Month: December 2013

Explain to me why….

Keystone XL needs to run a pipeline through my city when we’ll be able to make fuel from algae?

This is funny even though the circumstances are not?  (Kingston fire picture).

Sabotaging birth control isn’t already a crime in the US?  It’s certainly a whopping great tort, even if there’s no criminal law on the books….

Anybody is surprised fewer kids are driving?  Between making a conscious decision not to contribute to pollution and the crappy economy, it all makes sense to me.  Both of my kids were well into their 20’s before they even started learning how, whereas I was 17 and wild to have my license.

Anybody wants to argue about what colour Santa is (when he’s an imaginary figure largely promoted by the Coca-Cola company) Link goes to retro Afro American Christmas cards, some of which are the ‘essence’ of charming.

When I no longer have a car, I can finally get a decal which adequately represents my tribble of a cat?

Science news keeps saying that a new species has been ‘discovered’ when the indigenous population knew they were there the whole time?  This is really annoying; saying it’s received a Latin name is different than “New Discovery.”

I didn’t know that Diana Cooper once referred to Winston Churchill as looking like the good little pig who built his house of bricks?

This is even a thing?  (Fundraiser to make a headset that reads dog thoughts which sounds like BS as yet).

Losing three traffic wardens causes chaos in Aberystwyth? It reads like an Onion article.

More judges don’t use their hearts as well as their brains in sentencing?

I didn’t start watching Call the Midwife until yesterday?

 

Privilege has its memberships!

White.

Middle class.

University educated.

IQ over 120  – as at last time I was tested…. my BPI on Lumosity is over 1250 and I am in the top percentiles (for all the categories for my age and sex).

Reproductively successful ciswoman.

No birth defects.

All senses currently intact.

Mobile enough to walk every day.

Able to obtain and use a driver’s license.

City dweller all my life with access to cultural amenities and public transit.

Access to health care at low cost including midwifery, physio and eyecare.

Member of an extremely supportive religious community.

Raised by both parents.

Both parents university educated.

Not abused during upbringing (not sexually or physically, no alcoholism, drug abuse or mental illness in family of origin).

Up until fairly recently, consistently employed and employable. Large number of skills mostly in an office setting, but it amazes me sometimes when I look back over my life and see what I’ve learned to do.

Never institutionalized for drug or alcohol abuse or mental illness.

Never jailed, arrested or detained for questioning.

Never randomly stopped by police except in a car for a drunk driving check, and even then I talked my way out of the one time I had been drinking and driving.  (I know, right?)

Never had an unpleasant personal encounter with the police.

Raised atheist/agnostic.

Raised as an appreciator of reason, science, science fiction and imagination.

Raised in a house full of books, music, and intellectual appreciation.

Always had a tv in the house and access to a library card.

Able at one point to afford to purchase a house.

Have a bank account.

Have a secure place to sleep at night.

Access to abundant food, clean water and fresh air, in my house or in walking distance.

Access to land to grow food on if I wish.

Not currently addicted to drugs or alcohol and apart from over the counter stuff there’s nothing in the house.  (OK, I think there’s an airplane bottle of rum somewhere in the house….)

Although I am not neurotypical, my brain challenges are not sufficient to prevent me from enjoying employment, relationships, creative endeavours.

Passport!  Just remembered that.  It’s a privilege I share with more than 50 percent of Canadians but globally it’s a huge privilege to have a Canadian passport.

Access to all vaccinations (I even got Hep C vaccinations when it turned out I could get them for free).

Access to refrigeration and subzero storage.

Access to appliances such as washing machines and cook stoves.

Access to internet 24.7 except when Shaw loses its mind.

Able to speak, read, and write English at a very high level.  It’s a privilege I’d trade for nothing, too.

Access to world class continuing education on a bewildering range of subjects.

Living in a big house with an excellent roommate, who is honest and sane and helps keep me safe and healthy.

 

What’s YER privilege?

 

 

 

 

I love it when my characters come up with good lines

George, sputtering about his cousin Theo, “The plural of fun is not drama!”

 

Jeff and I have started watching Longmire.  It’s loaded with some of our fave actors; Robert Taylor is totally new to us and turns out to be an Aussie; Katee Sackhoff, Bailey Chase, Gerald McRaney, Peter Weller, Lou Diamond Phillips.  Well written, exquisitely shot and kinda violent, just the way I like my shows.

another, another no show, and Peter O’Toole’s dead.

I am feeling rather wretched about that, but it is what it is.  Two other simply lovely things (okay, interesting and fun things) happened today.

The first was the Christmas pageant, which was stupendous (I Augustus Caesar will tax you because I want all the money / we will now take the morning offering) and hilarious (the Christ Child was BLACK suck it haters!) and exceedingly participatory.

The second was me and Keith and Katie and Rob going to the shooting range and blowing holes in shit until we all felt better.  It was expensive and noisy and worth every penny.  Watching Katie fire a gun for the first time was AWESOMES, since one awesome isn’t enough.  And thank you pOp for subsidizing it!  I have pictures, which I will share privately.

I tried firing the 9mm but my shoulder said many many rude swearz so I stuck with firing about 3 mags worth of .22.  I was not unhappy with my accuracy.  My accuracy with the .38 sucked, so I have to assume that heavier firearms aren’t going to cut it until my arm is a lot stronger.  I call that motivation.

