Month: December 2011

Lovely long break

Well, I have taken a break from blogging and a four day break from working, and let me tell you how things went….

Saturday last I did the shopping, picking up a small fresh turkey at Choices plus fixings.  Sunday I cooked for a good chunk of the day and Keith and Paul and, later, Katie, came by and ate what I had been slaving over.  Which was not as juicy as roast birds of yore but still damned good and the skin was amazing.  Monday I spent the whole day with Tammy, who was visiting from out of town, and what a lovely, lovely day we had; I went to pick her up with Katie in tow at 9:30, and then we went to Metrotown and had a chai latte and a bit of a gab fest before Katie went into work; then a quick stop at London Drugs where despite all of Jeff’s dire warnings I purchased him (and Keith) matching birthday presents, being RC helicopters; then since the rain quit for long enough we walked down at New Westminster Quay and then met up with Keith for a late and fabulous lunch at Balkan house (the pork fillet with mushroom sauce was spectacular!) and thus Tammy got to see both kids, which is great since she’s known them for 20 years and has much enjoyed being an ontie to both of them.  Then, we went back to Geekhaus and I sang and played (not long enough to be boring I hope) and drank beer (I was being good because I had to drive) and played with Tammy’s torch phone (I got some songs and video thereon)  then long about 8 I drove her back to her mom’s place in Granville Island environs.  The weather was foul for driving and I hit hydroplaning conditions BOTH ways on the highway, which sucked the proverbial, but made it home in good shape, only to find Katie anxious to catch up on Homeland.  The darned shows are so good that despite having watched all three of the last episodes of S1 I had to watch them again.

Today I am running laundry and dishwashers and dropped off Katie (who has sworn a mighty oath to come home tonight which just makes me laugh my ass off, because she’s going to go out and hang with friends on her Friday night no matter what she says to her mOm on the morn) and picked up food and drink and painkillers and had a facial at Cecil B, which was absolutely wonderful until the moment I realized I’d put Ziva in short term parking at which point I couldn’t relax cause I thought my damned car was going to be towed.  She wasn’t.  Then I realized I hadn’t put the alarm on at the house and rabbited home, and all was well there, so I scraped about a bunny’s worth of fur off Margot while she made her ineffectual and entirely pointless growling noise, and cleaned all the cat litter off her paws and the grunge off her bum, and when I came downstairs to collapse in front of Plants Vs Zombies for half an hour, ended up scraping hair off Eddie, who for once seemed to be okay with it.

Now I am contemplating a late and leisurely lunch of leftovers and honestly, I don’t think I’ve felt this good in ages.  Oh, and I sent my spare fascinator (there’s a combination of English words you don’t hear frequently) back with the lovely Tammy so her mOm could wear it for New Years’ and at some point Keith will go collect it as he can see her condo from where he works.  My cunning plan to have people meet each other at my behest when I’m not around continues!  And Tammy’s mOm is extraordinarily well connected in the arts and fundraising communities in Vancouver, so you can’t say I’m providing an introduction that won’t be to everyone’s benefit.  I briefly saw her condo which was resplendent with Christmas decorations of subtlety and taste.  Hell, someone’s got to do it.

I send all who have been wondering where I’ve been the best of the season, and I hope you all have a safe and comfy New Years’ Eve.  And may the blessings of temperance, civility and prosperity follow the excesses of the season.

Mike’s hosting this year’s partay.  It should be a modest and jolly affair.

Happy Sigh

Patricia just showed me a lovely Art Deco platinum and diamond engagement ring.  Yup, her wild Australian laddie has made it official; they’re getting married later this year.

 

I wore my cloak to work.

 

I paid Katie $50 to call me when she’s gone from the house for 24 hours.  I was not worried (seriously, I wasn’t), but I prefer my housemates to not make me wonder at what point I’m obliged to call the police.

 

I will be singing “Dandelions Dreaming” at the Christmas Eve service at church.   Sue is worship leader.

