On Saturday, our kids and two of their friends went off to summer camp. Lorenzo and I came home, danced a jig around the kitchen, then launched into five hours of house and yard work. I tackled my daughter's bedroom which was a scene of a carnage - I thought I'd never get through it. Their rooms are now sparkling clean with fresh sheets and meticulously organized closets. I washed down the walls and doors and noticed that our house is actually showing signs of damage. We renovated 6 years ago, and I guess it's time for a re-paint. I can't even think about that right now. Anyway, the work I've done won't last but it gives me a temporary sense of calm. On Saturday night we met my cousin and his wife at the Fairmont Hotel for dinner - they were leaving for Italy the next day so we had a lovely dinner and a fun night.

On Sunday, Lorenzo left for Mayne Island. We decided that it wouldn't be a good idea for the rabbit and the dog to be around wet paint and insulation. So, I'm here all alone! It's a bit strange, actually. But I am getting so much done - mostly paperwork that requires a good stretch of quiet so that I can concentrate. Lorenzo called today sounding a bit out of breath. He had just finished all of the main floor insulation and was dripping in sweat, but he sounded so happy...

Prior to this, he finished framing in the closets. The deeper closet will house the washer and dryer, and the shallower closet will be for jackets & shoes. I asked him to make one closet deeper than the other to add some visual interest. I don't like the look of a giant closet - it's better to break it up a bit...

So, there you have it. He's working over there and I'm working over here. I've taken my dog on some long hikes and I'm eating a very low-carb diet which is easy to do when you have no one to cook for. I am determined to lose 20 pounds before I turn into a total flabalanche.

[warning: political rant ahead]

I'm reading a book called "This Crazy Time" by Tzeporah Berman. She is an environmental activist who organized the protest over the logging of Clayoquot Sound back in the early 90's. She now works for Greenpeace International and is someone I greatly admire. She lost her father at the age of fourteen and then her mother died two years later. She began her career as an activist when attempting to say Kaddish (the mourner's prayer) in her local synagogue. Traditionally, there has to be "minyan" of at least ten men for public praying to take place. Often there weren't enough men - Tzeporah and her sisters couldn't make up the difference as they were...female. I guess it was assumed that god doesn't listen to the praying of women. Or groups of less than ten. In any case, she started a campaign, went door to door, and eventually convinced the rabbi to change the rules.

Of all the virtues, this is what I admire most in a human being: intellectual curiosity. Is it something you're born with? Why does one person say, "This is how it's always been," and another person says, "Why has it always been?"  I saw Tzeporah Berman being interviewed recently and was astonished by her intelligence.

Prior to seeing this interview, I had read that 2011 was one of the hottest years since human beings began keeping statistics. Then I was reading about all the environmental set-backs that have occurred under Steven Harper. He has backed out of Kyoto, dismantled government bodies whose job it was to monitor the environmental practises of big industry, he's ended the funding to the Canadian Foundation of Climate and Atmospheric Science, eliminated the Adaptation research group within Environment Canada, he's closed the Polar Arctic and Environmental Laboratory, he calls environmentalists "radical", he's made Canada a major exporter of uranium which will kill people in the third world who have no laws to protect them, he's committed to nuclear expansion, and on and on it goes.

After I joined the Green Party, I became a recipient of daily bad news - from the Dogwood Initiative, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters, etc. Then I get the emails from average citizens who are deeply concerned about the Kinder-Morgan pipeline expansion, the Enbridge Gateway Project, the polluting of local streams and lakes...It never ends, and I read until I feel a profound sense of despair. If I grow some marijuana, I could have my children taken away. But if I dump a million tonnes of pesticide into the ground, it's legal. Strange times we're living in.

So I'm feeling totally hopeless, and then I open Tzeporah's book. On the first page is a quote that has done more to change my way of thinking than anything I've read in ages:

Optimism is the only moral choice...You have to keep trying to find hope - it's immoral to do otherwise. If you give up hope and stop trying to fix what's wrong, you're handing to your children - and mine and everybody else's - a worse world than the one you found. And I can't live with that.  (Barbara Kingsolver)

So I will try to remain hopeful...that Harper chokes on a tater-tot and gets replaced by Elizabeth May. Wouldn't that be something....