Hallowe'en Beasties

Our lovely Charlotte ready for Hallowe'en early this year.

Can't say I slept much last night. The Hallowe'en Beasties were out in full force along the "Drive".
Fire crackers exploding, people screaming like injured wolves, sirens and very loud music.
I am likely the only one up this morning.

So I decided to get domestically productive and do laundry, bake corn muffins, scrub tubs, toilets and sinks and wash the kitchen floor. I am now making cookies to bring down to the "Occupy Vancouver" encampment.

It is hard for me not to go down to Occupy. I am not well enough and would be afraid I'd get in the way if something happened.

When did I get this cautious?

Breast cancer has made me more self protective.

I spent so much of my life on the front lines of things like this. Organizing demos and events. Marshalling marches. Making sure the people taking part had what they needed to carry out positive action. Fighting greed. Looking for positive alternatives.

I remember the older women coming down and delivering muffins. I wondered why they did it and didn't just join the crowd. Some of them did. My "Raging Grannies"! But I understand now the need to step aside and let younger passion take over. I want them to know I am with them. That I will help the little I can. That this fight has been going on for a very long time.

I remember Pauline Weinstein today. She was a remarkable education activist. She died a few years ago of lung cancer. Once she took me aside and asked me not to tire myself out. That I was needed for the long run. That this fight against greed would take a lifetime and that I needed to plan for that if I was serious about helping make change.

My maternal grandfather worked all his life to make change against greed. He arrived in Montreal, Canada as a child. His father had a heart attack a few months later and in the next year or so his mother went blind. He was responsible to try and support a family of 6 by the time he was 12. He became a Communist and involved in the Union Movement. He worked with amazing people like Dr. Norman Bethune. He suffered through what was attached to that in the late forties and fifties. He died in a rooming house in the poorest neighbourhood in Calgary.
He used to bring my friends and I treats when we were protesting the Vietnam War. In retrospect he was the love of my life. Nothing like a loving grandfather to influence your life!

My Grandfather always delivered molasses taffy and liquorice ropes on Hallowe'en Eve.

The Day of the Dead is on November 2. One of my little sugar skeletons will hold a tiny Hammer and Sickle and put his fist in the air.