I am supposed to go to Australia next year. I am super excited about this, having NEVER gone that far away and also because of the Aborigine culture in Australia. I am not excited about the racism there, but is it worse than in Canada? Canada is pretty racist. All you have to do is read the comments section of the Globe and Mail or CBC to see it in action.

Also all this furor over Attawapiskat. So many people are blaming the band and council, even though they had so little to work with. For those of you from outside of Canada, Attawapiskat is a reserve in Manitoba where the housing situation is so dismal that people are living in condemned housing and tents even in the winter. The government says they had 90 million to build homes, but after everything is taken into account they really only got five million in six years to build new homes, and most of that went to education (they didn’t have a school for a while). Now they have been placed under 3rd party management, which basically means the governments that fucked them over have more power over how they spend their money. It’s a slap in the face.

I am really working hard on quitting smoking. It’s not going very well, but I am still going to try hard! My cousin gave me three beers and it weakened my resolve. But I am still determined tomorrow morning I am not going to have that first smoke!

What else should I talk about? Well, Mister the therapy dog (because he’s not really a service dog) has been getting along well. I was worried getting a dachshund that his back would have problems, but there was only one week where he yelped a few times when he would play with the other dogs too hard, and so he is actually doing pretty good. His injury or whatever it was healed and now he is back to his rough and tumble self. He wrestles with Hermione, the other dachshund, and never complains. So I guess he is well. I love him so much.

Having a dog has improved my life so much. He is six now, so I have had him a little over five years. We got him in may 2006. And he was a year old then. He was going to be a breeding dog but the breeder decided she didn’t want to get into breeding long haired dachshunds, so she sold him to me at a year old for less money because he was going to get the snip and be a pet. And he has been a lovely pet. The only complaints I have about him is that he pees and poos everywhere and barks too much. Some people would find this too much to deal with, but I accept him as a barky and pee-ey/poo-ey guy. I do want to train it out of him of course, but it’s taken a while. He only goes in certain spots anyway.

BUT in terms of love and companionship, he has proven himself to be necessary for my mental well being. Because the basement feels haunted and Mister is a dog with the capability to push away bad spirits, I always take him to bed with me for snuggles and general ghost busting. Just having a little soul on the bed seems to ward away the bad juju. And also when I feel lonely I like picking him up and kissing him.

Also because sometimes my illness makes me think of bad things, like animal torture (be it through fur farms or some other terrible thing like factory farming) I like having a small animal I can curl up with in my arms and just love unconditionally. When bad thoughts get in my head of animal suffering, I like to snuggle my little dog and think how I will keep him safe through his whole life from bad things. I want him to die a very old dog with a very sweet life.

Little Mister is in bed with my Mom right now. I’ve started letting him go to bed with her and then picking him up just before I go to sleep. It makes him happy, he gets tired way before me anyway.

After saying all this stuff about animal welfare, you might be surprised to find out I want to taste Kangaroo while I am in Australia. I hear it’s like venison. I am hoping I have a chance to taste it if I hang out with the right people. The indigenous people. We’ll see.

Oh, and my cousin is back from his journey to the offsale! I should go find out what happened!