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Calling the Police Isn’t the Answer
Chase DeBalinhard was shot dead by police in a suburban Vancouver neighbourhood one afternoon in mid-February. His parents believe their fifteen-year-old boy was on his way to his schoolyard to make a video, something he enjoyed doing. Like Ges, this boy had ASD...
The Invisible Life of Florence Girard: why stories about people like my son matter
(Content warning: this post discusses unnatural death) Last week was full of horrendous news stories in my part of Canada—widespread classroom exclusion of diverse learners—details about the starving death of a woman with Down syndrome housed in a private home funded...
Five Ways to Support Writers
Follow writers on social media and subscribe to their newsletter, blog (thank you!) or website. My social media handles are: https://www.instagram.com/carmengfarrell/, (21) Carmen G. Farrell | LinkedIn, https://www.facebook.com/carmen.farrell.142/. On Instagram and...
“Hey, Chiquita!”
Normally, going to the grocery store doesn’t make me angry. But this multinational conglomerate picked the absolute wrong day to flaunt their transnational corporate attempts to sanitize their treatment of employees—especially women—in my face. stop wrecking the...
I Want the World to Be Kind to My Son
Every parent of a neurodivergent child understands and embodies this wish. It’s dangerous for me to suggest I can read the minds of other parents, but for me—someone whose child will never live independently—I am confident other parents in my situation universally...
Who’s Your Hero?
We go to every animated movie that comes to the theatres. That means this month “Inside Out 2”, “The Garfield Movie”, and it means “Despicable Me 4” next month. I love movies in theatres, and while most children grow out of cartoons, I’m okay that Ges (“Jess”), aged...
Different is Normal
I’ve been keeping a secret from you. Those of you who follow this blog, and know me and my family know the secret. Following the travel adventures on these digital pages, you wouldn’t know one of its members has disabilities that encompass physical, social, and...
How many Trinity’s Can One Province Have?
On our way to Bonavista, I read about historic Trinity Village which sounds super charming. Admittedly, I might have paid more attention to the veracity of my source material, but after my connection to the world, aka my smartphone, DIED in St. John’s I had been...
How to Enter a Newfoundlander’s Home
Here’s part of a fun quiz I read in our Newfoundland travel guide (if you’re from Newfoundland or related to a Newfoundlander, no yelling out the answer): Let’s say you’re visiting a friend, perhaps for the first time, at their house. At the front door, do you: Knock...
New Found Land
Fogo Island, Newfoundland Newfoundland. Not Newfoundland, I tell my husband. Newfoundland. Maybe as a local told us, Newfoundland. Or as a vintage travel poster from the halls of the fabulous “The Rooms” museum in St. John’s proclaimed Newfunland. In any event,...
In Indian Head, We are All Treaty People
Qu'Appelle Valley and Lake Katepwa near Indian Head, Saskatchewan The land acknowledgement was thought-provoking. I’ve lived in or been coming back to these Saskatchewan places for decades, but not for public events. I’m not used to hearing these sorts of words in...
604 Area Code
For those of you way out of the 604 telephone area code, this post may not be of interest. For those of you in the 403 and 306 area codes, this post may be of some interest. It’s all about food. And the quality of food. Those of you who know me personally, know...
What to Remember When this is All Over
Is the world ever going to be the same again? It can’t be. COVID 19 is the canary in the coal mine. It’s changing the power balance between traditional “superpowers”. The USS Theodore Roosevelt, a 5,000 person aircraft carrier patrolling the South China Sea, was...
Top Ten Signs You Live in a COVID19 “Red Zone”
You surprise yourself with how shocked you are that servers in a restaurant outside your community are NOT wearing plastic gloves. Eating at home was never so appealing! In an effort to wash your hands long enough, you find yourself silently singing "Happy Birthday"...
A Blog about Traveling that’s about Not Traveling
Granted, these are spectacularly strange times. Orwellian, really. Today was Day One…Ground Zero if you like that term, of a shift in perception. I should have been waking up in Orange County. Am I disappointed? Honestly, no. But I am in danger of getting bored,...
A Surprising “Welcome Aboard”
there’s our captain greeting the car ahead of us. 5:40am The BC Ferries tagline, "Welcome Aboard" has never been so fitting. I never thought these words would cross my lips about a government-run monopoly. “I’m impressed”. It really rubs against my fiscally...
India Won’t Leave my Mind
men in Delhi Even though India is in my rear-view mirror as I am now immersed back into my west-coast Canadian routines, I find it is on my mind every day. Have you noticed how you get asked, or you ask yourself, "what were the highlights?" of recent trips? I have...
OMGOMGOMG
How incredibly stupid. The pink scarf's "esteemed" standing is now in serious jeopardy. But I am getting ahead of myself. Our last stop on this fast-paced vacation is to get-up-at-3:30am to leave Mussoorie and catch our 7:20 flight to Varanasi in the eastern part of...
My Next Wedding
For a completely different scene, we went to one of the hill stations in northern India in the part of India that used to be part of Tibet, 7,500 feet up the foothills of the Himalayas. Specifically, a town called Mussoorie, where the Dalai Lama first fled in 1959...
Highways, Goat Tracks, and Perspective
So the patterns on my scarf are Sanskrit, I learned from my sister-in-law. And apparently my scarf has “come home”. A guide told me the writing was about one of the three “main” gods in the Hindu religion Shiva the destroyer…as in the destroyer of bad things. If...
Grab the Bull by the Horns
(co-edited by the one in the blue scarf...aka my daughter) The versatile pink scarf is acquiring some new purposes on this trip. On safari to the “jungle” (which just looked too dry and sparse to allow my brain to categorize it as “jungle”) it was a bug screen. We...