Month: April 2014

Gratitude

Rev Samaya did her thang at church yesterday, and it was a wonderful, chatty sermon on gratitude.  In gratitude for the weather gods lightening up, I actually got Jeff to examine the gas mower and get it running (after sitting idle all winter I didn’t find myself competent or comfy with doing that, and I am very glad I did the mowing yesterday because the grass was getting big enough to hide hunting cats in.  I also made meatballs.  They are quite tasty, Jeff appears to approve.

It was a restful weekend, and I’m ready for more training.  I think I’m getting my feet under me, but I should not be over confident….

Cousin Alex fed Keith and Paul yesterday, which was awesome.

bragging

I just got a perfect game in Sherlock, 8 tiles by 8 tiles, with a time of 5:52.  This means that in a logic puzzle of 64 tiles, with 111 clues, I solved it in 352 seconds.  For me a good time is less than ten minutes, so I’m thrilled.

Sherlock does actually exercise the brain, so I am very happy about this.

Note from 2020 (5:15 in 116 moves) ha ha and you can buy the game here: (website was born a long time ago, be nice) https://www.kaser.com/sherwin.html

background and foreground

Foreground is work and the ordinary run of domestic stuff; in the background, there are romantic rumblings, projects being thought about, and a prayer for the dejunking fairy to kick my ass into something resembling activity.

 

Other than that, I haven’t much to say.  As I get older, I wait for more news before commenting.  By the time I get it I find I was right not to get too upset.

 

 

Here I am at the end of another week

It is NOT as if time was crawling when I was unemployed, but now it’s going so fast I’m feeling like every second is a blur of paper.

I am making stupid mistakes and good catches at work.  I hope it averages out to continued employment.  You just don’t get a team like this every day… everybody is so civilized and hardworking (compared to me).  I could whine about the variability of it, but that’s what food is like.  Prices go up and down in the cycle of the seasons and nothing stays the same.

One of my fave coworkers is off in her homeland visiting rellies. I miss her because she is one of the most intelligent and yet sunny tempered individuals I have recently met. (I keep wanting to introduce her to my son, which would be grossly inappropriate in so many ways). I miss her because the most administrative portion of her job fell to me in her absence and it’s fussy and important.  So, nervous.

I am going to work on crochet and forgiveness this weekend; along with some stuff I should have attended to ages ago.  Although I am tired all the time, certain kinds of energy I didn’t have last fall have come back into my life.

I am having better communication with people I am intimate with, and that makes me calmer.  I don’t feel like everybody should be able to read my mind any more.  I know I can be a sore trial as a friend sometimes, when I’m not expansive and entertaining.

Jeff loaned me the vehicle yesterday.  I got home much faster than usual and it made a big difference to my mood all day.  I am very grateful, especially since it did inconvenience him.

Keith is apparently hiking off to Edmonton in mid May.  I will miss him, but he’s at the point in his life when he’s going to take off and adventure, and that’s good.

I learned from Katie that the baby will take her last name.  That was a calming bit of news.  I had lunch with her on Sunday as I was checking out.  It was a blessing to see her.  She’s still not showing; yet the ultrasound shows what looks to be a very robust looking kiddo.

Rob W phoned last night and we talked writing.  I don’t know what makes me an expert, except that I do more of it.  Volume is not necessarily a good aspect of production – think farts and you’ll know what I mean.  And yet it is by writing crap that we open the channels to the good stuff.

Well, off to find clothes and bus tickets and get out the door.  Boss lady is back today and much activity is in store.

Cuppa Joe serves the best hot chocolate in the city.  Srsly.

Edwardian hotels

So… the Arundel Mansion Hotel is awesome, but there are few things you need to know before you book in.

1.  YOU WILL NEED EARPLUGS.  They are supplied, but it’s noisy down here.

2.  You should probably bring an extension cord if you want to charge anything in your room overnight.

3.  If you are scared to operate an elevator which is roughly the same vintage as a Boer War survivor, don’t come, or stay on the lower floors and use the stairs.  The elevator is not automatic and it makes unearthly noises as it moves.  It is, however a complete delight. I love it.

4.  You WILL have to wash just about everything you need in the kitchen before you use it.  You are at the mercy of the housekeeping standards of the previous tenant, and the previous tenant didn’t even rinse the f*cking percolator.  I was employed for about ten minutes in the effort to restore it to some semblance of food safety.

5.  A claw footed tub is beautiful, but the surface finish may not meet your standards for cleanability.

6.  The wifi is not wonky, but it is slow.

7.  It is simply not possible to keep a place of this vintage to the cleanliness standards of modern hotels (such as they are, since everybody knows what happens if you turn a UV light on in a hotel room.)  That said, the linens and bedding are completely clean.

8.  It’s a sketchy neighbourhood, but I’ve never felt threatened.  If drug deals in the parking lot below (the one with the vintage Rolls Royce…) skeeve you out, you won’t like it.

9.  There is lots of food of varying kinds and quality and easy transportation and nice walks and touristy stuff close by.  The Keg, alas, is closed – there’s some kind of structural problem.

TL;DR – If you’re OCD, have no personal qualities such as adaptability, a sense of history and equanimity, and expect South Korean style internet access, you will hate it.  If history, quirkiness and creativity appeal to you, this is like a steampunk luxury indoor camping experience, and I love it, and I will be back.  Keith and Paul loved it.

 

A friend came over for coffee in the morning, and Paul and Keith took me to supper at the Heritage, and I wrote 1500 words in the middle, which is much less than I’d hoped and much more than I’ve done recently.  I pronounce myself pleased.  I’m gonna take video of the elevator  – it is a TRIP.

