I have Moved!

My Rant Can now be seen at

paxye.com/blog

please update your bookmarks and links
you will magically be teleported within a few seconds :)

Moving

I am in the process of moving.... by blog that is... not my home....
I got a new computer last week... a really cool laptop that I can use in the middle of the livingroom while the boys are playing... (of course I am spending too much time on it the last few days)
Anyways... I want to start my business now... selling wraps and slings not only from home but from the internet... (also, teething necklaces, buckwheat nursing pillows, babywearing poncho etc) I also want to make it a AP info site....
So I got a domain name and a year of hosting and I am going to get my site up and running in the near future... www.paxye.com
I decided that the move to wordpress will also be a cool move... The categories, the versatility etc...
so the new blog will be located at paxye.com/blog
It is still a work in progress so I will say when the move will be official....

Another sad day... another little story

The very day that we arrived in Montreal back in 86 we went to see the fireworks. By chance we met up with an old friend of my mom’s from way back when… He was married at the time and they just had a baby… however, the relationship was far from good at the time..
Within a few years his marriage had fallen apart and I started to see him more and more often at our home. It was good, I liked him a lot and he was very respectful, of me and my mother.
When it was time for us to get a new apartment he asked me if I would mind if he moved in with us. He explained that he had not yet talked about it with my mom because he wanted my opinion first… with that move he got my respect and he became a very important part of my life, and within a month or two we were living as a family. I was in my early teens when he came into our home and quickly he became a father figure for me. He was a real “Dad” We had fun times, long talks, laughs, spats… he gave advice, looked out for me, presented me as his daughter, chauffeured me around… everything that I expect a “real” father would have done….
The thing about Roger was that he was just an amazing man… he was always the center of attention, he was always the one that everyone wanted to be with, he was the life of the party, he was a walking encyclopedia of music and sports, he was intelligent, he was street-smart, he was honest and thought good of everyone, he was hard working, he was sensitive, he was always there for the ones that he cared for, he was one of the most amazing men that I have had the honor of meeting in my whole life. All of these qualities made him loved by everyone and his job of barman was just a perfect match…
A few years ago he was diagnosed with Hep C…, it scared him and he didn’t do the things that he should have done to get things under control… he was scared to leave a lifestyle behind that had been part of him for so long… At that point the relationship with my mom had also deteriorated and things were just a bit off for him…Not long after, he was diagnosed with cirrhosis and a tumor that was the size of a large orange was found in his liver that was beyond treatment.
He was given 9 months to live.
He was a grandpa, he was ready to leave a part of his life behind, he was ready to live better an healthier but it was too late…
He started on a experimental treatment that would help buy a little more time and through it all there where many ups and downs… He was so proud of me and he was so much in love with Xavier. They had an amazing relationship and they had a very special connection. Xavier loved his “Pops”
Soon after I found out I was pregnant with Colin, in the spring of 2004, Roger was going through very rough times. He was hospitalized a few times because his disease was affecting his brain making him confused and delirious, it had been a year that he had been diagnosed and we thought that he wouldn’t make it to summer… Summer came and so did cottage time and his spirits and heath rose… he was in good enough shape to enjoy the time that he and my mom spent up north, he was in good enough shape to help us put some paint on the walls, he was in good enough shape for us to have a great summer with him, I regained the hope that he would meet Colin… In September he was there when Colin was born and it was one of the happiest moments of my life…
However, his health went back down as the weather got colder, we celebrated his birthday on Oct 4th, we had a great Thanksgiving supper (the first traditional super that I have made) and we talked on the phone more and more often as we saw each other less and less as he got sicker… On Dec 7th of last year we talked on the phone, laughed and said I love you and during the night he took a turn for the worst and died in the hospital the next day…
It has been a year today and I miss him more then anything… I still cry every few days, I still talk about him often with Xavier and Xavier still remembers him vividly… I don’t want him to lose that…
The world lost an amazing man one year ago today….

It's beginning to look a lot like Xmas....

We had a productive day today...
The kids let us sleep in until 7:30 this morning... but even with the late start on the morning (and yes, 7:30 is late compared to the time that Colin usually wakes us up) we got the house work done by noon... even cleaning up spots that we never have the time to get to....
We then got the Xmas lights put up outside while the kids had their naps and we were just finishing when they both woke up... Then the Xmas tree went up... With Xmas music in thebackground, Xavier, and even Colin, helped put decorations on the tree, and I got the stockings up too...
Both kids are in awe of the lights that are hanging outside of their window...
And tonight we are ltting Xavier stay up late to watch the Wizard of Oz with us....

It's beginning to look a lot like Xmas....


(....though the Sushi I made for supper kind of ends it on a weird note LOL...
but hey! it's Saturday and Sushi is my favorite Saturday meal ;) )

Anyways...

Here are some pics...

World AIDS day today.. a little story

On June 14th 1980 my mom met a man at his birthday party thrown by mutual friends and drew an instant connection with him.

He was gay and had always wanted a family and my mom was looking for someone to be part of my life also... a few months later he asked her to marry him, A marriage between friends, a family for him. But things where cut short because he was illegally in Canada at that moment. He had been in the Secret Service in the US (Intelligence) in the Vietnam war, and hadn't been able to get across the border, so he had sneaked in through the woods north of Spokane WA...
He was discovered and needed to leave immediately...
We headed to AZ a few months later, then he came back to see us and then again we went back to him... Around his birthday again in 1982 while we where in AZ he and my mom saw the "White Wedding" music video and decided to get married within a few days... On June 21st 1982, Miguel became my "Daddy"... and from that day forward I saw him as my Dad.... he was a big part of my life, his family became mine and he was proud of me...
My mom wanted to live in Canada and he wanted to stay in the US but that didn't keep us apart for long. We either went to AZ or he was with us in Nelson.
the most important part of all of it was that he was committed to me, the marriage that he had with my mother was to become my father and it was a role he didn't take lightly... However, in 1984, he found out he was HIV+ ...
When we moved to Quebec however, things changed a bit because it was farther but we tried to get down to AZ as often as possible and we always had a relationship through the phone and letters....
He got sicker and sicker as the years past and in 1996 he was getting sicker but felt awful more because of the meds then the disease itself so he stopped talking the meds all together at that time... In April 97 I talked to him one day and he told me that his T-Cells count was down to 4... A few weeks later, on May 8th, a Thursday night, 13 years after he found out he was HIV+ , the night of my last College Exam and I was out partying, I came back to my boyfriends apartment and came face to face with a note from my mom... it was not like her to call without a reason and I learned a few minutes later that he had died that morning...
Miguel was an amazing, intelligent, funny, charismatic, handsome, loving man and the most amazing father that I could have had in those crucial year of my life...
I still think of him often, I still talk to my family in AZ, I wonder if he would be proud of me now, I would have loved for him to see his grandkids...

Most of all.....

I miss him...

Micheal "Miguel" Keith Kirkman
1944 -1997