Month: October 2004

I am so lucky to have friends like Mike, because if I didn’t know him I would not have met people like Trent and Joe and Sue and Tori and Stephanie and her amazing mother Paddy and people like Morgan and Curtis and all the other people at the party last night. I drank mead for the first time last night. It was …. interesting. Not definitive though.

Didn’t make the Fetish Ball; my unindicted co-conspirators bailed due to illness. Frankly I was in collapsing mode myself – I think I was in bed by 8:30 last night.

My happy family illusion has been shattered, for reasons I won’t post, but one may infer what one likes from Katie not having slept here last night. I have already devised an appropriate punishment; it will require tremendous restraint and diplomacy on my part to make it effective, but the results will be worth it, if only for the grace that self-discipline brings.

Off today to church for the blessing of the animals. Although I will be striking myself from the church rolls as of New Years’ I will continue to support the church financially, mostly because after the sodding hard work of the search committee it would be a shame to lose Rev Katie. Also, I was due to open and close the church for the entire month of November, and so, and so, I will, because it’s a bear of a job, really it is, and one of my fave people at the church got stuck with doing twice as much opening and closing as she was supposed to (when her hubby was sick and she was antsy (justifiably so) about leaving him) and I can’t stand the idea of sticking somebody else with it since I just loathe doing it myself. See, the church doesn’t have its own building. We’re camped out at Place Maillardville, which is financially very easy to take but means that we don’t get taken SERIOUSLY. We don’t have a big spire with a revolving purple question mark, you see, so we don’t have visibility.

Saw my first misty blue aircraft parked out front the Air Canada hangar today. It’s pearlescent paint, just to add to the hardness to repair and expense of it all. It would be beautiful… if I couldn’t see it for what it is. Honestly, who comes up with this stuff? ARE they doing it so I can make fun of it, and WHEN will they stop? I’m running out of politely cruel comments, and my adoring public doesn’t seem to like it when I’m scatalogical. I read the review in the G&M review of books of yesterday of Robert Milton’s monomaniacally self-serving screed… it was praised. Very praised. And I will get it out of the library and read it, partly because I need something to prop up my blood pressure, and partly because I want to see if the ghostwriters were worth it. Paul just sighed when I told him about it. I think he’s at the load line for Robert Milton anything right about now.

Committed labour unrest last week, again, but this time properly. I got an email from my adopted younger brother Jerome (him what I took to my mother and said, “I stand in sibling relationship to this man, please bless him”) and hooked up a buddy of his who was recently laid off from “an interesting high tech start up here in Vancouver” with the hiring authority inside the company, neatly bypassing our …. um…. how do I put this accurately but kindly…. VERY BUSY HR department. That covers it without blowing my cover, if you know what I mean. Hope he gets hired. He owes me a beer if he does. And so does a certain program manager, come to think of it. I know I don’t talk about work much, but I felt this was a mild enough anecdote to share. God knows I don’t want to share the latest REAL piece of humour out of the office. One of these days… hey Glen, you reading this? One of these days my webmeister will pound some new ways of having a blog into my head and I’ll have a private area, members only, where the deserving and the undeserving alike, and all those who have ever bought me beer, will be able to view the pictures that I dare not publicly post, like the photoshopped company sign which is a freaking MASTERPIECE. You, know the kind where people look at it, howl laughing and then say, frowning, Some people have WAY too much free time. And I’ll post all my routines there, and all the naked pictures of me. It’ll be swell. No, not RECENT naked pictures. The art shots, the black and white pix, I had taken when I was 21. I can only think of two people who might conceivably be interested in recent naked pictures of me, and they can just ASK me if they want to see them, since they live in Vancouver. I know at least one person who’s going to ask me NOT to give him the password… you know who you are.

Had to scrape a very thick layer of frost off the car this am. Very glad I got Keith to harvest old smiley face for me yesterday. You have to admit, that’s one cute punkin. The colour is actually a very saturated yellow – it’s a heritage pumpkin, designed to be eaten and not carved, so the flesh is about 8 centimetres thick. I held the knife up and said, Oh Pumpkin Carving Spirits, guide my knife. Look what happened! Anyway, when I finished with this pumpkin, I was irresistably reminded of my brother Jeff, and I can’t for the life of me think why. It just reminds me of him. It doesn’t look like him at all – Jeff has a much nicer complexion, for starters – but something about the expression is just, I don’t know, Jeff like. Maybe my mother will explain it to me.

