Crazy Housing Market

As I dream yet again of that perfect house, all I can hope is that prices come down soon. It is ludicrous to have million dollar homes in a city like Edmonton. I don't know or see a whole lot of millionaires walking around so what's the deal with house prices?!!
Worst part is that they are not even built very nicely, bad boom time construction and over inflated prices...........bad bad bad situation for working class to be sure. I have given up on thinking about solutions to this problem and for now I will simply sit and dream of nice houses in sunny parts of the world.

Clinton wins the Pennsylvania primary

There you have it! Despite more money, more elected delegates and more states, Obama still lost out on the Pennsylvania's Democratic Primary by 5%. Ms. Clinton got 55% of the votes and Mr. Obama got 45%....hmm!! what does that say to you?!

To me it just goes to prove that you really gotta watch what you say when you are in the limelight. Slight slip of your tongue and your competitor will use that over and over and over and yet over again to climb to victory.

Alright! so I know it's not over yet but really is it just a coincidence that he loses out on this state right after the big kafuffle about his comments regarding working class people. And do people honestly believe that Clintons are working class!! Come on folks if every working class person had so many millions then............... well, you get the idea.

Let us see what happens next and in the meantime let me know your thoughts. Who do you think will be the next president of United States of America?

Global warming my foot!

Our father in the heaven, shower some mercy upon us Edmontonians instead of this snow!! Please! Pretty please with a cherry on the top!

Are you not just simply sick of this snow and crappy weather?! I mean is it not enough that we have to put up with inhuman temperatures, biting cold winds and huge snow dumps all through out winter that we should have to suffer this in mid April as well. Enough is enough, I for one am tired of this. Why can’t the winter just last from Dec-Feb like it is supposed to. March and April are supposed to be spring months and I would like to see some flowers and green grass now.

Poor stores that were selling petunias last weekend must have counted their losses and removed all that stuff. Then again, this is Edmonton. I can never forget my first year here. It snowed in July and I cried my eyes out and said, “WHY?!! Why on the earth would I move from Punjab to Vancouver and then to Edmonton?! Why did I not settle in the Caribbean?” Only solace to my tropical heart comes from the fact that when we do get nice summers here, it is really nice. And of course let’s not forget people, once I win my big lottery then I can have houses in all the nice places and visit out there any time I feel like it. Ha ha ha!! Dreams of a delusional psycho mama maybe J

Global warming my eye! It certainly isn’t brining any warmth to us here in Edmonton. When scientists say it is so bad for our planet and things are getting warmer, I only have one question, “why can’t you make it warmer over here and take the cold to wherever it is needed?!”. Ah well, can’t control mother nature now can we. One can only hope that by some miracle it will learn that spring is supposed to be warm, summers hot and balmy, fall colorful and crisp and winter cold & white. That is what I learned in kindergarten for the seasons and Damitt! I am sticking to it. If only I could teach that to the weather controller as well.

I heard somewhere that driving more cars generates warmth. Alright people, bring out your cars and drive the heck out of them so we can finally warm up already.

Signing off for now, a very cold cold Shivani :-(

Weakest Link?!

I can’t believe I have been sick for so many days! Never ever have I taken so many days off from work! Either I am getting too weak and old or the bugs are getting stronger, as there is no other explanation for getting so many Flu’s in such short intervals. Believe me it is simply no fun staying at home when your whole body aches like it has been hit by a truck and you shiver with chills and your throat is on fire and your nose is plugged. Of course now that I am better and back to the grind, I am somewhat missing all my TV shows. Ha ha!! How easy it is to get addicted to simply vegetating on your sofa set.

It certainly sucked though and I don’t want to go through that ever again. However, when you are lying there all alone for so many hours day after day, it gives you a lot of time to think and think and then think some more. And boy can my mind ever work fast! My thoughts sometimes run so fast and mingle into each other that it gives me a bloody headache! (Pardon the language)
Of course it would be nice if there was such a computer that could type up my thoughts since I had no energy to write them down and by the time I got better they were all so jumbled up that nothing made sense. Sure would have made some excellent posts.

