Garden Girl – Due Diligence on Voting Day and In Life – June 12, 2014

garden girlCFN – Today I will be voting. It is always a tough call because I want to believe what is said, and then after I must live with the decision, especially hard when it seems most of the campaign promises were empty promises.

Everyone has an opinion, but very few people are actually doing anything, especially positive. So disappointing. I feel that people in this area have the crappy end of the stick, economically speaking. This area seems teeming with loud voices but very little actual ambition. Since being back in this area now for the past four years I have witnessed the least amount of professionalism I have ever encountered as an adult.

A recent example? My good friends had their home built by a local pre-fab builder, and celebrated its arrival. The smoke eventually settled and it was noticed that they delivered the WRONG house.

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Can you imagine? You have plumbers, electricians, septic people, driveway people all working in tandem to oversee this project in a time sensitive manor while living in hiatus. Plans are brought to an extreme halt not half-way through. Everything on hold until their engineers can figure out what is to be done. Personally, I am of the opinion that if the house was built according to different plans, it will be nearly impossible to “correct” the problem, as the plan that was chosen, cathedral ceiling, has very specific architecture to accommodate the design. So, what is to be done? Who is going to be accountable? From paying to retain all the tradespeople through the halt to who is going to pay for their extended need of living quarters? And most of all, will they make it right, or will they “try their best”?

I have many friends who work for the government. I was discussing with them my opinions about Canadian political parties. I was saying that besides being anti-Liberal, I was leaning away from PC because I was worried that their jobs may be affected by my choice. My friend said “In the PC’s defence our senior manager came from another area and they never replaced <them>. That means we were paying 100k a year for a position that wasn’t necessary”.

I commend their unbiased honesty. The world so needs more of that.

They went on to say (*referring to the PC party) “I’m not saying they are or they aren’t (good), I’m just asking you to review each side and wallow in shame when the ones you vote for come into office and do nothing they promised.”

So much to ponder.

I won’t lie, when Hudak first said he plans to cut out 100,000 jobs, I was scared for my friends, even though I know they are constantly over worked. After contemplating what I was told, and thinking about our economy, cutting 100,000 jobs that aren’t necessary is a great first step to trying to reconcile our country’s budget. Our country’s interests don’t seem to be common goals. The rich want to get richer and the working poor need much better advocacy, especially considering that most of the country is considered “working poor”. It is especially hurtful to see the working poor blinded to reality by their own greed.

dj graph FB

(image : facebook)

We can all picture ourselves in the pawn position. There is always someone to answer to. But the important thing to remember is to maintain your personal opinions and beliefs and not allow yourself to be a marionette on strings available to be manipulated. Blind faith gets no one anywhere.

My latest run-in with blind faith? I have to have a drug intravenously delivered every couple of weeks. Pamridronate. It is a bone hardener and it is to mitigate the osteoporosis that chemo has caused. Sounds fun, right?

“Pammy” takes four hours through IV. A nurse accesses the vein in my arm for the drug and I leave the hospital with it in a baby-bottle looking thing hanging around my neck with lines running down my arm to the access point. As the nurse installs this, there are a series of clamps on the lines that open and close as needed, and it is important to remember that the access point and such are dressed and taped up until they are to be removed.

In my aunt’s livingroom in Belleville at 9:30pm I looked at the contents of the “baby-bottle” and realized it was still full! My first instinct was to rip it out of my arm, but I called the after-hours oncologist and spoke with a resident. I told him my vein was accessed at 3:30pm and I can’t figure out why the bottle was still full. After a moment he asked me to see if there were any clamps on the lines. I looked, and of course there were. He asked me to ensure they were all open, and they were. He asked me if there was anywhere else there may be a clamp on the lines and I thought to look under the dressing. Sure enough, under the dressing there was a clamp that had to be physically opened and shut, most you just pull the line to one side or the other and it opens and closes that way.

So, basically the line had been installed and clamped for six hours at that point. I need the drug, so ripping it out was not an option. It ran in just over 2 hours, I suspect my heart beats a lot faster after the prescription Benedryl I am given pre-chemo wears off. The next day I look at my arm and there is a bruise from the access point to above my elbow. The nurse’s actions collapsed my vein and the sudden rush of the drug burnt it. That was four weeks ago. The bruise is still there, my vein is still collapsed and it has since hardened.

Blind faith is something I will forever try to protect myself from, as blind faith is the reason I find myself in this predicament. The picture below, taken the day after, shows the line. The access point is nearer my wrist, the band-aid is from where my blood is drawn pre-chemo to approve my treatment.

dj arm

If you look at a certain angle, the burnt line is unmistakeable. My own personal blind faith lesson.

When it comes to politics and life, it is important to personally do all due diligence.

 dj voting

(image: facebook)

“Due diligence is the level of judgement, care, prudence, determination, and activity that a person would reasonably be expected to do under particular circumstances.”

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2 Comments

  1. Garden Girl and folks I worked for the federal government back in the mid 70’s till 1985 and I later went with agencies when my kids went to school. I can tell you that there was plenty of waste in my time and yes those who had the better jobs did not work hardly at all and even a lot of clerks were not needed at all. I won’t tell you the places that I worked where I saw so many jobs that were not needed at all so as not to put any particular place down. There were a few places that I have in memory where I worked through agencies and I was so fast at the job that they could have done it themselves (permanent staff that is) and I told that to the lady at the agency and said no wonder our taxes are way too high and such waste. I sat down at the back of the patrician reading books and I got up and told the lady at the agency that this is not what I wanted and I had many bad headaches because I was not busy and I left. Another job was where I replaced for a short while and again another stupid job. The places that I liked were busier than a one armed paper hanger with the itch. I have seen so much of throw away that I could scream. I have been reading plenty and people are mighty disappointed in the entire system of voting and voting is not the only solution. The same holds true about those who built your friend’s home of incompetence just like the government itself. Everything is done wrong like the cart before the horse. I stopped voting since nothing was for any good change but just for the worse. Maybe my son will vote which he always does but the rest of us will not vote anymore until the government wakes up and gets real. The government is like the comedy of Monte Python and the three stooges just playing a game of musical chairs on the sheeple.

  2. I take exception to statements that federal gov’t employees are lazy and a lot of them did not work or they wasted time. I worked for 35 years for the federal gov’t. I was always busy. In the units I worked in we were always busy, very little slow periods.

    As for non voting how will things change if people don’t vote? There is no magic wand to wave to make mistakes go awway or make everything all better.

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