Month: April 2009

Barbecue!

Pork chomps on the barbecue.  MMMM.

Mike phoned me from Wreck Beach yesterday to say dreamily, and with pretty obvious background noise, where he was.  After I quit maligning the quality of his parents nuptial bond, I had to admit he was one lucky chump.

After NCIS (Abby-centric episode yay) Keith, brooking no nonsense, hauled me out to the pool and held my head under until I did a couple of laps.  My foot feets much better this morning.

Jeff is sore all over

Part of it is scratches from Miss Margot (he’s threatening to post pictures). The other part is the horrific amount of heaving and tugging he’s had to do to help me get my head out of my ass.

No, he’s not moving out, or at least not until the next time I start rolling steel balls around in my hands again, quoting the Unabomber and twitching uncontrollably.  I’m not moving out either.  Besides, it’s NCIS night tonight, and we’re having barbecue with Keith, and I’m making cinnamon buns.  Blame in on menopause, blame it on the fact that every tree in Vancouver is having sex – and I’m not, sorry to point that out – or mebbe blame it on work.  Heavy sigh.

All I can think about is coffee….

So I will go nuke myself some.

I’ve noticed, following up on some of the stories of gangland shootings, that two of the most recent shootings were within blocks of where I live.  The sad fact is that gang activities are pretty much happening throughout the lower mainland.  There are times I worry about being shot by accident and then I have to remind myself that statistically I’m more likely to break my ankle in a drunken fall or get mangled in a car accident.  It’s odd how the threat of random violence somehow seems more likely than the usual things people get injured by.

This paragraph of whining about my physical ailments deleted.

I’m feeling pretty bleak, but at the same time I’m making some progress at work on some of the issues that were really bugging me.

I want to make cinnamon buns again, but there’s no more cinnamon.

Miss Margot is trying to kill Jeff’s houseplants.   Then she gave a sanguinary demonstration of how little she enjoys having her claws clipped.

Watched most of the NCAA championship last night.  The Tarheels sure are a good team.

I am really looking forward to three days off.  And now that I have hot coffee, I feel better.

Visit

Briefly visited with Dax and Katie yesterday, checking out his new rented room right next to the Metrotown station.  The building is owner occupied condos so the building is clean and Dax’s room is really nice.  Then I fed the kids sushi and came home.  Jeff went off and visited with his buddy Rob yesterday, and Keith was here most of the day.

Domestic news

Jeff and I have had to come to the painful conclusion that we are not suited to be long term roommates.  I wouldn’t hand this year back for any money, as I’ve mostly had a really good time and seen a pile of wonderful movies and learned a great deal, but we’re kind of headed in two different directions and there’s no denying that I am noisy and ebullient and sociable and scattered by comparison with my brother.  No end date is set yet for our joint household and there’s all kinds of tactical and logistical stuff to deal with, but please be assured that this is a civil situation and we are continuing to look out for each other’s interests as we get closer to moving day.  As neither of us can support this place alone we’ll both be moving out.  It’s a great apartment with fabulous neighbours – anybody who’s interested in it should let me know….

Off to the camp

I inspected the trailer that’s for sale at the camp in White Rock and found that it’s on a cul-de-sac and has a FABULOUS deck and a really nice feel to it.  As for the inside, who the hell knows.  Apparently it leaked but it has a new tin roof and it looks like it was built to withstand a thermonuclear attack.  Spent the night at my new friend’s because we’d all had some beers and it’s a freaking long way back to King George Skytrain station from there.  The water has been turned on and my new friend cooked me breakfast – a really nice omelette – and I had what felt like a gallon of really good coffee.  Then we listened to Little Charlie & the Nightcats’ Deluxe Edition, and my, my, my what a tasty, musically dense and lyrically excellent album that is!

I am not going to retype the paragraph I just lost so let’s just say I had a good time and I’m happy to be home with Miss Margot.

Friend news

Peter A. has gotten rid of his downstairs tenant.  He is very happy.  She fought with the neighbours.  He was just about to service the eviction notice… and she gave notice. 

Robof9 has learned to unicycle.

Chris S. is going to be dj-ing at the ANZA Club this week.

Tanya is still SERIOUSLY pregnant.  We are rapidly running out of tactful ways to describe her rotundity.

Cris is still a troublemaker. 

Christopher Lee (our chef was named after the horrormeister, doesn’t that rock?) made an amazing shrimp salad for lunch.  It was a masterpiece of yumminess.

Dax has found a place to live.

Carrie is coming to Vancouver in about a week.

Dr. Filk is making music and trouble in Ontario.

Paul’s off to a training course in Toronto on Sunday and will be visiting rellies while he’s there.

Jeff is covered in scratches on his legs from where Miss Margot has decided that if he’s upholstered he must be something she can climb.  Honestly, he looks like he’s gone a round with a bobcat.

Patricia will be going to Australia, I’m so excited for her!

Granny has a cracked rib.  The owie, the owie!

pOp says getting old is teh suck.

mOm denies that she is feeling poorly…. Robaxicet to the rescue!

Trevor is going to New Zealand today – with his wife and two kids under 5.  The horror, the horror!

Grampa’s stories

My grandfather’s stories are still holding my rapt attention.  I’m just finished the story of the irrigation system and how it was all washed away in a dreadful flood 8 years after he married my grandma.  His description of the first time he saw her is enough to keep any Harlequin Romance fan (I grew out of them, but I did love them once) happy.  And the horses!  There are so many descriptions of horses, and trick riding, and ranch riding, and working teams (four teams to move a house during the dirty Thirties) and on and on it goes.  His choice of words sometimes is uncannily apt, and his optimism, unshakeable faith in God and love for the land and his family is amazing to read about.  Happy sigh.

Work suckage was interrupted briefly yesterday by a much enjoyed buffet at the Himalayan Peak. Patricia and I had a very nice time.

How’s that again?

Last night when I got home from work there was the same picture I’d left on the screen from the morning – it’s from a series of pictures Cousin Gerald sent me.  It’s of the underside of a dock in the wintertime. Margot walked across the computer keyboard and – I’ve not the faintest notion how – suddenly there was a picture of a person holding up a sign saying “Most of the things you worry about never happen.”  Bizarre.  Then she stood on the brightness key until my screen disappeared, which is a much less entertaining and more cat like thing to do.  Took me ages to figure out what had happened. All of these miracles would not occur if I just closed the darned thing up.

I am reading my grampa’s stories.  I am now up to the point where his family could have taken the Titanic across the ocean but left a couple of days earlier that it did.  One of his near relatives was so famous as a bookseller and antiquarian in England that a letter from America with his name, occupation and country on it – and NO other details – was delivered to him. I find it entertaining that anybody who really wanted to find me could do it in two steps on the internet, but the Post Office would be scunnered if somebody sent me a letter with my name, occupation and country on it. Mind you there was delivery twice a day in England then, and a little more enterprise among the employees.

He mentions another person from his childhood who noticed that the Greenwich Mean Time was off by two seconds one day and reported it by telegram.  He was right, and they said so.

My grampa worked in the Cadbury chocolate factory when he was a boy.

Eddie is eating and going outside again, so he has recovered somewhat from the cold Jeff gave him.  Mistress Margot is showing signs of wanting to go out.  Sigh.