Month: August 2015

Walkies

The sunset was glorious, symphony in pink and blue. We walked along the Quay, Paul and I, and I commiserated with him on his bobo (he had a nightmare recently and thrashed his way into an injury) and we talked of many things.

I am writing again!  I lost 600 words because I did something stupid, recovered 300 from my most recent back up and then wrote some more for a net gain of 422 words.  I think I will be energetic enough to buckle down and get it done for the end of September… we’ll see.

September 10 Longmire season 4 comes back, YAY.  It’s a really fun show.

The next door neighbours are selling their house.  On one hand I’m glad to be losing the miserable hellhound who leaves his motorcycle idling with choking clouds of crap at zany hours, but the next neighbour could be worse, and these ones have been fine.  Also, they were our neighbours when we lived in this house before, so I’ve known the older guy for almost 20 years.  I’ll never forget the time he gave  me fu qua and I had no idea how to cook it. Bitter melon really is bitter.

Jeff has had enough of the macaroni, so I get to finish it myself.

Truth and reconciliation recommendations

I’m very fond of the printed word, and I’m a hermit, so many of these ideas for truth and reconciliation will appear to be aimed toward the scholars, and people who go from one year’s end to the next never knowingly interacting with anyone who’s First Nations.  Given a choice between doing nothing and looking stupid and elitist, I’ll take my lumps.
I’ve varied terminology between all of Indian, indigenous, First Nations, First Peoples and aboriginal but my personal preference is First Nations, because the words assert the simple truth.  They were in Canada – on Turtle Island – long before settlers arrived, and they are nations because they had distinct languages, territories and modes of self-governance and international exchange before settlers arrived.  The time has long passed for any settler to be allowed to consider the “Injuns” who were here when their ancestors arrived to have been an amorphous blob of ignorant savages, indistinguishable and extinguishable in equal measure. That they had no cannons doesn’t undo their nationhood.

The material comfort of my ancestors was increased by their losses, but nothing is my ‘fault’ except the racism I’ve embodied myself, in my own person, and the credence I have given to stories I grew up on about First Nations history and people that they themselves did not give me. Human beings capable of the effort owe themselves the clarity that examination of their own biases can bring them.  It may not be possible to eradicate the thought, and not all of us are that strong.  To eliminate bias from one’s behaviour and speech is the true goal, and to hold oneself to the necessity for not passing bias on to those of tender years should be an automatic corollary of that goal. With the elimination of bias comes the responsibility to force successive Canadian governments to honour the treaties they’ve signed and to move forward with deliberate speed on resolving outstanding issues. It is my belief that a radical overhaul of everything to do with treaties between the government of Canada and the First Nations is required.

