Sunday Smatterings

We had a very successful meeting with our MHA (Member of our provincial parliament and also a minister) on Thursday. We addressed all topics that were of concern, the poverty class of seniors, particularly women, the lack of adequate medical care, free transit, etc. He was very receptive and will present all our concerns to cabinet on November 4th. He is highly personable and not a puppet speaker and seemed to have researched many of our issues prior to the meeting. Onward the battle. Here is shot from our meeting:

I've had a really marvellous health day today, they are so rare I write about them when they happen. I had to do a lot of walking (sans cane) and truly as I sit down to write this just before midnight on Saturday, my body feels so good I want to take it out and party somewhere, but I can't. I had a successful day in so many ways and found I was enraptured with the fog outside the window first thing, look at the blaze of fall colour breaking through the grey!

I had one of those days where I read for a while, I knitted for a while, a friend dropped in for a while, and I chatted with an old activist in the laundry room. She is old enough to be my mother. Seriously. She is 94 and wields a large stick and her political analysis is right on the money. She was at our meeting with the minister. She said her life was marvelous as she had no children to clutter up her brain. I had to laugh. I had an aunt so very like her.

I decided to go to my doctor and get a certificate to enable me to get an emotional support animal. I have missed my furry companion, Ansa, so much - I know it's been three years but some losses do not fade. That is horsewallop. As there are no pets allowed in this building apparently an ESA supersedes these regulations and I can toddle everywhere with him/her. So wish me luck on this. We would be good for each other. Test case coming up.

I'm kinda thinking (s)he would look like this (My niece's treasure)

Aging Women Seniors - Thoughts Assemblage.

I'm sorting out my thoughts here for a few reasons.

We are putting together an advisory board and seeking (a) funding and (b) forming a charitable entity if successful and (c) then lobbying the governments, both federally and provincially to supplement the meager financial support afforded this marginalized segment of the population.

Our mission - and by "our" I mean another senior woman and myself - is to remove the stigma from senior women and to restore them to a dignity of living and self-respect. Far too many senior women live in poverty and we have many seniors in Newfoundland, a number which increases every year. In 2017 it numbered 108,182 in a population of 500,000. Well over 25%. Of these approximately 65% are women: 70,300. It is difficult to get an estimate of how many of these are living below the poverty level (Category 2) and how many are retired (Category 1) from government, teaching and nursing which affords them a reasonable pension.

Total number of food bank users number 28,063 and of these 23.4% are seniors-6566 and applying the same percentage of women that would be 4,268 elderly women resorting to food banks.

And an aside: To give you an idea of how normalized a foodbank is here in Newfoundland our premier, Dwight Ball, presented the keys to a new one to the head of the foodbank when the old one burned down, grinning like a fool when he should have been covered in shame. The disconnect of the privileged wealthy politicians from abysmal poverty is rampant everywhere.

We live in a country of universal health care, thank heavens, but I'll tell you what's not covered for us Category 2 seniors (but usually covered by decent private supplemental healthcare policies for Category 1).

Dental Services of any kind
Eye examinations
Spectacles
Walkers
Canes
Expensive batteries of health devices like meters
Podiatry for diabetics
Hearing aids

And of course it takes no rocket scientist to calculate that the lack of funds for such standard items contributes to injuries (poor sight, falls) feet infections (diabetic amputations) absence of teeth (nutritional deficiencies) costing the health care system far more with hospitalizations. And of course addiction to drugs and alcohol as a mechanism of coping with these stresses is fairly rampant as well if my own observations bear me out.

The elderly have been further stigmatized by society and treated as charity cases when they complain about their impoverished and deprived existence. Living on approximately $19,200 annually, rent in many cases is 30-40% (at 35% $6,720) of this and often higher leaving very little for power and heat, insurance, clothing and self-care, essential communication and entertainment services which are exorbitant here, food, eating out once a week, little gifts for family, etc. Having transportation of any kind (car payment, insurance, maintenance, gas)squeezes 50% out of the remaining $1000 per month which leaves $500 for EVERYTHING else including food. And if I hear one more time "give up the car!" in a province with no public transit system outside of the city I will scream loud and long. Every penny is counted and many of us are forced to work in our seventies, often in ill-health ourselves. Just to barely make ends meet. I know greeters at Walmart and baristas at Tim Horton's and home care workers well into their seventies, being cheerful and pretending it's not about poverty.

Measuring senior poverty by standard poverty levels is not using the proper criteria in that many are disabled and can no longer self-care and have no desire to be warehoused in nightmare institutions and need additional income to support the barest modicum of dignified living.

And of course, many of us are too exhausted and disillusioned and and dispirited to even think of engaging in any kind of activism to change the status quo.

And I am grateful, so grateful, I met a kindred spirit who joins me in this protest. And it's not about us two, but for all senior women penalized for raising children with no monetary value placed on this in their earning years, and if they did work, it was often at 66% of what men earned thus accruing far less in the pension funds, if there was such a benefit in those days - most of my positions had no pension. And every cent of my pay cheque was spoken for as a single mother with two kids. So please, don't talk about "savings."

I am very interested in your thoughts on this.

Blog Jam

(1) I don't know about you but I get invigorated when I go out with a placard and protest. Which I did today. And we had massive media coverage. There was a great big pile of us protesting the appalling conditions of our roads. Unfit. Unsafe. Hazardous to people and vehicles. Don't get me started on what I've already spent on tires and rims shredded by the potholes craters. We'll see if we're heard. Maybe we need to throw ourselves across the road the next time if nothing is done. I thought those days were behind me. But I'm delighted to report: No, they never will be. We amused ourselves by planting trees, fairly large ones, in the potholes. Great for TV camera optics.

(2) Conversation with Leo, my sorta handyman, wood bearer and scavenger.

L: Do you know anything about Chuck Connors?
M: Rifleman!
L(delighted with me):Ya you!
M: Why did you ask?
L: I'd like to know more about him. So I can have a conversation with people. He was born in Newfoundland.
M: I can google him on my device, look!
L: No, it can't tell you everything, like who his parents were and stuff.
M: Yes, it does, look. Parents were Marcella Lundrigan and Allan Connors both from this area of Newfoundland. And get this: Chuck's real name was Kevin! He was born in Brooklyn, New York.
L: Can you repeat all that so I can remember it forever.
And I do.
L: I must get one of those googly machines.
M: Anytime Leo, I can do the asking for you.
L: It's magic.

(3)Daughter won a small cash prize and she's treating me to a replica of a Titanic Meal this Saturday night. Here, take a gander at the menu, click to enbiggen:

We're going to scramble around in our closets and find some old fashioned clobber to wear to match the event. I don't even own a dress anymore. Seriously. I'm a jeans woman. And black dress pants. So I may have to buy a long skirt and some pearls.

(4) My grief counsellor asked me to write about a traumatic event that took place in January 2015. I haven't been able to write about it, I would go into a state similar to of PTSD, shaking, crying, wanting to hurt myself physically. And then it all flowed out of me yesterday afternoon. And I finally realized what had happened to me. I was a victim of gaslighting. More later on that. But a mighty load was lifted. Mighty.