Seeing the dvd Alvin and the chipmunks first show on sale today brought back memory of what my best friend Charles and my brother and a whole bunch of kids from the daycare nursery and some kids from the orphanage went to a studio to see how they made the voices of the chipmunks. I was 4 years old at the time. The technician allowed all us kids to hear our voice like our favourite chipmunk mine was Alvin when he said Okay in a frustrated voice because he just wanted to play. This was in Toronto, Ontario Canada. The studio was trying to sell it to the Canadian market and eventually did. The song was a hit in 1961.

I remember singing that silly song all the time Oooh eee walla bing bang the witch doctor, with my brother and he'd say don't you remember. He was trying to get me to remember because I was hit by a car and had hit my head. It has taken me forever to remember. I don't need the dvd. Although I'd like to add it to my library and I probably will buy my own copy.

When you are looking for a peaceful place to stay on Vancouver Island, there are many resorts with spas or just resorts to stay at. The area is beautiful and we spent a day and a half there.

What I found interesting was the bald eagles. I was fortunate enough to capture him on the treetop outside our place at the resort Tigh Na Mara. He was watching his three offspring who were trying to catch fish as the tide went out. To me it looked more like they were playing. I did capture a few pictures of them just standing around looking like they were talking to each other.

The tide goes out about two miles so you can walk to the waters edge and find all kinds of sea life. There were signs though of red tide and not to eat any of the shell fish. I didn't know what red tide was. I recently discovered that the ocean floor becomes very warm and the cold water near the bottom becomes warm and the shell fish some how get a bacteria. Maybe it is because they feel like they are being cooked but not completely.

I finished reading Deception Point by Dan Brown and it explains about underwater volcanoes. There are lava channels under the surface and sometimes they blow their tops or ooze out steam making the cold water warm at the bottom of the ocean.

I do know that there are many volcanoes north of Vancouver Island and that planes flying over them see the steam coming out once in a while.

Anyway, at the time I didn't worry about red tide I just enjoyed the moment with my daughter and husband walking and discovering the floor of the ocean that was available when the tide went out. Besides when the tide came in the water was warm and you can walk in it. Other places on Vancouver Island I found the water freezing and didn't want to walk in it at all.

I wrote in the discussion area of Oprah.com about this book, Life beyond Measure. I only had listened to it from an audio tape. I wrote that it was a new experience and found now that I have read the book version that I prefer the written word. Listening all the time is a very difficult skill to master.

Through his experience of not only being a watcher, he became a participator and a searcher to questions of life itself. He expounds on every facet. His own ideas and opinions on every subject life has to offer. It is based on his experience and I believe he wanted to share his zest for life (to learn everything possible) (knowledge is also survival) with his family and anyone who reads the book.

I do have to say that today I used a thought he stirred in me, in my own personal blog which is the same user name as I use here, in "spaces" that was fitting for a photograph I took this morning.

That's what books are for to stir one into thinking.

It has been a very emotional time as Lilah our pet retriever passed away. She was born July 7, 1995. A promise dog to my daughter who at the time was 16 when the promise was kept.

Lilah was the last one at the breeder who wasn't picked because she was the runt and had (bad hips,we didn't know until she had to have x-rays).. She followed my daughter around the farm before we knew that she was the one we were going to get. My daughter held her all the way home in the car.

She was a best friend to all of us because each one became her master at different times in her life. She loved each one of us and she loved her walks which I wrote about. Those men will sure miss her because she always looked for them. The walk really was cookie time.

I'll miss her more than anyone because in the last couple of years she was slowing down and needed to rest on those walks when she didn't see her favourite people. I took my camera with me and started taking pictures of the scenery. She'd lie down and I'd take pictures of the insects, flowers, greenery, wild animals. I got a lot of practice as the walk sometimes took an hour to go around just once instead of her usual three times in an hour. She smiled at everyone.

She especially loved certain people like Charlie's master who started to give her a massage because he had special gloves that dogs just loved. Or the ladies who all had different sizes of dogs and found her at the top one day when she went off exploring on her own because I was talking too long with someone.

Lilah had her yearly check up in November and a lump was discovered on her inside leg. She was now 13 and half years old and we said no to the x-rays. She was given medication for arthritis and for the parasites she had gotten because she ate goose poop which had shown up in some of her tests she had. She had blood work done also.