 

Off to work early this morning

I need time with my supervisor to actually learn my job…. and it’s not happening during regular hours.

Christie Blatchford is a ghastly excuse for a journalist.  I’ve never seen a more enthusiastic shill for values which support hatred and corporatism.  Gah.

Margot voluntarily remained in my lap and let me pet her for about five minutes yesterday without fleeing; them she remembered she’s not a lap cat and took off.

Paul came by with dun tot night before last, and talked to me about the restorative justice event he and Keith and Lois went to in Victoria (they got in a visit with mOm and pOp too).  I am so proud of the folks for doing that.  Thanks Jeff for updating John’s memorial site with that info.

I am REALLY looking forward to my writing weekend.  I’m going to hole up in a hotel and write for three days in a hundred year old building with clawfoot tubs and free wifi, best of both worlds thanks.

Well, if I’m going to get on the bus by quarter six I’d better root, ablute and scoot.  Root in the eating like a pig sense, not the other use of the verb.

The images and music from Upstream Color are still going through my head.  It’s an amazing movie, I’m looking forward to rewatching it as much as I enjoyed rewatching Primer.

backing away

I don’t have enough energy for the anti racism curriculum now that I’m working full time so I’ve emailed everybody and told them I don’t have the energy. It’ll be okay.

Not going to church this morning.  I feel rather disengaged.

Finally made biscotti again after a long hiatus.

I’m tired all the time.

“We live in an anocentric culture…everything runs in circles around assholes.”

I am not tone deaf I went to tonedeaftest.com.

apace

I am grateful to be employed.

There are a LOT of dead rats down where I work.

Those two statements have little to do with each other, really.

I am full of happiness at how sunny the day was, how I am alive.

I grieve for the end of life of the mother of a friend.  I hope to see her soon, before she goes into hospice.

I send a kiss and a smile to a man I know, and the international call me sign to another.

Spring deliberates so briefly and then it comes on, flouncing in on a raindrop, hazy with pollen. There is a time when trees unpack themselves and fling themselves at the sun, deliberate as all get out, but by damn, they get there, and sequoias be your guide.

I has a gladsad

My son is going to check out Edmonton for work.  I am very pleased, and also just downcast.  If he likes it he will probably be gone by the beginning of May, and if he doesn’t, he’ll be unemployed, which he has not much use for at all.

He and Paul are away so I have to do cat care tonight on the way home from work.

Time to get dressed and be off to work.  I’m dressed, it’s just the wrong clothing.

I have another homily in May, Theology at the Movies.

 

Hopelessly romantic

As part of my prep for the next blast of writing, I am rewatching every hopelessly romantic film I can, so I got Jeff to watch the 1991 Disney Beauty and the Beast with me last night.  Honestly, I must have cried for half an hour, I was so filled with nostalgia, plus of course that wonderful transformation scene.  I also found it strange that I knew every note of the soundtrack even after all these years.

We’re slowing up on Downton Abbey because of course we blasted through it.  I do love the show.

Now to see if Jeff is ready to watch Game of Thrones….

Lazy Sunday

Spoke to Katie yesterday, she sounds quite well, which is always good to know.  She cracked up as she recounted how pOp’s reaction to her gestational status included the gem, “And the worst of it is I’m now sleeping with a great-grandmother.” … which is a variant of what he said when he found out I was knocked up with Keith.

She asked me if her favorite stuffed toy had survived her childhood.  Blank!  I only kept a few.  I’d be buried in them had I kept them….

Church this morning.  It’s about food security, so I will be asking Jeff if I can borrow Mr. 2.

Science and biology on the march…

A good week

I’ve had another great week at work; we’re doing a bunch of training for a new computer system and after Epicor’s Avante it’ll seem like roasting marshmallows and drinking beer.

And I got paid.

Gotta like that!

I descuzzed the kitchen surfaces (except the sink, Jeff got to it  before I did) and now am contemplating the agony of getting on the floor and cleaning out the fridge, which smells like Something Dead, since bending knees and back does not suit me.  I have had to learn how to step down off the bus all over again; if I lead with my right foot I nearly collapse on the ground from the pain, so I have to remember it’s left foot first.

Jeff and I are very much enjoying Downton Abbey and recommend it.

Coming up – last episodes of Warehouse 13, the season ender for Justified, more Archer and hopefully more Rick & Morty.  And Game of Thrones starts up again tomorrow night.

I need to transfer some music onto my phone to relieve the tedium of the bus ride, and also maybe some TED talks or books on tape.  Apparently the Dunnett novels are all available but of course I haven’t found a free one.

I opened up the novel again and worked away at it for a bit last night.  I’ve booked the Easter weekend to do nothing but write, but that’s two weekends away.  Maybe I’ll even finish it; there’s a novella length single scene I have to write for close to the beginning of the book, and it’s going to be hopelessly and most soppily romantic, so I’ll have to really be in the mood.

Haven’t heard from Katie lately, but apparently she’s not throwing up constantly any more, so yay.  She lost a lot of weight, poor lamb, and that is never good.  It’s as well that we’re made of tough stuff.

I answered the door today to a couple of Xtian types wearing my screaming blue “I am on the side of the scientists’ t-shirt, which I acquired from a geekgrrl at Conflikt VI.  Happy days! Declined their dead tree, have enough of my own thanks.

It has been more or less unremarked that the first climate change refugees left their Pacific Island this week.  Very sad.

The global banana crop is about to fail due to a pathogen which has now been found on every continent. Also, sad.