussion, I’ve found this is almost a UNIVERSAL experience for women of my generation. Grandmas everywhere should be ashamed of themselves!

I’m NOT a femiNazi.

I can accept both equal and different.

But the fight isn’t over.

Support your fellow brilliant women in their endeavours, whatever the choice may be. Teacher, CEO and “Mom” are all respectable careers, with a whole lot more in between.

I wish all of you to be the very best “YOU” that you can.

We’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday, we’re singing on Sunday….

I’m in at Toronto Western! And about 4 months earlier than I expected!

I’m seeing Dr. Arthur Bookman on Mar 21.

Hopefully we can finally get a handle on what the hell’s going on with me!

Thanks again, Sissy!