Loki's diet is insufficient all around.   In my mind at least.    He has no shortage of carbs but after that its some peanut butter and jelly to round it out.    Some fruit is ok but not too much.   One bite of broccoli a week is the max vegetables entering his body.   It frustrates me because he is so very thin and always has been but I don't doubt that food allergies have been bothering him since he was an infant.   (He has chunked out a little, it was the first time recently that he outgrew the waistband on a peice of clothing!)

So, I am researching a diet that includes more calcium.   I come across a cross-reaction to beef a few times plus a child's natural avoidance to foods that bother them.    Loki has always hated beef.    He'd pick it all out of a dish.    Just never freaking eats the stuff.  This past year though its been creeping into his diet unnoticed through hot dogs and other processed meats.    Jarrod tells me that he has made a meatloaf (I think also containing soy) that Loki will eat with him.    Loki comes back sick.    His nose is running and running, he is coughing all night, and now he is really constipated which was one of the biggest symptoms before we figured out the dairy, soy, potato, fish, almond-allergies.

I've been feeling that maybe it was dust bothering him so much but dust wouldn't typically bother his digestive system.   That'd be a little weird I think.   Perhaps I will cut out the beef not that he gets a whole lot here.   I am gonna become more strict on his other allergies.   I think there maybe some trace amounts of allergens in some of his snack foods which usually isn't a problem with small portions.   I want him to clear up so I challenge all his allergies.   We've slipped completely off the wagon with potatoes and its an accepted part of his diet for a long time now.

It really sucks that I can't get Loki to eat more vegetables and legumes.  I wouldn't worry about the kid so much then.   At least now I can afford a whole lot of chicken for him.

Also, how do I get Jarrod to stop feeding him processed foods?   He tells me that he takes Loki to fastfood joints.   Generally their food contains milk or soy or beef or all of them.   

Oh well, I just wanted to note this so I wouldn't forget it later.

Test Loki's food allergies include beef.



Its really loud outside.  I wonder if its thunder.

Somehow I have fallen back under the opposite sex's radar.   Ok, I guess I was never completely off the radar just very stealithly there as far as I was aware.  The last couple of days has been puntcuated with fresh meat penetrating stares and classics like the whistle.    It was every couple hours when I went out on the street.   Some guy almost rode straight into traffic trying to get a really long look at me when he was whistling at me while riding his bicycle.

I wasn't wearing any make-up; like none, zero, nada.   My home-made self-designed skirt is a couple sizes too big becoming more and more of a full skirt than A-line.   My shirt is a bit too small but no clevage.   No extra skin at all.   I was the only person on the sidewalk.   So it wasn't some super hot person behind me.


Success!   I have plateaued this year but maintained my loss of 50% of my 73.5lb goal!    That means I've lost 35 ish lbs (its staying lost too) and in Big Fat Loser-style I think thats about 20% of my start weight gone, gone, gone.

I haven't been drinking much water so I am sure I could drop another 3-5 lbs easily by drinking up a small lake.    I've been having health problems so my size 10 clothes aren't fitting me right now.   I know they will soon as my health problem clears up.   Its been a recurring issue and I become really upset that I am getting fat, fast and for no reason, but just as quick it resolves itself.   All I have to say is stupid fucking hormones.

My latest goal is to lose about 15 lbs by Halloween.   I remember last year it seemed so unbelievable that I could ever be in the weight range I am now.   Not even unbelievable but impossible.   I feel the same way about my next goal but I know its possible.

Since I moved I've been too lazy to transfer any data from my computer to Ryan's (ours, right? :)) which means I grew tired of the music on my Ipod so I listen to all the assinine conversations on the bus.

My least favourite conversations to listen to are those of teenagers.   They make me cringe to think I was ever so naive and egocentric...and short-sighted, and shallow...   I am not going to dwell too long here on the exact conversations I've heard as I tend to not hold on to them.  It was just a shocking realization to me that I no longer part of that group in any sort of way anymore.   One conversation in particular brought this point home, a bunch of wisp o' girls were going on about some person they knew who claimed to be a size 3 when asked.   They didn't believe her and pressed her what size she actually wore- like it honestly mattered.    In their comfort zone, unkindness, they went on and on about size matters.    I couldn't even will myself to have an equal view to theirs.    It was ridiculous to hear people so concerned with something so transisent and superficial.   

Finally I clicked on the "Writer's Block" question which was, "What three things would you do if you became God?"  or something like that.    The answers were mostly flippant and to me remind me of a mouse's view of the world or like asking someone what they see when their nose is literally pressed up to a book.   Although I am not sure if my anwsers would be any better.