Shooooot, gotta get cookies out of oven. Okay, next batch is in. Yup, this batch is for coffee after church. Chocolate chip pecan cookies….. perfectly cooked. That lovely crunchy, about two minutes before they start to burn doneness. The pecans exploding with crunchy nutty goodness. The premium grade dark chocolate chips. REAL BUTTER. Yes indeed. Can’t you feel your arteries clogging? You know you can.

I have no idea where this fake sign is from but it’s funny as phoque.

Yeh, whatever. Went to a small party last night, in my Matrix gear (it’s gonna be self-propelled by the time I quit wearing it this weekend). There were a whole bunch of YOUNG PEOPLE there. You know, adults between 20 and 30!!!! I got so excited I forgot how to use the washroom.

What can you say to people who don’t know who Lenny Bruce is!? Well, if you’re really evil you quote his routines without attribution, but I’m not that evil. Yet.

There was a young man there WHO BROUGHT A GUITAR HE HAD MADE. What a swwwwweeeet instrument. There was another guy there who used to live in Calgary before he decided he really liked Vancouver. C’mon, you know you have to.

Anyway, over the din of the rest of the party we sang and played for a while until Paul tugged me out of there. Home and in bed by 12:20. Ah, to be old!

Anyway, Paul left me with a thought for a routine this morning. A funny incident, by the way Paul, is not a routine. A routine has a beginning, middle and end. But it got the mojo going, and I was thinking of “Embarrassing things that have happened at work.” Or just plain embarrassing things, like the time my bra disassembled while I was dancing with Lashkar. (It was just about as funny as it sounds.) I am so happy, I haven’t even looked at the news yet. I have, however, made more chocolate chip pecan cookies. That and one of Keith’s underpowered cups of coffee should get me going for the day. I have people to offend, small animals to abuse, and dishes to wash. I’m a very busy woman!

Many thanks to Tori for throwing the bash, and I’d attribute your roommate but I haven’t the faintest how to spell her name. And a big say hey to the woman who’s been on a liquid diet for the last 14 days. She called it a cleanse… Amazing! I couldn’t last a day on such a diet.

Here is a random image of Paul’s family.

 

This is me in my Matrix costume. Yes, those are real sai, but they are practice sai. How I enjoyed stalking through the engineering department today!

Mrs. Greenhouse’s acquisition career began as a Department of the Army Procurement Intern with the Directorate of Contracting, Fort Hood, Texas. Subsequently, she served in the following positions: Supervisor, Contract Pricing/Contract Administration, Dynalectron Corporation, Aerospace Operations Division; Assistant Contract Administrator, Dallas-Fort Worth Airport Board; Procurement Advisor to the Commander, U.S. Army Materiel Command-Europe; Director of Contracting, Carlisle Barracks, PA; Procurement Analyst, Integrated Procurement System, U.S. Army Materiel Command; Procurement Advisor to Program Executive Officer, Standard Army Management Information Systems; Chief, Analysis and Evaluation Office, Office of the Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, Communications and Computers; Deputy for Armaments and Munitions and concurrently Acting Deputy for Telecommunications and Computers, Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Procurement); and her recent appointment as Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Mrs. Greenhouse was named one of the Outstanding Young Women of America in 1975. She is a former Vice President of the Heidelberg-Ramstein Chapter of the National Contract Management Association, a member of the Project Management Institute, the Armed Forces Communications and Electronic Association, and served on the Board of Directors of the Defense Systems Management College Alumni Association. Mrs. Greenhouse is a member of the Army Acquisition Corps and she has achieved Level III Acquisition Professional Certifications in three areas: Contracting, Program Management and Communications-Computer Systems.

She is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Southern University with a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics. She holds a Master of Science, Business Management from University Central Texas, a Master of Science, Engineering Management from George Washington University, and a Master of Science in National Resources Strategy from the National Defense University. She is a graduate of the Defense Systems Management College’s Program Management Course, a graduate of the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, and the Senior Acquisition Course.

Mrs. Bunnatine Greenhouse is married and has three adult children.

And she’s a whistleblower. Check it out now, http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/28/halliburton/index.html

As soon as I saw her name, I thought, This Is Not a Caucasian person. So I Googled her image, scanged her bio, and I am asking my readers to connect the dots. This middle aged, well educated, black woman is about to receive a hellstorm of publicity, most of it bad, and I offer prayers for her wellbeing and that of her family. May God have mercy on us and all who wish Halliburton to like, you know, account for itself and the hole it’s made in the US budget.