1.    Read the 94 recommendations.
2.    A few days later, read the 94 recommendations again, more slowly this time.
3.    Which of these recommendations can you action in your own life?
4.    In your church?
5.    At your workplace?
6.    At home?
7.    In your purchasing habits?
8.    In your speech?
9.    In how you respond to news and entertainment reporting on and depicting the actions and speech of natives?
10.    In encouraging yourself to see the ways native narratives are removed from the joint narrative of settler Canadians.
11.    Think about whether you’re prepared to call yourself a settler. If you aren’t prepared to call yourself that, think about how you would verbally distinguish yourself from those who are actively hostile and racist toward the First Nations.
12.    Do you know where the nearest Friendship Centre is?  Locate it if you don’t.
13.    Do you know what languages the First Nations in your area speak, including any First Nations neighbours who aren’t from around here?
14.    Indigenous people across the planet are spending time with each other and sharing stories, medicine and strategy to address the many issues they have in common. These meetings are formal and informal, recorded and private.  What do you know about these meetings and what questions would you have for participants?  Having formulated some questions research what indigenous people have said about these meetings.
15.    If you have internet access, research and follow at least one First Nations activist on social media, although you will have a tough time keeping it to one.
16.    Visit your local library and borrow and read books by First Nations authors which can be fiction, poetry, memoir, non-fiction, academic.
17.    Research and donate money to a First Nations cause.
18.    Read the Indian Act.  There are also glosses and line by line interpretations of the Act which can add dramatically to understanding it.
19.    If you have access, watch a youtube video. Google “youtube testimony residential schools”.
20.    Go to a powwow.  Dance, as you are able.
21.    Purchase and display art by aboriginal artists.
22.    Examine your speech for racist terms and expunge them.
23.    For this next exercise, bannock, with its wondrous golden appeal and dubious nutrition, doesn’t count, nor does salmon, which is too easy. Research, cook and eat a local First Nations traditional dish.
24.    Listen to music devised and performed by First Nations artists.
25.    See the MMIW display.
26.    Learn about Haudenosaunee beadwork.
27.    Spend your vacation in accommodations owned and operated under indigenous management.
28.    Read the story of the Beothuk.
29.    Learn how to say hello, goodbye, please and thank you in a local First Nations language.
30.    Support First Nations people by attending demonstrations and making your voice heard.
31.    Learn the traditional territorial boundaries of First Nations people.
32.    Read about the laws, traditions and spiritual beliefs of First Nations people in your area.
33.    If you have school aged children, ensure that they have access to age appropriate materials about the residential schools over the course of their own schooling.
34.    http://www.thetattooedprof.com/archives/407
35.    http://theracecardproject.com/
36.    When native activists request settlers to assist in lobbying the government, protest in person or via your local elected representatives.

So here’s a new pejorative term for you

Snotwaffle.

 

Perhaps you would never have a use for a word like this, especially in reference to another human being, but bear with me.  It has a particular meaning and purpose, and it’s meant to be descriptive.

If you beheld a waffle, you might in the ordinary course of events approach it with an eye to its golden brown beauty, utility, edibility and caloric density. But if that eye fell upon a corner of the waffle which had been most callously and vilely defaced by a mighty wad of snot, you would wish to pivot and flee, as having beheld something which got your hopes up and then dashed them to the extent you went from feeling pretty darned good to wondering how the hell you could have mistaken that shine for maple syrup.

When you run across a person, of any gender representation, who appears okay and, you know, a human being, but on closer inspection appears malicious and nasty, and secondarily any person who takes something good and leaves it fucked and far from home and no longer possessing beauty or utility, and who offers neither excuse nor remedy, that person, dear friends, is a snotwaffle.

I guarantee you that an occasion to use this term of opprobrium will find its way to you soon, because this poor old world has snotwaffles in quantity.  And if someone calls you on it, you say, “‘s not awful, why, what do you think I said?”

Mass damper

There’s a 720 ton mass-damper ball in one of the tallest buildings in Taipei – check out the footage online of it moving like a kid’s soccer ball in the storm last week. It moved more than during the last earthquake.

Last night we (Alex, Imp, baby Alex, Katie, Darci, Curtis, Abbie, Jasmine, Keith, Paul, Jeff and I) went to English Bay and thanks to Alex had a picnic.  Memories stick out…

Baby Alex sprint-crawling to the water.  Baby Alex biting a lemon.  Repeatedly. Shuddering from crown to butt. Playing lemon catch with Abbie. Playing the Ukelele Song with Alex (I figured out chords on the fly, go me). Pickled eggs (SOOOO GOOD Alex home-made them). Realizing that I made eight quarts of iced tea and it almost all got drunk, which is awesome.  A fiery pink sunset. Happy eating people.  Keith giving the Imp a shoulder ride.  The Imp playing with a frisbee in a very high wind and looking very very carefully both ways before crossing the bikepath. Abbie neatly eating a sandwich.  How tenderly her parents comforted her when she took a tumble. Alex saying “before you became a parent you never thought you’d have the urge to hold someone else’s vomit in your hands” as baby Alex puked into his mom’s hands. Assorted extremely yummy olives. New potato salad so good I almost cried, or maybe that was noticing it had extremely crunchy good bacon in it.  Not eating too much, just feeling the fellowship and food.