Before when I was reading so much about indigenous people, the poor, and the women, it seemed simple to me that true, indiscriminate compassion  would solve/prevent most of our social problems.   To me it seems like a healthy foundation that could only lead to a positive outcome...which sounds an awful lot like post-Industrial Revolution ideas of economics in which anything that creates more capital is a good thing and we all know how that one is working out or maybe we don't know. 

Anyway, I would use my three actsas god only one: true compassion.

I've been reading about the Ainu in Japan an indigenous people within Japan's borders who claims they do not exist as indigenous peoples but as "former aborigines". They aren't the only government that fails to recognize that indigenous people exist in their borders. I like Art Davidson's opinion that the Japanese aren't afraid of land or money settlement issues but that their homogeny would be broken by recognition of the nature loving Ainu.

Civilizations and cultures are lost. Its always been that way. The strong survive or the more numerous and armed at least. Assimiliation and genocide are nothing new. Although this line of thought does constantly bring to mind, "The teeth are hard and fall out, the tounge is soft and remains."

Aside from the obvious need for compassion for our fellow human beings and the peace it could bring if we could live in harmony...we are losing the hunter-gathers, the people who can live off the land but with the land. The cultures that value the earth and our countless future generations that need a healthy earth.

I use to see the per capita of some indigenous people and cringe. How could they survive with little? Although the majority of indigenous people have lost their land or have had it horribly polluted or destroyed, they don't need money or jobs to survive. They don't need our industrialized, materialistic way of life to survive.

It feels horribly cliche to say. But how can we really keep going the way we are?

Our food travels thousands of kilometres to reach our tables. The amount of fuel and pesticides and waste is astronomical to think of. We are so used to having so much that wasting what we have doesn't seem that horrible but our waste could feed millions and millions.

The consumer culture is ridiculous. We always want more and more and newer and newer. I work in a thrift store and have for a decade, it boggles me how much people buy and replace all the time. We can't give away used computer equipment. Noone will settle for anything less than the latest of gadgets it seems. I was reading interviews with dumpster divers and they found laptops and videocameras that work. An amazing amount of good stuff that people had just thrown away. Computers are just an example though not the sole problem. Older generations like people who lived through WW II have a keener sense of making stuff last. They are less likely to replace stuff that doesn't need replacing. On a corporate level it means the destruction of forests, rivers and oceans, animals, the air, the people for a buck. Clearcut the Amazon to grow some corn for ethanol fuel. Clearcutting the Amazon itself releases green house gases, diminishes a valuable and integeral part of our ecosystem. It lines the pockets of a few CEOs banking in on a "green" trend. Like the destruction of Caribou calving grounds in Alaska would provide a few months worth of oil for the US but would permanently destroy the ecosystem along with the indigenous people there. Short term gain for a long term loss.

The detachment from nature. I found the indigenous people of Madagascar the most interesting, they are killing themselves with poor farming techinques and a booming population. There is such a large loss of soil that from space Madgascar looks like its bleeding to death from all the red soil pouring into the Indian Ocean. The farmers there slash and burn the forest which can work if done properly but they have such a shortage of food they clear more and more forest and burn more and more. They have a saying about enduring friendship: Rahanorian no lany ny ala atsinana, "It will have no end, like the eastern forest." The forest of Madagascar is near depletion. Our irresponsibility is having a huge toll on the world, unfortunately we all live on the same planet. Its hard to appriecate where our goods come from when they are on display in the mall or where our goods go when we just leave them on the curb. ...I think I've started on an endless tanget here. The bottom line is pretty simple, we live as if today is the only moment, our resources are endless- and its not that way our future generations will inherit a depleted and polluted planet.

Compassion for humanity. This is where my heart really breaks for Tibet. The loss of Tibet is the loss of Tibet Buddhism (although I realize many non-Tibetans practise Tibet Buddhism) and the compassion for all things. I am not saying we all need to become buddhists for the world to be a compassionate place, I am sure other people feel the same about their own way of life but in practise I personally find other ways fall short of being truly compassionate without discrimination. There are no precusors to who is entitled to compassion and who is not, a sinner or not, a woman or not, a homosexual or not, ethnic or not, the same as me or not... I am truly optimistic that these teachings of compassion can trickle through the world and be absorbed by anybody and everybody.

The industrialized cultures replacing this are greed, for the moment and forget tomorrow, each for themselves, dog eat dog.