Anyway, I am simply rambling on for nothing. All I wanted to say was that I am glad to be better and if anyone has any suggestions on how NOT to get sick then please share. I am tired of being the good girl who tries to eat well and still get sick, while people who work with me smoke like a chimney, drink like a fish and still come to work every day hale and hearty! Darn eh :-)

Putting a big foot in an even bigger mouth!

It is almost over you guys!! The democrat’s mutual race towards the presidential candidacy is almost at the finish line. I am definitely going to miss the entertaining speeches by Republicans like Huckabee (don’t you just love saying this dude’s name, Huck – AAAA- Beeee LOL!) and all others but most importantly the Obama Clinton war. How can you not get addicted to watching them go at each other? A few years ago, if someone had told me that I would actually watch a political debate on television out of my own free will, I would have just laughed at them. This election however, the whole ball game is so different and interesting.

Initially I was interested in knowing about Obama and Clinton, simply because they will both be the first in America’s history to be a black president/ female president. It reminded me of my university days when our political science professor gave a lecture about the politics within politics of various nations. She mentioned how countries like India and even Pakistan, which are said to have to most number of oppressed females have had women prime ministers but not America. I never really paid much attention in class but that must have stuck somewhere in deep dark corner of my mind. So seeing that for the first time a woman and a black (eh! Sorry African American man) were so close to winning the seat, I just had to watch the whole thing. For those who might be saying ‘excuse me lady! But aren’t you forgetting McCain?!’ well, I am simply not even considering him. I don’t believe Americans will be so retarded to select a republican president for this term after havoc current ones have played on their economy.

Enough said about that, back to my original goal about writing this post. What do you guys think about Obama’s big Oopsie in his fund raiser speech?!! For those who might not know, let me fill you in. Senator Barack Obama happened to make some reamarks about how the working class people are bitter about the economic situation they are facing and their ‘cling to guns and religion’ reaction is not surprising. Well!! It was all over the television all at once! Clinton and McCain lost no time at all on pouncing upon this critical ‘foot in the mouth’ error and POW! BAM! started the ‘Elitism’ accusations along with ‘He is so out of touch’. Those of you who missed watching these on your CNN newscast, you have to watch them on Youtube. Trust me the entertainment value alone is worth the time spent.

I have to say I really enjoyed Obama’s comeback as well. He stuck to his words and explained himself, which made me respect him more than had he changed his tunes. Gotta love a man like that eh!! Well not so fast. You don’t think he was going to just let it go, did ya!! Where have you been these past few months?! He came back at them with ‘shame on you, shame on you’ and I am not kidding folks, I was literally rolling on the floor watching their latest speeches.

All I gotta say is good luck to all of them. May the best man/woman win and provide us with further entertainment J Hopefully they can turn the economy around and fix things though because USA’s economic turmoil is having a global effect!!

Blah Blah black sheep

As I was listening to the heated conversation by the water cooler about a nursery rhyme being totally racist, these lines from an old nursery rhyme went on in my head. The rhyme was 'Baa Baa Black sheep.
Have you any wool?
Yes Sir! Yes Sir! 3 bags full.
One for my master, one for my dame
One for the little boy who lives down the lane.

Back in 79, when I was singing these lines over and over in the tuneless voice of a 5 year old, at the top of my lungs, I had no idea that this song would one day be banned.... strange! I did not even know that there was a hidden meaning in there. Such seemed like a normal rhyme. A boy has a sheep and he is singing to it.
My older daughter at age 2 sang this song...something like this 'Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa Baa' (fill in the proper tune here folks)
My second daughter sang the same song at age 3 and it went something like this 'Blah Blah black sheep, have you many full?!' LOL!
So many funny memories associated with that rhyme. Imagine my surprise when I heard that it was actually the racist lyrics that have made the schools in UK ban this poem. What do kids know about racism ?! nothing more than what we as adults teach them. I mean has anyone ever seen pre schoolers display anything even close to that. Tsk!! I would think we should embrace our past instead of trying to change it. Sure bad things have been done but how about we learn from it and stop harrassing each other but Good Lord! no, we will shove the dirt under the rug since it's way easier.