 

Thank you Alex for putting it together.  It was really wonderful.

a visit

Woke at 4:34 with a bug crawling on me.  Sigh.  I’m sure I have a mild case of RLS because I very often get ‘the crawlies’ but my crawlies don’t move, and bugs do, so that’s how I tell the difference when lying in bed at night.

I’m getting a new mattress.  This one is shite.  I don’t feel like spending any money.

Patricia and I got together downtown to (briefly) discuss my potential job application but mostly to drink a few sophisticated beverages, in the jungle that is the café at the VAG (no fewer than 4 species of bird and mammal came through).  We scored the best seats in the house. She asked to look at baby pictures.  I am extraordinarily proud of Alex (also Katie, who is doing a more than creditable parenting job under circumstances that are more difficult than what I experienced), but I don’t spend a lot of time talking about him, because his accomplishments have more to do with the quality of his vocalizations and his digestive processes than anything grownups consider remarkable.

Our server, Claire, a charming woman, talked to us a while about how people freak out about there being animals and she’s like, duh, it’s outside with 25 years worth of very dense foliage and food, and if you see mice there’s no rats, so whatevs.  Her attitude was very bracing, and damn us if we didn’t use the last of the pita to tempt Sir Sparrow and the Sire de Mousey.  And Patricia said something so complimentary I ain’t repeating it,  but it’s one of those things I’m going to be pulling out and mentally burnishing every once in a while for the next couple of weeks any time I have the Thrumps.

After two beers (Sunsetter Summer I b’lieve, and normally I LOATHE wheat bears and they give me an immediate headache but this was delicious and carried no such freight) and some hummus it was aff hame, except I said at Granville (exaggerating somewhat) CRYFACE O WHY IS IT I MUST LEAVE YOU MY FRIEND I WISH TO CONTINUE BEVERAGING.

I pointed to the nearest pub, and she had a better idea (she lives blocks away) and we went to a very nice bar called Uva, with extremely loud music (I need to find a bar downtown with music at a comfy level) and exceptionally nice washrooms and kindly servers, and I had a Raven, because I don’t get to go to Jericho Folk any more because they stopped (rent and exhaustion trending upward as I recollect) and that was the only place I ever drank it.  It was very, very good, even better than I remember although that might have more to do with how often the beer taps were cleaned at the Galley than anything else, because it was in a bottle.

So we chatted a while longer and I went home. Very pleasant to discuss the interface of domestic life with contemporary feminism, and on that subject I need make no further public remarks.

And now Jeff’s up and there’s tons on the PVR and it’s another smoking hot day in Vancouver and we are going to a family picnic tonight, yay! Also, it’s a resumé day, and I know better than to try to write more than one kind of fiction on resumé day.  I have the job description to hand, which will make things easier.

Writing will commence after the family picnic.  I am sure of it.  I was a little underfriended, and by the time I’ve done catching up with my dear ones I’ll be much closer to having a full tank.  Thank you Mike, Patricia and Alex for that!!

MUST EAT.

The ally

I refer to myself as a recovering racist. I don’t even know where all the racism is that is inside me. I haven’t rooted it all out yet. But I do know that it’s all gotta go.
 
I have taken the step of ceasing to ask people of colour about their experiences as people of colour, or to explain stuff to me. I no longer police POC arguments by objecting to tone, since it looks like they’re already getting all of the police they can stomach. It’s racism 101, and it’s all, every last bit of it, ready to be looked for on the internet by anyone who takes the time to see.
 
No matter what a black or native person says to me, and I’ve triggered some beauts, it’s not my job to return the rhetorical tennis ball across an imaginary line. It’s my job to learn to be a better ally, and that mostly means shutting up unless white people are enacting racism in front of me; then I get to speak, and feel the shame I ’cause’ in other people, and the shame I have inside for the decades I’ve been silent.