Katie is really angry with herself. She goes out with friends, doesn’t drink anything, and loses her wallet. She’s freaking because it has her phone number on it. I said if it’s a problem, we’ll change our phone number. You lost your bus pass – 2 days left, big whoop – your Gocard, costs 15 bucks, big whoop. The photos you lost are more of a pain. You have no money in your account so your bank card is no biggee and you lost no passports, SIN cards, or your health card, which are the real buggers to replace.

Me, I’m good. Tried to get John to cowrite a comedy routine with me last night, but he lay on the floor and pleaded – more or less – to allowed to drift into a vegetative state. So I let him. I did ask him to choose among the available options what he wished to complain about most, and he said that he was having a hard time choosing. After all, isn’t comedy about complaining?

We actually got a good view of the Skydragon eating the Moon last night. It was a good night to buy Halloween makeup. Every year I wrack my brains wondering what I’ll give out in lieu of candy, and this year I trekked down to the dollar store and bought glow in the dark animals, and some non glow in the dark animals, and some stickers. I mean, they’ll eat the candy and every kid in the lower mainland except the ones whose parents are abusive will be cracking off heartstopping and criminal sugar farts for a week, but eventually the smell will go away…. and they will remember the crazy woman in the snakeskin Matrix outfit who gave them a glow in the dark kitty. Or dinosaur. I got a variety.

Oh my gosh, the kid in the line up ahead of me at London Drugs last night. He cut one that brought tears to my eyes.

Still haven’t asked John if I can take Sai into work tomorrow as part of my costume. I did take the glow in the dark kitty who most closely resembles Pokey and stick him up on a bookshelf downstairs last night. Looks really cool when you turn the light off.

Updated the makeup routine this morning.

Dreamed last night that I was taking a night flight, harbor to harbor, from Pender Island to Vancouver, and the pilot was nuts and buzzed a fishing boat and snapped something off.

I am really glad I started taking vitamins agin. I don’t know which of them is responsible, but the horrible eye dryness has stopped and the pain in the fleshy part of my neck is gone and I’m getting a lot more out of my daily period of inadvertent unconsciousness. And I’m way sharper at work. For a while there I thought I was going nuts, but it was just a dietary deficiency. There are times I wish I could get everything into one pill, but it would likely be the size of a dust bunny and about as easy to choke down. If anybody cares, I can post my regimen.

Everything around here is peaceful. I know it can’t last but it makes me happy.

Katie asked a ‘no question’ question of the Tarot two nights ago. 6 Major Arcana; the Fool, High Priestess, Chariot, Justice, the Tower and the Moon. I did tell her that from the placement, the Fool was the most important of the six. Like, quit caring about what people think.

Learned from Lexi yesterday that the drunk that hit them was not charged. Miata sustained 20K in damage and the perpetrator walks? How about NOT DRIVING WITH DUE CARE AND ATTENTION. Jumping Jimenez Cucaracha! If I write any more, I will be start swearing, and I’ve decided to stop swearing in my blog. I’ll save that for the stage, and real life.

Much love to the deserving… later….

So I got canvassed last night. I really like Elaine S., she’s a very no nonsense individual. And I explained to her – not to her satisfaction – why I’m leaving again and she said she wasn’t happy about it but she would respect my decision.

Paul says that I just don’t do well in groups, and he’s absolutely right. I think one of the reasons we hang out together is because we both don’t do well in groups, but for different reasons. Paul thinks that everybody in the group should work as hard as he does and takes it as a personal affront when they don’t (and of course they rarely do). And I just want to be the boss, and get really crabby when I’m not. But I’m not entirely sure it’s a character defect, necessarily, I think it’s more likely my brain chemistry. Being high functioning autistic is a trial when you really CAN pass for normal! Anybody who spends any time with me knows I am severely abnormal, but it’s amazing how many people want to say things like “I’m eccentric!” Believe me, if you had my brain chemistry, you’d be freaking eccentric too. Of course, once you learn how you’re supposed to be when you’re behaving properly, you know when you’re deviating from the norm and it feels uncomfortable. Then on a beautiful fall day you realize HEY it’s okay. I’m not normal. Not only am I not normal, it’s my job to be abnormal in such a fashion that other people feel safe to be abnormal too. And to look at the definitions and restrictions on human behaviour which are just plain weird. And to have a darned good laugh at them. They exist for a reason, but do any of us remember what that reason is? I gotta go, I’ve got pecan chocolate chip cookies in the oven, and I just remembered why the batter for the first batch tasted odd. No vanilla! Must amend rest of dough. And write a comedy routine about what happens in cooking when there’s not enough vanilla. And in life. Oh boy. Think about vanilla. Vanilla beans. Vanilla ice cream. Vanilla sex.

