I woke up, read my blog and fired off the following email to my computer guru, Chris. Me: Hello, It was such a joy to open up my blog and there I was! It can be so funny – sometimes, like today, I open it up, start to read it and say: “Who wrote that?” Well I did obviously – at this moment I am laughing away at myself. What would I do without you? Goodness knows – probably not write a blog actually CERTAINLY not write a blog. I am going to do an Ode to you when I get around to writing the next blog. You are great! I might just include this email. So there! So There! So there! Alexis
He: Glad to be of service Alexis as always Thanks, Chris
Me: You are the very best! I guess at some point we should retrieve my statistics. I am not sure if I want them to go up or down actually. But they are rather fascinating. I wonder how my very active Instagram effects them. It seems that people are either Instagram followers or blog followers—not both. For right now I think the short videos attached occasionally to the blogs work and we do not, at the moment, have to work on pod casts. What is your opinion? I am not very Instagram able but I do have helpers at the gym. Such fun! Alexis
Then it was down in the elevator and I spoke to a man wearing a toque.
Me: Maybe I should have worn a hat too. But I lived in Edmonton from 1955-1967 and I am pretty tough.
He: I am tough too.
Me: Where did you come from.
He From Russia.
Me: That’s cold too! I was in Russia but not in the winter. Where in Russia are you from?
He told me and we compared information and decided that his former city and my former city were located in the high desert, the cold high desert, not an Equator desert. Very similar climatic conditions, not like Vancouver. So then it was off to the doctor’s office and the bank – all within walking distance. I do love where I live —-it is so convenient. There are no beggars on the streets around here. That is a lead in to the next segment.
I listened to the most fascinating, the most riveting, the most intelligent of pod case entitled: Why Is There So Much Poverty? Its is a CBC Ideas pod cast. (For the uninitiated, the C stands for Canada.) The three presenters were women – one a lawyer, one from a nonprofit organization and the other the head of an educational institution. The information they imparted was mind boggling. It caused me to become a little humble. I was always so proud of the fact that I paid for my entire education, that I went to law school at night, that i chose not to have children which enabled all of the above. But the lawyer pointed out that the drastic undermining of the workplace laws took place in the 1980s. By then I was, more or less, home free. If I were born twenty years later I would not be enjoying the privileges that I do now. It did make me less proud and more humble. So there! So there! So there!
It is so wonderful learning from these expert women that I am doing one thing right. It is not giving beggars money (as I do not) but instead I refuse to go to check out machines and patiently wait for a cashier person. If EVERYONE did that the expert women said, there would be more jobs. Perhaps a smaller profit for the corporations BUT more jobs. The program reinforced my ideas – that there needs to be systemic changes in society and I must demand of my political leaders that they exercise leadership in order to ensure that there are effective laws to protect workers – not the worker’s bosses and huge corporations. I guess I have got to figure out how to do that WITHOUT running to be mayor of Vancouver or Prime Minister as suggested in the blogs of May 9,2017 and December 6, 201.
You NEED to listen to the entire pod cast and get off your rear end. I am trying to figure out how I can be most effective. What I find so absolutely unbelievable, illogical, and inconceivable is that I was once the friend of a multibillionaire, Joo Kim Tiah. I talked about him on the blog and I do admit freely that at one time he was my friend. I am not being a hypocrite – he was my friend. But his values are so antithetical to mine. What was I thinking? Well, clearly I was not thinking. I sort of understand at this point what happened. I was the first long term hotel guest at the Trump and hence under his and their influence. The relationship ended a little over a month after I got my own apartment. In my defense I also must say that I terminated the relationship. I think I was brain washed, sort of. Now gentle reader you must remember that I do have a brain as reported in the blog of February 9,2018.. I saw the scan, it was there and it did not look too messed up. Mind you, that was almost four months after the termination of the friendship. You now have permission to laugh, because I am. I do have to say though, in Joo Kim’s defense, that I was not actually harmed or exploited by him. I mean I did buy lunch the first time, but he did the second time. And considering we had lunch only twice in the course of our relationship: Fair is Fair. I had a relationship with one guy and I was always buying lunch, even when he was leaving for Portugal the next day. And Joo Kim was great with emails and the other guy(the lunch grabber) was not. So Fair Is Fair. And Joo Kim and I did not have a sexual relationship whereas the other guy and I? Well, guess. Both Joo Kim and the other guy were made aware of my revenge motive. The other guy, early on in the relationship of almost two years said:
Other guy: Alexis, you take no prisoners!
Me; Best you remember that.
He didn’t but, in a way, Joo Kim did. I have not seen hide nor hair of him since. New readers should be made aware of the fact that I always tell the truth. I do exaggerate a little sometimes. I do admit I make mistakes, but, hopefully learn from them. I can walk away because sometimes that is the only thing one can do.
Hottie and I were talking and laughing at the gym the other day. I was discussing the “three strikes and you are out” theory of human relationships.
He: So this is the first strike but with three I will be out?.
Me: I actually think this is the second!
He: Well, you have at LEAST three strikes against you!
Me: You so make me laugh!! OK – you have only one strike against you.
He: Thank you Alexis. That is called compromise.
Me: You are welcome. And you did not think I was capable of compromise.
He: No, I did not think you were capable of compromise.
So relationships do have their ups and downs, particularly when you are having a relationship with me. But there is the three strike rule. I told husband #3 that he had his third strike in Paris a couple of years before.
He: Why didn’t you tell me?
Me: What was the point? You were never going to change and you used up all of your points.
It took me a couple of years to leave him after he struck out but I did. And then I never looked back. I am laughing at myself at this moment. But you are not going to hear why I am. I do get to have some secrets.
The video below is from last night at the Talking Stick Festival.