JJ Family spa

There’s a Korean family sauna in Coquitlam that is totally awesome. Mike took me there. Hal and Cassidy and Carny and Ashley joined us. $15 bucks buys a level of comfort and cleanliness one must experience to appreciate.  I can hardly wait to take my other friends. The salt room is going to be my new best friend. Then Mike took me for a beer at Roo’s and we admired the steampunk ceiling fans and he dropped me off a couple of minutes ago.

THE FLOORS ARE ALL HEATED in the spa.  It’s like, o m g.

Only bad thing is the spa is sex segregated.  But you really can’t have everything.

We had dinner over at Hal and Cassidy’s.  I ate heritage tomatoes, deep fried okra, grits and cheese and some kind of green leafy vegetable cooked with vinegar.

Feel very good, and sleepy!

677 words yesterday

It was hard like hell.  I’m glad I didn’t go walking with Paul or I wouldn’t have written anything.  It was hard to say no. Generally unless I’m puking sick if Paul calls me to go walking I go.

Jeff and I are enjoying bingewatching The West Wing.  We’re into the second season already. We try to do our work in the morning and watch in the afternoon.

 

Time for me to get to work.

Grinding continues

267 words yesterday.

Mike took me to dinner last night.  We started at a restaurant I’m not going to name because I’m going to trash it so badly.

We walked in, and rather than the delightful scents of (not common but not unheard of subcontinental cuisine) we got incense and B.O., a combination that made my tummy (it was 7 and I hadn’t had anything to eat since noon) contract like a beercan idly squeezed by the Hulk.

Mike responded in the affirmative when I said, “Can you smell that?”

A two top and a four top came in while we were waiting.

In the brief time we were in there the server, who might have held some other position in the establishment, did the following:

stayed behind the counter fooling around with the touch screen cash register for about 7 minutes.  I know, because when Mike said, “Do you want to bail?” I said, “Let’s give him five minutes,” and more than that went by.

Left half a dozen menus on our table and used it as his source for menus as other people came in.  I have never in my entire life had the table I was sitting at be used as a menu holder.  I wanted to say something but I saw the expression on the guy’s face and I was concerned that I’d be scolded for commenting.

Brought round glasses of water en masse for everyone.

Served precisely one bowl of soup.  Every top was loaded and in seven minutes he served one customer.

Disappeared into the kitchen, once for quite a while, only reappearing with food the once.

Was short with anyone who asked him to take their order.  (Mike and I didn’t even try. EVEN THOUGH WE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT WE WANTED BEFORE WE SET FOOT IN THE RESTAURANT.)

Yeah.  I stopped being appalled after a minute or two, I was just trying to give everyone a chance, while ambiance soaked in.

When, a couple of minutes after we got the water we still hadn’t had our order taken, we bailed.  I am pretty sure the B.O. belonged to the customer closest to the door; I’m very tolerant of body odour, but this was the smell of a guy who lives on fenugreek and then marinates in his clothes in the hot sun for a couple of days in a row.

To illustrate…

To round out the glory of this experience, a three year old child was actively crying or grizzling the entire time in the corner, yeah Allegra do please backspace over something if you’re going to say something insensitive and racist so I’m skipping that little observation, and some of the worst music ever recorded and not sung in English was crapping out of the speakers.

So we up and flew away and went to Indian Bombay Bistro instead, where the chicken tikka masala and mogo and chickpeas and pilau rice were amazing.

Mike wanted his Cards against Humanity deck so we briefly dropped by Planet Bachelor and grabbed them, then back to Geekhaus for the mandolin (Edith, not Otto), and I offered some body work and pummelled Mike’s calves (still messed from the Beach, haw) and upper back until my hands got tired and then Mike went home about 9.

Shoot, I should take down the table so Jeff can exercise.  Welp, gotta go!