Rose's Cantina

Mike Sloan died today at 1:25 p.m. He opted for MAID, medically assisted death, and left this world peacefully with his friend, Bob, holding his hand while his cat snuggled nearby. He was sad for his cat, whom he loved unconditionally. He worried about that damned cat and that is why Mike opted to die at home instead of in hospice. He said the other day that hospice wasn't an option because they didn't allow cats or beer. I told him, I knew for a fact, they allowed beer. I brought my friend a 40 pounder of vodka when she was delivered to hospice, all eighty pounds of her. He liked that story. Mike Sloan was the bravest man I never knew. I didn't know him at all. Never shared a beer with him, never met him for coffee. That's because, like thousands of Canadians, I only knew Mike from Twitter. And I'd only seen him in person when he was on television after he became a reality sensation. After he discovered that he was dying of Anaplastic thyroid cancer...

John Simpson is one of the kindest, most caring, people I know. But he's just about at the end of his rope. It's been nearly three years come April since his daughter Ashley disappeared after having a fight with her boyfriend. His families still has no answers, or closure. There haven't been answers, either, for the families of the other women who have gone missing and are now presumed to be murdered in the area of Enderby/Salmon Arm.  It's cold comfort for the families that the justice system released Curtis Sagomeon, under a probation order, in December even though he was found guilty of three charges of uttering threats, intentionally discharging a firearm and terrorizing a woman near his farm, which is a short distance away from where Ashley and the other women disappeared. And it chills John to the bone that a body was found near Sagomeon's farm last year.  The RCMP have reassured the public that there is nothing new to see here, that these ...

"You finally got rid of all the kids," my landlord said. "Why on Earth do you want three dogs?" ...At my age.   He almost said it, stopped short of insulting me in my own backyard. I shrugged. "I'm here by myself," I explained. "I like the company." What I wanted to say was that I prefer the company of dogs to landlords who come around every bleeding day in the summer, and hammer while my husband is sleeping off his shift work.  Like the dogs, there's no point talking to Doug. Scott asked him not to come over on my birthday, and he showed up with his girlfriend and chatted up my entire family over the fence. Doug is like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz -- tall, made of straw, and with few brains.  He doesn't have any kids or dogs. He is, it seems, allergic to anything with a heart.  The next time Doug encountered my dogs, he found himself pinned to a wall with Viggo, the Chocolate Lab, licking his ears, ...