Skip to main content

Canadians in Mourning

candle-1239891_640

I don't usually post on Sundays, but some things can't wait.

The Canadian hockey world is in mourning this week and will be for awhile.

On Wednesday evening, Jonathan Pitre lost his battle with EB (Epidermolysis Bullosa).

Jonathan was well known to the Ottawa community as The Butterfly Boy. He was especially known to Senators fans. Jonathan suffered from a disease that made his skin as fragile as a butterfly's wings. This included the skin inside his body like his mouth and throat. Faced with a life of excruciating pain and knowing that he would likely only live to about 20 years old, Jonathan devoted his life to trying to make people aware of his affliction. He was a huge hockey fan and a special member of the Senators family. He had such a positive outlook despite struggling to do the most basic things like swallow liquids. He was also an A student. He often refused opiods as he preferred the pain to having his mind dulled.

But Jonathan's death isn't the only reason hockey fans are mourning.

On Friday, tragedy struck in Saskatchewan when a bus carrying a Junior A hockey team aged 16-21 collided with a semi. Fourteen young people are dead and 14 are injured. There is a gofundme set up to help The Broncos team and their families through this difficult time.

And if you happen to be someone who prays, please pray for all the people and families we've lost this week.

R~

Popular posts from this blog

The Gauntlet That Was October

I had a lot of things happen in October. I watched Frankenstein in the cemetery with friends. I had tea with a friend. I started a new sport: curling. This is really fun and I'm enjoying the level of activity it provides and all the strategic elements. I'll do a separate post on it soon. Unfortunately, soon after my first game, I came down with Covid and so did the friend who I had tea with, so I think we both caught it at the place we went to. That wasn't fun. I already posted about that. I was fortunate to be free of it in time to attend Can-Con where I took in lots of panels, saw some of the wonderful writer community, bought many new books, and volunteered to help out in the rooms. The following weekend, I went to the livestream for Danielle Allard's new album release, followed by the in person release. As part of this, she has a 6 video series that releases every Sunday on her YouTube at 1:15 PM EDT. Video number 2, Falling Into Place, is one that I feel fortunate

Frisky Friday - Maple Syrup Porn

[caption id="attachment_10523" align="alignright" width="300"] Image created using Bitmoji[/caption] While delving into some Canadian film history this week, I learned that there is a thing called Maple Syrup Porn. I laughed when I read the term. I thought, "Is our adult film industry really called Maple Syrup Porn?" It's not. Some is Canadian, but it mostly refers to getting around censorship of sex. It was not only common in Quebec due to religion, but several places in the US. You can read more about it here . If you're looking to heat things up this weekend, consider a sweet old film from the early days of the sexual revolution. Maybe even drizzle a little syrup on your partner ;) Guid cheerio the nou, R~

On Edge - ROW80 R1-16

This sounds superstitious, but the fact that this is Leap Year has me on edge. Why? The last two have been rather difficult for me. In 2012, my work place was being divested and I was working multiple job roles because of all the people who had left. My marriage also ended. This led to a major life change, which included moving to Ottawa. I love Ottawa, so at least that worked out. The rest was hard. In 2016, I was restructured out of my job. This led to me floating about for a while on EI as I tried to figure out my future, trying some things like Copywriting out, and going back to school for screenwriting. After school, it took time to find work and I almost lost my home and car in the process. Scary stuff. It's now 2020 and I have a full-time permanent job again, but I'm filling multiple job roles because we're short-handed. We're also so far into year end that it's hard to train the person who is learning to be me for one of those roles. I'm just hopin