I've really being trying to picutre the world with the loss of indigenous cultures and values. I see only a handful of languages being spoken and written, a handful of people controlling the world be them a government, military, or corporation for their own interests, a drastic loss of resources, significant pollution levels, wild animals ceasing to exist, and our culture becoming that of commercialism such as magazines, movies, and music videos with an extra heaping of shopaholic holidays.

I have this little voice in the back of my head, the parental guilt voice, saying, "What kind of ruined world will there be for your children? What kind of life will there be 50 years from now for Loki? What if Loki has kids? What kind of future can they have?"

It seems like I've developed some pessimisstic Doom's Day view of the future but its really hard to guage how fast it will happen. The 20th century changed so much, so fast. We've changed the world in such a short amount of time, could we end it all for future generations just as quickly?

How do you live simply in the modern world? How do you live lightly?

How can I raise Loki with this awareness and respect? How do I keep this consumer craze from capturing him? Ha, which just reminded me about enforced residential schools for indigenous kids usually sets in this greed so they turn away from traditional ways. Since we have had cable this past year, Loki beens advertising's captive. He wants to eat the foods on tv, he wants the crap on tv, he sings the songs on tv. I tell him that the food on tv is bad for your body. We have an open dialouge about how what we eat keeps us healthy and strong. It makes our hearts go boom-boom and our brains think and boss our bodies.

If I were to return to my nation's (that is First Nation's) land, who will actually have their own land soon or so will we (Loki and I) there is no way to survive there in a traditional way. The fish are gone. The water polluted. The traditonal ways schooled out of them with decades of residential schools. I have trouble wrapping my head around the treaty and the ghosts of the past. But its not ghosts, we're here!

My nation is building an audio library of our language! They are building courses to learn it too. I want to take it. I want to hear everything I can but I don't even know anyone who can speak it other than my deceased great-grandpa. I realized I know more than I thought and I remember asking to be taught all the time when I was little. I loved to count to four in Nuu-chah-nulth. I can only say two, three, four now. Utza, klutza, moo (I have no idea how to spell that as there only has been a written language for less than a decade and I read it once). One is really friggin heard to say. Its like swallowing two syllables at once.

I want to learn the language and as many stories as I can. The traditional way of learning is stories. I learned many when I was a kid and I still have my favourites. My great uncle even wrote books on them which are still in print. I imagine though that I can find a lot of variances. I am not sure how many people I could find to tell them.

One foot in the past, one foot in the present, and both eyes in the far reaching future.

I really should try to edit my Saving Fish from Drowning post but I don't wanna. Instead I'll spew forth a bunch of other thoughts I've been having on the same topic- fun!

Democracy.

I don't believe in the current voting system. It allows a government to be formed on some of the lowest percentages of votes. Like that total screwed up 2000 or was it 2002 provincial election that all but three seats were held by Liberals who gained their seats with a provinical total of 40% of the vote. The majority of citizens isn't represented. The minority isn't represented either. 200 000 can vote Green and the end result is a "wasted ballot". So really I don't believe there is true proportional representation.

I wonder if we have any sort of control over the government. Which is a dim view influenced by countries in Africa and such books as The Handmaid's Tail and 1984. If I wasn't as fortunate as to be Canadian and was in some other meddlesome, militant country the atrocities and policies would have nothing to do with me and they could easily designed to kill me and my ideas. The Handmaid's Tail was interesting in how simple it was for people of a certain view to overthrow the US military, government, and culture. Close the borders, freeze your bank account, shoot to kill, control the media.

If there is enough of us they have to listen. Or they have to silence you.

Blah, this is starting to not sound like me at all. These are mostly new ideas not strong held beliefs. I don't think I would believe in them without some soft of validation which I doubt I will ever recieve so instead I'll be a bit on edge or rather paranoid.

I was distracted by Transformers and coffee so I lost my train of thought. I am gonna get dressed and go out.

I think for now getting out all of my ideas no matter how rough and jumbled is best. I'll put them all together after. One big concruent thought which may or may not be important as I decide what to do with my life.

Not just the book by Amy Tan but the idea behind it of how do we help? Do we really help? Is it really helping to save fish from drowning or just pacification for our minds that our greed and destruction can be glossed over by being called "helping"? One of the ways to illustrate this dilemma was the loss of indigenous peoples in Burma or as the current regime would perfer Mynamar.