Monday, December 22, 2008 started out the same only she didn't want to walk at all even though I'd taken her to her favourite park. A walk to her was get in the car and drive to the park. She sat down at the entrance and looked up at a woodpecker and I took the picture of the bird. I took her home and she followed my husband around. That afternoon she suffered a seizure or convulsion. We weren't sure what it was because then she was normal again. We both cried and she responded. Only now I was watching and when she tried to stand up it happened again. Now she didn't want to lie down and kept walking only she'd tire and lie down that's when I called the vet again and at about 7:30 we brought her in. We were sent to a 24 hour animal hospital to be watched. Only she suffered several more convulsions. They had to do some tests quickly and we went and picked up our daughter who was coming home for christmas. By the time the three of us returned the x-ray showed that her lungs were filled with a cancer. Lilah knew because she didn't fight us at all about going to the vet or the animal hospital. She also knew we cared and that she was loved and appreciated.

Lilah was a gentle soul. She is missed by Trouble, Minouche, my son and his wife, my daughter and my husband. And especially by me as she was always there. Whereever I was, she was at my feet. Lilah July 7, 1995 to December 22, 2008.

My heart saddened this weekend with the news of my Canadian government forming a coalition against a minority government that was just elected.

I may be wrong in my thinking that the coalition would overtake without a new election in defeating the present situation thus making it no longer a democratic nation. Where do the people get to vote again because they don't like what is happening. That would be a democracy way instead of this coalition.

Do we realize what effect this coalition would have on our neighbors to the south, the global nations that we deal with in trades. The global markets we have already created. Also to the British commonwealth which we are still apart of until the coalition takes over.

I had hoped that this would not happen as we had discussed this possibility in history when learning about other countries whose government had been overthrown and why. Were we too busy living our lives and not see the signs that were visible. Education unrest, health issues, official language disputes, loss of the industrial market, economic hardtimes.

There is a section on Oprah website under World People and Politics called World Leader Worries... not one of the people in the article mentioned this possibility. What a shock to our neighbors and the world.

50 years later in Little Rock Central Documentary I watched on HBO last night.

I found it fascinating that even though the first barrier was broken that the next step has yet to be taken. As one of the nine is now a teacher at that very school and was disappointed that the students themselves still separate within the classroom. There were some who did integrate such as the Student Body President.

In school I had a teacher who was the first Black male teacher in a Catholic School. He was one of the best teachers ever. He brought new ideas and motivated students. He didn't have it easy as many wanted to take their sons or daughters out of the school. He told us the story of a story he had heard about to make a difference in this world. The story is similar to Pay It Forward. His went when you see someone several times on your way to school or even at school that you don't really know stop and say hello. Sometimes a conversation can occur and that it presents an opportunity.

I did several things that year 1967/68 that many parents didn't agree with and told their sons or daughters not to play with me. One was after hearing that story I stopped a lady that I had seen several times walking up and down the street. I knew she had a daughter who had many things wrong with her and the other children made fun of. I stopped and said "Hello" when she went up the street. A few hours later I said hello again as she walked down the street. She looked sad and I asked her what was wrong. She told me and I said that I could help her. I ran across to my home and brought back the special doll she was looking for. It would help her daughter get better after her operation. I was no longer playing with my dolls and she needed it more than I did. (the woman was black and her daughter was white). (The doll I gave was black.)

The teacher found out about it and wanted to know if it was okay to give my student picture to this woman. I said it was okay. He drove me home to see where I lived. I was nervous and I think he thought it was because of what the other students were saying. I wasn't worried about that. Something had happened years before and I didn't know how to tell it so I said kind of.

He was one of the teachers I remembered who made education fun and interesting.

At the time of the aforementioned, it wasn't intended to make me stand out, it was to make a difference in someone elses life whom I was able to help. I wasn't the only one at that school who made a difference there were others.

So when the girl in the documentary said "She didn't want to be the only one who was integrating." I guess she didn't know who the Student Body President's best friends were.

The second step sometimes is the hardest to take and the longest time to accomplish.

Thanks to you and your husband I realize that someone cared all this time. I never saw you again in person after the wedding of a friend of yours in 1958 the same year that you two were married.. Your kind words when I was crying because your friend's wedding was cancelled by the priest.

You and your husband went with us to City Hall for the marriage. Your words "It'll be alright." "It'll work out." "Where's that smile?"

This was the only time we really talked. Thanks.