Here’s a pic of Mt St Helens from today now the sun has come out. There is very little gas and very little seismic activity. However there’s lava building up at some stupid rate per day, something like 2 million cubic yards. I’m rubbing my eyes and wondering if that’s true, but the lava dome keeps rising and it’s really warm over there. If you google mt St helens webcam you’ll end up at the site and they give the blurb on current conditions. So no, it isn’t going to explode. It’s just going to be interesting but not a threat to human life. I mean unless you’re a nutbar and have to go take a look. Oops, melted my rappelling tools. Zorch!

 

Got back from the Puddle last night, where I regaled my poor intimates with the first two routines I wrote (I am still in the Aren’t they Cute rather than the Murder your Darlings phase) after Paul made a detour through Ratlands – still can’t believe he wanted a burger after working out, so I ordered two, knowing Katie would want one, and Katie is sitting at the computer when I come through the door saying, dreamily, “I think I’ve GOT something for you,” so I come over to the computer and watch Mosh. The tune itself is nothing special; I suspect that’s quite deliberate, because Marshall Mathers is one of the smartest people in show business; however the lyrics are a masterpiece of opinionated bile and the cartoon itself is brilliant. I had read the lyrics and had no idea how they were going to be integrated into a video. Poor Paul. Afterwards he is struggling to be kind about it and finally I helped him about by saying, equally pityingly “It’s not Dylan, is it?” and with relief he said yes, and I answered, “But Dylan never f&cking well bothered to explicitly tell black kids to vote.” Paul lives in a world where subtlety still counts. And it does… just not the way he’d like it to.

This song comes too late to influence the election, because voter registration apparently takes time, but what Em has managed to do is fuel the rage that will cause the post election riots I was warning everybody about in a previous post. Everybody was horrified when I predicted that. I may have guessed too low. On Halloween we’ll find out whether the Redskins will beat the Packers because that will indicate whether the incumbent will win the election or not. I know it isn’t true, but I feel comfortable using it as a predictor… it’s a very American way to predict the future, like Yarrow Stalks are the essence of China. Actually I just had a really hilarious idea… that somebody should invent an American I Ching which is all about predicting the future based on who wins what on Astroturf etc, and includes baseball, hockey, football, and celebrity divorces. The election is, of course, still too close to call.

Anyway, if you want to see Mosh, it’s on Launch, as is Just Lose It. Also very very very funny that he would put the funniest song on the album out first, and then a very angry one indeed. The only thing that scares me now is the notion of Eminem getting religion. Slim Loki, wherefore art thou Eminem? Well, it’s time to get my rear in gear and do dishes and haul Festive Biscotti out of the oven. By the way, if I refer to any recipe as Festive it’s because it has dried cranberries in it. One of these days I will provide my Festive Meatloaf recipe. Ya know what!? It’s good, ask my mother.

While I was in bed this morning I thought of the entire curriculum for an Adult Religious Education program. There’s just one problem. There isn’t a church in the lower mainland that wouldn’t tell me “You have great ideas, but we’re not ready to do X-treme Church yet.” Okay, I admit it. I’m an XUU…. Xtreme Unitarian Universalist.

 

Ap(parent)ly Mummy’s suffering from blogrivation so I hafta cough up a blog (haarf kuh kuh kuh haaarff) before now. But it’s only now, now, so it will have to be now, which will promptly turn into later. I’ve been told time is arbitrary, but I think time is a steely eyed bitch who gets ever grumpier; there’s nothing arbitrary about that, looks like a logarithmic curve to me. Anyway. Very nice congregational dinner last night. A bob of the bowler (nearly wrote blower, which would have been a very funny typo indeed) to Véronique for being the mistress of ceremonials and (this line deleted in 2019) (and a bowler bob to Carmen, the lucky woman who sleeps next to her), resplendently dressed in a tux. A big and public raspberry to that husband of mine who went into the dessert room, loaded five f*cking desserts onto his plate, ate them all WHILE Véronique was saying don’t eat dessert yet and then BITCHED FOR THE REST OF THE EVENING about how he ate too much. Ha f*cking ha. For ONCE I neither ate nor drank too much and YES I DID FOLLOW PAUL into the dessert room, but I grabbed SLIVERS of (okay, too wet to be slivers, what is the right word? Smidgens? Dollops?) two types tiramisu. And when the announcement came don’t eat dessert I tossed a paper napkin over my GROSS SOCIAL SOLECISM and ignored it until I got the okay. Damn but it was good. A big round of applause for the meal, which was a potluck, and really really really good. Whoever made those little meatballs, thank you three times. And the scalloped taters were AWESOME. I noticed my beef stew all got et. I had the sense to bring the last of Keith’s breadmaker bread and butter and salt and pepper as WELL as the Teapot I was originally requested to bring…. I think I behaved reasonably well and I had a good time. Oh, and thank you Bob for bringing the alcohol. It’s not the same as getting drunk around a campfire but it warmed certain areas nicely.