Now I've started to read Endangered Peoples, a book written in the early 90s during "the Year of Indeginous Peoples". Its incredible difficult to read as the atrocities played out the world over in the same fashion to rid the world of indigenous peoples in tune with the earth so the world can be plundered for sugar, gold, oil, lumber. An Inuit tribe was fighting to protect their way of life against American oil companies that wanted oil from their tribal lands which are calving grounds for caribou- the oil would only fuel America for 200 days it would complete destroy the calving grounds and eliminate an entire group of people.

I guess that isn't so surprising these days. Its hard for me to accept that a nation of people is less valuable than some oil or some sugar like the Indians of Guatemala have had to endure a genocide for a century to protect American interests in sugar fields of Guatemala. The American government sways Guatemalan elections in their favour, trains and outfits the military through "military aid". What fucking country needs more guns??? You can't say the military needs more guns to protect the government from the natives when the natives are mercilessly slaughtered by the governments armies. Not only slaughtered by ruthlessly tortured, their faces skillfully carved away so they live for weeks, months. Legs chopped off.

My stomach turned from the bloodthristy genocide of the natives in Guatemala. I am so completely outraged by the American involvement in countless other nations to destroy indeginous peoples that I cannot believe that anyone would choose to be American. I am of course am saying that as someone who has not had American media as my sole source of information. American news seems like a lot of fluffy propoganda. How the hell does celebrity bullshit manage to take up so much of a news broadcaster's time? I never understood how Germans allowed the Holocaust to happen but then I realized there was a media blackout so the German people really didn't know what was happening which was an issue for me growing up as I was raised by Germans who only immigrated to Canada in the late 1950s.

The US isn't alone of course. Its the whole goddamn "modern" industralized world carries out similiar practises but none to the amazing degree the US seems to. Modernize, modernize. Bullshit, bullshit.

Another world theme is that indeginious peoples live in tune to the earth which basically means they respect the world we live in. The act not for themselves but for the whole of humanity and the earth that provides for them. Its a common theme tying all the indeginous peoples together whether they live in Alaska, Brazil, Africa, or Russia. In the name of progress and modernization, sacred sites are destroyed, rivers polluted wiping out the main food source, forests cleared, native tounges prohibited, religions outlawed...

Which brings me to my other problem-missionairies. I grew up believing that the right religions was Christianity. God is the Christian God. God says spread his word so people do it. Missionaries are the forefront for cultural extinction. Not only do they have to change their practises of worship which is tied to their ways of life but their style of dress and language. Its not as it is for us where a change of religion would be minor in our daily life and self-identity.

For us...I am only two generations away from my traditional way of life. Its erased. Even the murder of my mother and the reaction of the court is a symptom of genocide. It displays a problem within our hearts and minds to accept indigenous peoples as endangered as apes, tigers. Noone seems to put forth the money to protect the people of the Amazon but a fish or a flower can gain millions of dollars and countless supporters.

Barely anyone from my tribe can speak our own language, we speak english. No one worships in our old ways, we are Christian. No one lives in the old ways, the fish and whales are endangered, the land and water is polluted.

Look at my family, out of five kids my grandma had one was murdered, one commited suicide, and one died from drinking. I've had two baby cousins die. Its common. Painfully common for the Muu-nulth and repeated all over the world.

There are only 600 people left in the Ucluelet Nation. I am one and Loki is one. I wonder if Loki even counts. I wonder if I even count. I wonder if in my life I time I will see the extinction of my people.

The Great Death, the Great Death being an event that happens for most indigenous peoples after continued contact with outsiders that wipes out nearly all of the people, happened a hundred years ago for the Ucluelet Nation which is only four generations. Followed by the residentinal schools ran by the Anglican church for decades which excelled in starvation, murder, molestation. The goddamn alcoholism. I feel it like a wound in my heart. Its the time of wandering, one foot in the world of ghosts and one in the modern world.

It was extremely painful to read about the very last person left of different tribes. The second to last of the Eyak in Alaska said shortly before she died in 1975, "I walk around the beach at low tide. I sit down on a rock. I just break into tears. My uncles all died out on me. After my uncles all died out, my aunts fell to die... The Eyaks, they are dying off...Like the ravens, I'll live alone."

I've known this for years. I've known of "The Great Death", the lost of language and culture, the persecution of our religion, the entire disappearance of innumerable tribes very close to us and as far away as Alaska and California. My grandma told me that we come from a great line of chiefs and whale hunters. We have relations all the way down to California.

