Month: March 2014

It wasn’t very good banana bread

But it all got et anyway.  It certainly wasn’t good enough for church but Jeff didn’t mind.  I took some nice bag tea into church, and Sue did too.  Soup lunch was yummy.

Yesterday was a laundry and church and mini relaxicon kinda day, with phone calls interspersed to various people.  I am woeing at the moment over various things, but I had a nice long talk with Sandy yesterday.  We were messing about with tarot again.  She asked recently for pull cards for purpose in life of various family members.  The deck was messing with me again and most of the cards were correct if reversed.  I said to the deck, are you for real???? and pulled a card she hadn’t asked for, for her.  It was the same card we pulled the last time, which had me laughing most immoderately, because that is what the deck is like.  Just at the point everything is random and screwed up, it reminds me to look harder.

Then I pulled the Hierophant for me.  (Sandra said, what you haven’t already?  I am incurious about some things.) Well well, telling me I’m an institutionally based spiritual authority less than a month after my last homily is not exactly a slap, but it was pretty funny, and got me thinking.  I know that UUism is my spiritual home but it’s annoying.  Do I set myself up in authority?  If so, what can I do to stop being like that?  I’m not a minister or even a good candidate for ministry (although given my gabbiness in the pulpit I get asked about it occasionally).

I was proud and humbled when this was read in church on Sunday. This is part of the context for the anti racism curriculum.

Brother Jerome called me!  He congratulated me on my new job.  (Woke me up from a sound sleep too, but other people are not responsible for keeping track of my goofy sleeping hours).  I forgot to tell him about how the Green Man came back into my life since he’s one of the few people who’d appreciate it.  I am so blessed in my friends, they’ve been really good to me.

Did cat coverage for Paul this weekend, Ayesha is a sweetie.

Yuck, I’ve had two spiders crawl across me in the last twenty four hours. I flung the last one onto the floor.  I hate killing them.

There is brie in the house. And fresh sourdough bread. And smoky, luscious Russian Caravan tea. I know what I’m having for breakfast!

bits and bobbles

Jeff and I are off to Thrifty’s once he wakes up.

I have been thinking about what I like in an actor.

A good actor works consistently and takes time off only when she must.  She tries different roles and treats everything about herself as a component of performance. She can differentiate between the toxic pixie dusts of celebrity and notoriety, interviews graciously, is courteous to fans and professional with coworkers.  She is judicious in her use of alcohol and drugs.  She leaves her personal life out of her work unless it helps to bring snap to the performance, recognizes and honours excellence in others, never stops learning and protects those aspects of herself which make for great performances against all comers.  She can take direction and make suggestions. She understands as much about the business of acting as she needs to.  She takes every job seriously, even the fun ones. And the only time you hear about her when you aren’t actually watching her is when she’s promoting a role; she saves the interesting stuff for the screen and stays out of the fricking tabloids. A good actor is a working actor.  A good actor balances knowing what she does best with working in a challenging role, knowing she might fail spectacularly.  A good actor is too busy working to worry about the last blazing success or ignominious turkey.

Soup lunch today.  I may bake something if I feel energetic enough.

I have decided that I am an Assam person, not a Darjeeling person.  I may blend the two teas together; that’s pretty much how they make English breakfast tea anyway.  Proper loose leaf tea is really a thing of beauty.

Were you aware that the global price of coffee is going to triple over the next five years?  If you can bring yourself to stop drinking it except as a treat you’ll be doing the planet and your wallet a favour.

The California drought is going to end.  Whether it will be enough to save the almond plantations is an open question.

 

Weigh in

I hadn’t weighed myself in a while, but my clothes were getting tighter, so I was delighted to see from the scale this morning that the weight I lost after I broke my shoulder has stayed off.  Now I’m getting ridiculous amounts of exercise, since I have to walk a minimum of 2 kilometres a day through terrain plus two sets of transit stairs just to get to work, so I expect the weight will stay off.  My hips and back are better; my knees and feet are shouting things ungodly at me.  I’m sleeping better and staying up later.

Jeff has commented that he’s getting interesting pings from various muscle groups now that he’s back exercising regularly with his new rowing machine.  One of these days I’ll check it out but I’m never wearing shoes when I’m downstairs…

Many hugs to Jeff for letting me borrow the car yesterday after my phone freaked out and I ended up being late getting out the door in consequence … I brought home some treats.

The family that ________s together…. 

In one of those bizarre coincidences, I mentioned the cave of Chauvet in my last homily, and until she broke her ankle, our speaker this Sunday was to be a woman taking as her text Werner Herzog’s unbelievably amazing Cave of Forgotten Dreams.  Since she can’t do it, we’re subbing in three church members talking about their creative paths, and I helped one of them since he was being put to it on short notice and he said he was feeling apprehensive and I gave him some advice.  He appeared happy to get it (my enthusiasm is a substitute for skill sometimes) and I await with pleasure how he will deal with the creative challenge of a minihom. So I would have enjoyed the booked homily and will definitely enjoy the substitute homily, and that’s pretty much how she goes at church.  Which reminds me, I should scare up a ride.

Benedict Cumberbatch will be taking on Hamlet in 2015, live somewhere in England.  Sigh.

Currently watching: Archer Vice (interesting, but no longer quite as funny), Rick and Morty (most recent show? the last two minutes took me to an unanticipated height of awesome), Justified (Boyd Crowder, how you do blow things up!), Downton Abbey, NCIS, NCIS Body Count, CSI, Person of Interest, Castle, plus the occasional Frontline and 60 Minutes.  I’ve pretty much given up on White Collar, mostly because those whackdoodles at Netflix don’t appear to want to stream it to my profile, and Jeff’s burned out on Burn Notice (ha!) although I still want to finish the show.  Person of Interest continues to be the show that Jeff and I are most likely to halt on the PVR so we can talk about the issues they are raising.  It’s a show that demands close attention and thought, and Root walked the dog Bear last episode.

