Dodging Garden Ninjas and Pink Ghettos

My nephew Kyran introduced my sister and I and our girls to the game of Ninja.

My nephew Henry joined us.

After the Ninja game we were treated to an impromptu concert in the garden: Nem and Tabs.

Kyran 

Mist and Kyran. Mist played David Bowie's Life on Mars?

Pictures are from the Victoria Day long weekend in my parents' back yard. Canada is the only country that has a national holiday to celebrate Queen Victoria's Birthday. So, if you celebrated Victoria Day last weekend, you know you're Canadian!

This spring is busy for me and my family. Much travel and celebrations. Tabs' grade 6 graduation, my M.A. graduation. Numerous final dance, music concerts.

Trudging ahead any way I can trying to find a decent editor for my e-books. With the publishing industry in the midst of a revolution, editing has become the author's problem. This means financially too. Thus, editors are taking advantage of this and charging a lot for what is fairly easy work in my opinion. Simple grammar/spelling editing is going for a minimum 2 cents a word.  So, for e-book publishers like me, that means shelling out thousands for each book prior to even publishing it. Everything costs so much money in my creative world. It costs much money to produce art and literature before one even makes a cent from it. And making a cent after it's ready for the public is an unknown too. Ya, I chose this crazy life, I know. But sometimes the pure financial burden of creating is enough to drive even the most driven of artists into despair.

Zumba isn't the easiest part time job for an artist/writer. It doesn't pay enough. I feel for those trying to actually make their prime income from teaching Zumba. The only way one can make a good income from it is to own a dance studio. But that requires much $ to start and open one's own studio. I do it for the love of dance and teaching.  I tell people my payment is my body. Teaching Zumba gives me a super fit, strong and lean body.

 I am beginning to see many jobs that rip women off. Women put up with little pay and crappy benefits because of sexism. We are willing to accept other payments for our work that men flatly reject. We accept poor financial pay if we think we are being payed in joy (if we love our job) or if we feel compassion for our clients (who appear to have meager means) or, like me, if it keeps us super fit. Pink ghetto jobs are rampant. If the field is dominated by women, the pay will not be as great as it would be if the field were dominated by men.