GOOD MORRRNING ,CA-NA-DA!!!!!!! Yeah! Alright now! Is this not a gorgeous morning? Could it get any better?
What? Why am I so happy this morning, you ask? If you insist…
I, Laila Yuile, just participated in a sexual act in my garden by the tender glow of dawn.It was unbelievable! In fact, to be even more specific, I was the central figure in a scintillating menage a trois. There were many male candidates eagerly bobbing their heads about in the morning breeze today, but I looked them up and down carefully – knowing exactly what I like – and finally chose the one with the largest stalk. Our female partner was waiting to the side, her form voluptuous and ripe with promise, all rounded curves and glistening with dew from the grass below us. The time had come.
I grabbed him firmly in my hands and making sure he was ready, guided him carefully over to her rounded curves.Suddenly feeling a bit bashful,I gently parted her petals and with one quick, sure movement, moved the two together ensuring all of their parts were in contact with each other. I kept my hands firmly in place upon both of them until I knew the deed was done.
I had just pollinated the first female flower bearing a tiny little pumpkin, on my Atlantic Giant pumpkin plant. Whew.
Sure, you’re laughing now, but this pumpkin sex is serious business for someone who promised her kid a giant pumpkin for Halloween! ( does this make me a pimp, a pumpkin pimp ?) Squash and gourd plants have two kinds of flowers: the male specimen whose only purpose is to pollinate the females and actully has no fruit – and the female flowe, which appears at the end of the baby squash. Some people leave it up to the birds and bees of nature, but if you want guaranteed success, you get down and dirty on your hands and knees in the garden, stuffing and rubbing the male parts on the female parts. If the pollination was successful, the tiny squash will soon grow enormously each day thereafter. I can’t imagine what my neighbours must think of me, out there in the dawn, rubbing flower bits together ! But enough of all this vegetable erotica, let’s get on with the weekly feature that highlights interesting bits from all over the web.
First up this week, a nice surprise I found through my stats last night: I’ve been picked as Blog of the Week from The Tyee ! ( and no, that’s not the correct date on their site, I haven’t even been blogging that long!) In their words :
” In B.C. the personal is usually political and vice versa. Our Blog of the Week, by Laila Yuile, is an articulate blend of the two… ”
” Many British Columbians run personal blogs, many run political-comment blogs, and some run a distinctive blend of personal and political.
One of the most distinctive is our Blog of the Week: I’m Laila Yuile, and This is How I See It offers good design, good writing, and a very personal take on B.C. politics and social issues. You may not agree with her, but you’ll always know where she stands.”
Thanks Tyee ! – I certainly do tell it as I see it. And that’s both a great way to get people thinking and a start point for great debate and commentary, something I love to see here in the comments section!
Speaking of commentary, check out Bill Tielemans take on Leonard Krog’s press conference yesterday over at The Tyees new site if you have a moment- well worth the read. And speaking of Gordon Campbell ( ok, I wasn’t but you know that is where the BC Rail story always ends up), I was having a conversation with a woman recently, who told me she thought that he must have a very talented barber. Thinking the premiers hair looks rather, well, normal to me, I asked her why she thought that. ” Well, you see, he must be extremely talented – the way his hair is styled you can’t see the little horns on top of his head at all….”
Something new in local radio has caught my attention and brought me back from listening to online streams , and I love it! The Peak,100.5FM has been playing in my home office non-stop, in my daughters room non-stop and in the living room non-stop ,and we like it that way. Seriously, I never hear a song that I don’t like ! This station is perfect. New to the local radio scene, the station has developed a sound that no one else has and I forsee great things for this new team of jocks. If you haven’t tried them out, turn your dial now and maybe you’ll become a Peak fan too!
With the economy tanking, more and more people are facing unemployment now, some for the first time in their lives. Imagine you go to apply for EI benefits, but of course there is a waiting period and in the meantime you run out of money. You aren’t eating and you can’t pay rent, so you turn to Human Resources ( welfare) for help. Sure, they cut you a check to get you through to your first EI payment, but on the condition that you pay it back out of those benefits. No problem, you think, but when you get your first EI cheque, there is a nasty surprise in store for you.
Human Resources has taken the bulk of your cheque to pay them back, and left you once again, broke and hungry. So you have to ask for more help, and thus begins the vicious cycle of Human Resources payback. I found this story by Andrew MacLeod on the Tyee a couple of weeks ago, and I think more people need to be aware of this situation, if for no other reason but take heed and caution yourself if your job is on the line. Human Resources will help you with emergency funds when you go to them, but do not take a small percentage back on each cheque, they take nearly the whole damn thing, leaving you as poor as when you started. Just another hard reality of making it in the province of BC.
The oldest woman to give birth – at the age of 66 – has now died, just two years after her twins conceived through fertility treatments were born. The story is that she lied about her age to receive treatment at a US fertility treatment, telling doctors she was 55. Which to me, raises the question again, how old is too old to conceive? To me, it’s both unfair and cruel to a child to have a mother or father of such an elderly age that they cannot fully parent to the capacity a child requires. We aren’t made for it- that’s the age to play the role of grandparents, not new parents. At some point, there has to be someone who says NO to anyone over a certain age, and let’s toss in women like the Octomom while we are at it. Does anyone actually think about what the children of these people might want ? I think not.
If you are anything like me, every once in a while you need to read something that leaves you feeling really good inside. Something good for your heart. So why not a little Chicken Soup for the Canadian Soul? I’ve always been a believer that everyone has a story, and these books definitely demonstrate that with great effectiveness. Check out this link to three stories from the Canadian edition, and do your heart some good this morning.
As for me ? I’m back to living in the mess known as Day Two of the great bathroom renovation. It was recently diagnosed with ” complete bath surround failure”, which is really a nice of way of saying some fellow didn’t know the correct way to use his caulk (gun) – ha!- and water leached underneath the tub causing the sub-floor to rot. I’ll leave you with these two videos, but don’t bother watching if you don’t enjoy opera. Bono and Pavarotti make beautiful music together singing Ava Maria and Andrea Bocelli’s performance in Tuscany singing Con te Partiro brings me to tears every time. I am simply powerless to stop them. Great stuff.
Posted in crime, Laila Yuile Tagged: andrea bocellie in tuscany, basi-virk, Bc Rail, Bill Tieleman, blog of the week, bono, british columbia, chicken soup for the Canadian soul, CKNW Talk SHow Idol, EI benefits, fertility treatments, funny stories, gardening, Gordon Campbell, human resources in bc, Laila Yuile, octomom, oldest woman to have baby, pavarotti, plant propagation, pumpkins, railgate, renovations, The Peak 100.5 FM, the tyee, vancouver