All I am going to say about this is that we have such a funny tendency to go about things in wierd ways. We won't stop fighting each other based on color, race, religion, region etc. but heck!! we sure will ban a kid's poem because it has racial innuendoes. Boo hiss on that!

Not Enough Food?!

As I sit in front of my television watching the BBC news about grain or rather wheat shortage in the world, somewhere from the long forgotten memories in my head, I hear my grandmother telling me about how food was rationed in the 1940's. What kid with a full belly and a happy childhood would ever pay any attention to such talk from the good ol' granny so I really did not care much. However now as a working adult I know the cost of living, how hard it is to work and earn money and all the wonderful things that as children we were oblivious to but have to worry about as an adult.

So they are saying due to several reasons (exploding population=more demand to say the least) for this shortage. Prices of gas have already taken a hike, now we are seeing an increase in the price of other staples like wheat. Australia the biggest producer of this grain has suffered several droughts making the production fall three times shorter than previous years (who knew it even rained in the outback, not to mention that they supply so much grain to so many countries. Tee hee! I just thought they produced hot looking people who just drink and hunt Kanagroos!! just kidding). China the nation with the largest population is already worrying about how they are going to feed the over 1.3 billion people residing there. I am not even going to think about what impact this is going to have on the poverty stricken areas of India, where the population is already half starved.

When my grandparents had to live in the refugee camps after the India/Pakistan split, they had to make do with a severely restricted ration of food and other necessaties. oh! the things we take for granted, how did they manage?! How did they live without personal bathroom and bedroom? To be stuffed into one tent with a family of seven!!! Did they get any sleep on the hard ground?! (maybe I should think about it when I am complaining to my husband that our camping gear is not comfortable enough for me to sleep on) How could my pregnant grandmother give birth to my aunt in a camp? what facilities did they get if any!! ok! I am veering off topic here। We were discussing food shortage and rationing so here is how that works। Each family is alloted a certain amount of food/oil which they are able to purchace at a normal rate (probably subsidized by govt।) and what ends up happening is that the retailers in order to make a profit start hiding materials and selling them for higher price under the table. What do we get, as always, a situation where people with money can buy how ever much they want, middle class people struggle to get enough to maintain their standard and the poor simply starve.

Now before you go on thinking, 'Ah! just another tree hugging socialist', listen I am not. I have studied enough Economics to understand why things are run they way they are. My problem however is with corrupt and simply inapt administration. Why can they not give money to farmers to grow food but can blow plenty of tax payor's money on some stupid agendas. Come on people!! we are living in the 21st century, we have landed on the moon, we are contemplating space stations, we have done successful cloning and we cannot even produce enough food to feed ourselves!! Excuse my language but HOW BLOODY RETARDED IS THAT?!! We certainly have enough resources to be able to ensure that there should not be any human or animal for that matter on the face of this earth who goes hungry. But of course what am I thinking, wouldn't that actually require forgetting our petty political wars and fights for a moment. And God forbid we should actually do that!! What actually get over our political and religious boundaries and work together as one human race....NEVAAAA!!!

LOL, ok I am losing it :-)

Maybe Mahatama Gandhi and Swami Dayanand were right in saying that up until we have enough food to go around we should try to share what is there. They had a theory that if every single person would fast at least once a week, it would ensure there was enough to go around for everyone. Nice theory guys, if only I could make my ever increasing girth to listen to my Conscience and actually fast. Plus I am not that gullible to think that having surplus commodities would ensure that the have nots of our society get fed. No sir, not when I distinctly remember America throwing away bushels of grain rather than donating it to African countries or to India.

To each their own though and I am going to try and be a good citizen to my planet and remain vegetarian one day a week and not throw away food (which seems to be becoming a really bad habit of mine, tsk tsk! how lazy Shivani)