Jeff is trying to get caught up on March Madness, otherwise known as the Squeaky Squeaky show from the sound of all those basketball shoes squeaking on those nice wood floors.

I wonder if two zone bus passes are available yet?  I’ll need one of those.  I do think longingly of getting a car, but I’ll be better off in at at least three ways without one.

Happy Friday to you all!  The port strike is over, although the drivers are still plenty choked.

 

Chubblies

Chubblies is Lady Miss B’s name for the cherries which are blooming in such profusion in Vancouver right now… to the point where I curse every time it stops raining, since the pollen count is grievous whenever they get a chance to start pushing out their nasty tree sex stuff.

I have a morning routine now, always pleasant. It’s an hour door to door now, with lots of lovely exercise. When the weather is crappy I will get off at Main because it is both safer and flatter.  Currently I have to cross two two-lane roads and two sets of train tracks with no level crossing, through a bramble bush, all in rapid succession, to get to work.  I am a determined older worker.

I spent thirty dollars on tea and tea related items yesterday, as I am tired of drinking crappy tea. And Friday Afternoon Tea is far away.

My new welovecolors.com order came!

Brain training doesn’t work, says a crappily researched article on the internet today.  I subscribe to Lumosity, and it has done two things that I can see for sure.  One is that my field of vision is huge now; I can see what’s going on in front of me with proper attention, to the point when I will catch things on tv shows and Jeff will run it back to look, and Jeff is an attentive viewer.  It made driving easier, too, I felt more confident that I could see the full picture. The other is that my short term memory is definitely better.  Not improved to the point I am happy with it, but better.  Anyway, as long as I see benefits I’ll keep training.

We have weekly staff meetings. Happy sigh. With Skype, even.

 

Shorter commute

I was only an hour door to door getting home last night so that was pleasant.  I’m going to try to work something a little different this morning going in as well.  There will be a ‘sweet spot’.

This is an entertaining comic.  Human sexuality is weird, but what the animal kingdom gets up to is amazing. Very mildly unsafe for work.

Indian food for dinner last night.  Desi Turku (2020 says THAT’S DESI TURKA AND WE ORDERED FROM THEM LAST WEEK)  is a new restaurant but I don’t think we’ll be ordering from them again, their food is all too salty for Jeff’s taste – I can tell but I don’t mind.

Sandy is calling me this morning for a tarot reading.  Wonder what’s up?

 

Payday!

They pay up to date.  Amazing.  I love working for a small company.

The commute does not have any stinky people on it, on the basis of three days’ worth, although somewhere around Fraser somebody gets on who smells so strong of dank (in the marijuana sense of the word) that my eyes pop open and I wanna yell, “Where’s the party!?”

I have made a listless and ineffectual stab at the laundry.  Right now I want to write. (and I did, 250 words).

I’m doing coffee in church tomorrow with Sue.  I am bringing cheese and crackers.

No comment

Katie is feeling so crappy she may be visiting the ER today.  I hope she takes a minute to text me.

I won’t be commenting any more about work unless something really interesting happens.  And since all I’m doing is working and sleeping I suspect my blog will be even more boring than it has been lately.  Unless you hear otherwise, I’m happy.

Schnitzel for dinner yesterday.  The greek salad that came with was full of moldy vegetables.  Sigh.

There’s a Cuppa Joe’s café in the complex where I work.  I now have a place to go when I’m early for work, which, when the weather is inclement is a big deal, because there’s no shelter from the bus stop to the office.

Jeff looked at me yesterday and said, “I guess the laundry is winning.”

It’s a new day

I have a  long commute and work right next to the Fraser River (as in, if there’s a century flood, goodbye office and possibly job and life), but I am really happy with their offer and my decision to take it.  I’ll be happier when I have my own log in so I can own my own mistakes (I made a doozy today, but we quietly tidied it up.)  Also, no tea.  There’s coffee but no tea.

I’m doing honest work for an honest day’s pay.  It’s all good. They made me work yesterday!

The office will be moving to larger quarters in the next couple of months.  Ah, office moves!  I survived two at Statpower, and I changed desks about once a year for more than a decade, so I’m an old hand.

Breakfast for supper last night, made French toast.

What happened?

I am really nervous about going back to work.  What if I screw up something major on my first day?  I know we’re talking almonds, not arteries, but even so…

They gave me a signed employment contract with a list of my duties.  I have never had that.  It’s like a miracle.

I’ve been reading and watching all the speculation about what happened to that Malaysian flight 370 and it’s like watching the media lose its groupmind 24.7.

It appears this is the single political act of an angry relative of a Malaysian politico who got stuck in jail on trumped up sodomy charges.

What a world.

 

From Lady Miss B’s blog:

 

Customer: “This photocopier is so expensive!”
Floor manager: “Why, I remember when it was just a farthing!”
Customer: “Are you sassing me?”
Floor manager: “Yes ma’am.”
Customer: “That’s why I shop here.”

Another customer: “Are you eight feet or nine feet tall?”
Floor manager (who is 6’2): “3 and a half, sir, plus Pharmasave-brand insoles.”

I love my co-workers.

 

Art as Spirituality MP3

After a late breakfast cooked by the birthday boy D, I got a ride back in to town where I was supPOSED to meet up with Keith and Paul and Katie, but Katie bailed because she was sick.  So I got to hug my son and listen to his tales of Australia.

Luc pointed out the MP3 is on line now.

I was supposed to get Naan last night for Jeff but the new Desi Turku restaurant is not open Sunday.