Let us pause indeed, Rev Katie! (Rev Katie held up a stuffed bunny rabbit to assist her in saying let us PAWS in our deliberations)….many and tuneful were the groans that filled the room.

Like a complete, self centered idiot, I hung out with the jr youth today and asked them to tell their favourite dreams rather than do anything like … you know… curriculum. Then we had a lively discussion of our favourite theme park rides and *then* I tried out my new routine on makeup on my unsuspecting victims. I have to admit that I thought it was pretty funny at the time I wrote it but their appreciation was quite unfeigned, and my mother liked it too. After I premiere the routines I’ve written I’ll post them.

I am now working on a routine called why my sex life is better than yours, mostly because while I can’t guarantee my sex life is better than yours, the fact I complain about it less is instructive, and besides, EVERY SINGLE F{CKING FEMALE COMIC – except Watermelon who likely has neither time nor reason to complain – who got on the stage the other night, complained about her sex life. Now I don’t know about you, but if I’m trolling for new lovers, I am NOT going to complain about my sex life. I am going to make it sound like the single best place in the universe is within reach of me. Or at least I’m going to hint, intimate (in both senses of the word) and otherwise suggest that I am enthusiastic, inventive and skilled. I am going to suggest that I stay on good terms with people I’ve slept with and don’t hold it against people (in both senses of the words) who have said no if I propositioned them. I was going to say people who have had the bad judgement to say no, but John says that’s just plain arrogant. Whaaaatever. Anyway I feel a compassion which cannot be measured for anybody who would rather be pitied by strangers than worshipped by lovers; girls, do yourself a favour and whine about something else. As John says, what you whine about is what you’ll put up with. If you don’t put up with it, you say, F*ck ya, and then you don’t have to complain about it! Yeehaw.

What was I thinking. Writing like a fool, church okay, dinner okay, oh THAT’S right I popped into the Shiloh church after service because Peggy, may the saints and angels take her in their particular care, VOLUNTEERED to help me do the childcare after the service for the parent meeting and there is NO WAY I could have done it without her, because while the kids were reasonably well behaved there were too many for me to deal with, which meant that Tom left without her, which meant she needed a ride home, which is right around the corner from the church so we poked our heads in, saw the car and realized Tom was still there and then we got a very abbreviated tour, the details of which I may not reveal except to say DON’T DO IT WILE E COYOTE! This is the Acme version of a church.

Then went shopping in my matrix coat. Sigh. I love the effect it has.

Daughter Katie is downstairs being very quiet with her friend Scott. Matt seems to have evaporated, or done that weird phase change that people do when they act like they like you very briefly and then act very clearly as if they do not. I suppose I could go bust the door in but that would be prurient, rude, and probably not turn up anything interesting anyway. Gotta phone Paul and see when he wants me to come get him. Another weekend shot. Ah well.

My dad turns older than Cthulhu tomorrow. Actually he doesn’t because the first Cthulhu story was published before he was born, but I thought I’d say that. Happy birthday POP! Many healthy returns of the day! I am going to be mentioning you in my “Blasphemy!” routine. I’m not sure I’ll ever have the guts to perform it in public, but oh well, still have to have your permission first. Will forward under separate cover.

Forgot to mention that I did a participatory Harry Potter reading the other day. You encourage your audience to BOO NOISILY when the Dursley’s get mentioned, and substitute “Brain Damage” for Mr. Dursley, “Horse Face” for Mrs. Dursley, “Piggy” for Dudley and “Child Abusers” when they are mentioned collectively. This makes the first three pages of the Philosopher’s stone excrutiatingly funny to read, highly recommended as an antidote to sorrow and woe.

I am enjoying my Matrix coat so much. And I still haven’t posted a picture.

Lexi you okay?

Jim P sorry I haven’t emailed pix I will remember tonight or bust.

Paul is the bestest spouse in the universe, until the next time he screws up. That’s married life in a nutshell, folks.

I never screw up. I deliberately introduce carefully metered amounts of chaos into the lives of others in the hopes that people will be led to understand what is important in their lives.

Bright blessings to all the depressed, off to work now.

http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/election.asp

Pop, please call me after the Halloween game winds up. I suspect the Skins are going to take it. Maybe I should check with Hunter Thompson.