I don't know why it always seemed so removed from me. That its somehow of a lesser consequence to me an "off-reserve" "indian". Like if I can't bother to keep myself in some desolate and severely depressing plot of shitty and isolated land the government decided they could do without but confine us to for a drawn out extinction than I am sort of speeding it all along by living in Town. So really I should complain or form an opinion contrary to that of my non-native neighbours.

oohh, which brings me to the Consertative opinion that natives enjoy perferential (eek, sp?) treatment from the government. Now, can't a Conservative have their cake and eat it too? Its the very same conservative view to assimilate, christianize, and confine us to those reserves. It was the government who promised the greatest gathering of chiefs that unlike our southern neighbours who enjoy massacaring the original inhabitants of North America that they would promise to care for the future generations of our people for living in this country and forcing the First Nations off their traditional lands. Dammit...its really late and I sort of lost that train of thought so I should let it go and go to sleep!

I have about one million billion thoughts spinning through my head and this is just sort of the tip of my thoughts.

I am reading a book about endangered peoples and I've fully grasped how the concepts of globization and modernization equal genocide for indigenous peoples for which I am one of millions.

Oh I forgot my starting point to about helping. How to help and do we really help? Well not really, "helping" is missionaries, pitiful reservations, pollution, disease, genocide.

could write about this issue for hours and hours but really must sleep. High anxiety lately like I haven't had for years and years. Need rest. ...must resist. Please excuse my lack of proof-reading- I'll come back to it later! I am sure half of this doesn't make sense and that its not very congruent jumping all over the place. I have too many points to make.

Loki riding his new bike around our new neighbourhood. It scared the crap out of me watching him ride so fast! I spend most of my time with him going over how to use the brakes. Unfortunately, he hasn't really grasped that he needs to back pedal to come to a complete stop.

My bust measurement is about 41"!!! Thats about a 9" loss since I had Loki O.O My chest is about 33" which is I think what my measurement was at my ideal weight. I still have a bunch of weight to lose so I think its going to go down more. Still though I am wearing a G-cup but I have to wear a band size that is almost equal to my chest measurement- my boobs are just too heavy for any increases.

My learner's licence came in the mail the other day and there is such a huge difference between my new licence and the old one I had from when Loki was newborn. My face and neck are so much leaner.

38. Plains of Passage (blech!)
39. A Spell for Chamleon - Peirs Anthony
40. The Memory Keeper's Daughter (boo)
41. Snow Falling on Cedars (yawn)
42. Fred and Edie
43. Fast Food Nation

I must be missing books from this list. I just can't remember what I read in August very well but I did read a lot. I hardly read in October. I had no bloody time to. So sad.

Now I have about 20 different books I want to read and no extra money to buy them :( The library sucks butt and books I want to read are almost never in.

Right now I am trying out Good Omens but I am not really feeling it. I started some fantasy book...I can't remember what it was called but it feels contrived. I want to read The Glass Castle really badly! I was on the waitlist for it at the library for months and when it finally came I forgot about it. So sad.

Robert Jordan-
1. The Eye of the World
2. The Great Hunt
3. The Dragon Reborn
4. The Shadow Rising
5. New Spring
6. The Fires of Heaven
7. Lord of Choas
8. A Crown of Swords
9. A path of Daggers
10. Winter's Heart
11. CrossRoads of Twilight
12. Knife of Dreams

Tolkien
13-18 Lord of the Rings (its acutally 6 books! okay I had it all in one 20 lb HC but I hauled it all over the place so I am counting it as six...so there.)

J.K. Rowling
19. The Philospoher's Stone
20. The Chamber of Secrets
21. Prisoner of Azkaban
22. Goblet of Fire

23. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency -Douglas Adams

J.K. Rowling
24. Order of the Phoneix
25. The Half Blood Prince

26. A Dirty Job-Christopher Moore
27. Dream Collection (Sandman-Neilgman inspired...can't really remember the title) Various Authors
28. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass-Lewis Carrol


I have half a mind to read Harry Potter again. 'Cept I don't own a single book of the series and its a pain to get them from the library right now. I don't think I'll have the money for the last book when it comes out in two weeks :( I'll have to drop off the face of the planet though so I don't hear or read any spoilers.

Hmm, I think my list is missing more books. I can't really remember all I've read so far this year. After reading the incomplete The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan I was lost. I am lost again waiting for the HP book 7. I really need to start reading differetnt types of books. One day I might.

Invitiations: Tea Cups...Urgency of being late for an very important date! The Mad Tea Party is the date of course.

Entrance: A rabbit hole. I have a gate completely overgrown with wisteria (I think)...it very tunnel like. I must think of ways to make it more rabbit hole-y.

Decor: Find a banquet table to place in the gardern. Cover it in ve