Friday night & Saturday

Friday night Cindy took me out to dinner and then we came back here and sang and played.  I had given Paul a heads’ up that we were inbound and he was waiting for us.  We sang and played until midnight. Katie poked her head in for part of it and insisted her pop play Ramboing.  Yeah.

Yesterday I did NOTHING except run the dishwasher, watch a couple of episodes of Rome, run Katie in to work and a small amount of shopping.  Oh, and I made tea dyed cotton gloves and got steampunk findings  as part of my hat making plans.  Today, church, feeding Sue some lunch after church, and then an afternoon of real chores, as I’ve already had my day of rest.  Right now I’m going to work on songs.

The guy with whom I had “My worst ever coffee date” attempted to contact me again.  The excuse was that he enjoyed talking to me. (He was fine on the phone and, uh, how shall I put it, how about enthusiastic and inconsiderate, and in legal terms, assaultive, in person.  In public.  I had to lie like a cheap rug to escape from his company.)  I thanked him for the sentiment and said, it wasn’t going to happen.  The response was happy holidays and ‘can’t blame me for trying lol’.  Honestly.   Now that I have a little distance I’m forcing myself to see it as yet more horrifying evidence that dating over 50 is hazardous to your health.  I whined to one of my coworkers afterwards (LTGW) and he fixed me with his unblinking stare and told me that he was sorry to hear I had such a horrific experience but that I need to ask more intelligent questions prior to dates.  After that conversation – which was very helpful – I swore a mighty oath to find more productive uses for my time than trying to date.  After all, I’ve got a concert to practice for.

 

Greetings to my new readers

I understand that a couple of lurkers have joined the smallish throng of fans of this site…. let’s just say that there are many more readers and lurkers than commenters and posters.  And I don’t want it like that, but if people have better things to do than comment on my blog, I’m for being okay with that.

I have my set list for Conflikt V, which will be made of awesome.  Conflikt is the only SF convention I have perfect attendance for.  I just wish that the border experience going through customs at Airports was less disgusting.  I got selected for special treatment the last time and it wasn’t fun.  So I am very glad to be going down in the car.

Ziva is fine, thanks for asking.  She will need a valve job at some point, and I still haven’t put the winter tires on her, but she is running great at the moment. 

Katie cooked dinner last night, wOOt!

And now, I have to face the list of things to do at work.  Everybody have a productive day and don’t miss a chance to be helpful and pleasant, you never know when your behaviour will make the difference between happiness and sadness in another human soul.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell_Hoban is dead.  The man who wrote Riddley Walker is gone.  Sad, sad.  He once wryly remarked that death for him would be a good career move.

In a Lonely Place

So….. Once upon a long time ago my favourite song was a song I couldn’t identify.  It was on a mix tape DJD made for me back when I was 50 pounds lighter and random menfolks still occasionally mentioned the fertility quotient of my ass rather than its powerful ability to block the sun.   I knew that it was a band called Joy Division.  When the movie about Joy Division. Control came out I got to hear it again in quad sound, which blew my lights out because that drum riff MAKES ME NUTS.  It’s so ominous and amazing. While I was googleriffing the song, which turned out to be called “In a Lonely Place” I read a Criterion Collection review of the movie “In a Lonely Place” and it sounded SO frickin’ awesome I asked Jeff to rent it.

It turned up scant days later and Jeff and I were BLOWN away.  I mean, apart from the soundtrack, which is standard ish 50’s swelling strings and stuff that doesn’t really fit the mood, the movie approaches perfection. Humphrey Bogart is so good in this movie it beggars description; Gloria Grahame is magnificent, and the script is so uniformly excellent…. just rent the damned thing and be amazed.  Oh, it’s Noir.  Very, very noir.

So that’s my In a Lonely Place story.  I’m not in a Lonely Place…. Katie’s here, and in about five minutes I’ll finish making brekkie for the three of us.