Peter O’Toole died in London today.

Jeff and I are both crabby, but I still cooked him pork stroganoff for dinner, and he still liked it, so we aren’t being crabby with each other.

 

 

Another no show

Person of interest didn’t show.  I’m supposed to be meeting with someone else this weekend re the cafe.  It’s a numbers game, I have to be patient, etc.

Eddie is basically not coming up the stairs at all these days.  He lives in Jeff’s bathroom closet, only coming out to eat and drink and use the litter pan.  He’s painfully thin and his hair is coming out in patches and sometimes when he looks at me I get the feeling he’s trying to figure out who I am, then he lets me pet him, calls softly and sadly, and goes back to his hidey hole.  Every once in a long while he tries to jump up on something and loses his balance. Since he is still eating and drinking and taking his meds, we’re in a state of watchful waiting but also premonitory sadness.

I’m hoping to score a flu shot today, if I can gird up my loins to get there.  Also to pick up the colour printer from Paul’s place and also to do a bunch of other errandy type things.

Customer surveys can be hazardous to your marriage. (picture of a hotel survey)

 

Dialogue

My refrigeration guy from the shop is trying to help me sell it because he feels sorry for me! He brought one potential buyer yesterday and we’re meeting again today with someone else.

Walked a k yesterday in the snow.

Practiced long and hard yesterday; Jeff was away for a good chunk of the day so I could really wail.

 

If you want to know why I’m watching Burn Notice with such rapt attention, the following piece of dialogue may provide a clue.

 

Do you have a plan?

Plan? Do I have a plan? No! I have tactical goals and a rough approach.

 

Happy, Happy sigh.

 

 

cold and snow

Triple amputee zombie pranks Walmart shopper.

Santa Cthulhu.

Blasted through the last of season 1 Miss Fisher last night. I have a new crush. Nathan Page gets an expression on his face when he’s looking at Essie Davis which is extremely gratifying.  Also, as I poked around the internet for more details about him everything I read about him made me think he’s probably a pretty solid customer, with extremely nice legs.

It was midnight before I was in bed… I’m trying to reset my sleep habits; going to bed at 7 is awkward.

Still no repair on internet or furnace.  Re the internet, it’s working right now but will probably quit at some point later today, and as for the furnace, there’s no record that the ducts have been cleaned since Mulroney was Prime Minister (bleaugh).

Keith posted this GEM to facebook yesterday:  I have a long distance relationship with reality, but it’s terribly awkward when we meet face to face.  Given the scansion I think it’s a Keith original.

 

No show

Oh my screaming g’s the Detroit Philly game. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Six inches of snow on the camera crew and half the football disappears when you put it down. When the player rooted double handsful of snow out of his face mask I howled.

Furnace is broken, internet is spotty.  Working right now, but who knows later.  It’s been like this for days now.

We’re at the end of Season 4 for Burn Notice and Jeff has declared a short moratorium.  That’s okay, because I’m currently thrilling to the amazing dress sense of the lovely Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.  It’s very much in the Foyle’s War category of murder mysteries, except Australian and Phryne is a SLUTTTT! A cheerful, unapologetic and unambiguous one (but sex scenes are strictly decorous and mostly off screen).  She drives a Hispano Suiza! She has a gold plated pistol, which never seems to have any ammo! She is awesome.  So until I get Michael Westen back, probably about a week from now, I’ll have to watch Farscape and Miss Fisher instead.

Person to see the shop yesterday didn’t show.  Somebody else called, I’m showing it Tuesday.

David Simon (of the Wire) talkin”bout capitalizm.

I am thinking of going to the shooting range the next time Keith and Rob go.

I know I spend a lot of time whining, but I am really happy to be alive, and I’m writing and practicing every day, and there’s food in the fridge, and my friends love me, and my cat is cheerfully indifferent to me unless I’m crinkling packaging.

Eddie is feeling a bit better – his appetite has returned – but he’s now hiding in Jeff’s bathroom cupboard a good chunk of the time.

I have half completed my first of two new homilies (March 9 and May 11, or perhaps the other way around) and intend to have a completed draft of the first by the end of the week. mOm I should have a bit off to you shortly.

The Alberta government has tabled legislation that will prevent public sector union employees from even TALKING about striking.  What unutterable bullshit! My prairie populist ancestors are whirling in their graves like a rotisserie set on stun.

Yay, Natalie Reed is blogging again. She is a queer trans blogger living in Vancouver and she can write like a m*****-******* riot.

Filking today

Tom and Peggus are hosting, which is mahvellous, because you can’t actually turn around in the house upstairs right now.  I need to invite people over to encourage la mighty cleaning.

Showing the shop tomorrow.  We shall see.

I am playing around with Garageband. Got a tune in my head and instead of reaching for my phone, I sang it directly, crappy mike and all, into computer, and it’s adorable.  It needs a minimum of ten hours of brutal work before even a scratch copy is ready, but the sketch is there and the beats have a weight suitable for their height.

Started watching Farscape.  The opening shot made me laugh like a drain.  (Ben Browder, wearing a baby blue open Hawaiian shirt covered in stylized white octopi.  A-DORBZ, progeny!)

There’s a REASON the physio said “And if you don’t exercise every day you’ll get stiff and weak.”  Did my exercises today.  I suppose I am not in the right lineup for getting sympathy on the subject, so least said fastest mended, one supposes.