Month: July 2016

Pokemon Go

So I’m not getting it. It’s apparently gamifying government access to private records, and there’s quite enough of that shit going around right now without me adding to the pile.

It’s really weird seeing people congregate around an area for no other reason that imaginary beings are supposed to be there and you get points for communing with them. No… wait… that’s church.  Frak, I can’t keep track. It was weird seeing all those people milling around the World’s Biggest Tin Soldier. FOR POKEMON.

Really nice walk with Paul yesterday at the Quay.  Finally got a pulled pork sandwich from Reup BBQ after being driven insane by the smell. I make just as tasty at home (okay so not rilly authentic) so I’m thinking PORK ROAST, or just cheating and getting the Western Family packaged pull pork, which is perfectly acceptable nosh. Off to the butchers for same.  Maybe pork chomps for schnitzel. Why am I thinking about dinner at 4:50 in the morning???

 

Wiener dog races are fun

Also incredibly brief. At the end Lorraine took us all up to the roof of Hastings Racecourse and we got an amazing view of the Burrard Inlet. There were horse races too and bunches of people I only ever met on social media who turn out to be just as marvelous and funny and lively IRL.

Mike called just as I was packing up so it was bad action movies and pizza at his place.  Paul just called (he’s so chipper these days with his new eyeballs it’s almost scary!) and we’re going to go for a walk.  I’m thinking the Quay but he may have other ideas.

Nothing of interest to report

Except I’m going to the dogs. The Wiener Dog Races.

I can’t FRIKKIN believe it, according to the translink trip planner I have to take a bus across the Ironworkers’ Memorial bridge and then come back to Hastings to get there. Ludicrous.  I don’t do bridges if I can help it.

One of the cacti Jeff brought back from Victoria is so happy it’s about to bloom.  Yay!

Lovely bday

Can’t sleep, clowns will eat me.

Everybody Keith invited bailed, but Keith, Jeff, Paul and I had a lovely time watching Ant-Man and we drank most of that Dageraad Amber Ale, which was tasty.  I prepped a lot of veggies, but such is life; the lads took most of it so it won’t rot in the fridge.

Made tea; there’s lots of iced tea in the fridge but I feel like hot tea in the morning.

Going to the weiner dog races tomorrow.  What’s the point of living in Vancouver if you don’t take advantage of its many amenities I always say.

 

I really like a .38

It’s a .38 special for me, thanks.  Fits my hand and my accuracy is good.  Menfolks had fun too.  65 bucks poorer, I emerged.

Today I have a 30 year old child.  WITAF???

Dallas.  Black mens’ names.  Grief and rage.

This is what I’m doing about it.

  1.  Here is How To Make a Police Complaint in BC.
  2.  I (time will tell) gave money to BLM:Van
  3.  I am not forgetting that EVEN THOUGH Canada still has a ‘racial problem’ regarding black people, (most seriously in Toronto and Nova Scotia, but definitely elsewhere) first and foremost settlers have a FIRST NATIONS racial problem, and so I continue my anti-racism work around Land:Language:People which is my short form construction of the work that needs to happen for a more equitable and intelligent sharing of the land we call home with the peoples who lived here first. (The number of FN activists who want all settlers (‘whites’) gone is vanishingly small compared to those who want to kill the Indian Act, formalize their borders and do something about clean water, sound education and health care for their peoples.)
  4. My antiracism work is being quoted and passed around on social media.  I don’t even care if it’s attributed to me if it helps push the peanut.
  5. I am calling out famous white people on social media when they say something racist, while owning my involvement/complicity with racial systems and institutions. One finger points forward, the other three point back.
  6. I’m leaving racist family members out of this work.  It’s mostly for me, and other people who want to pry the lid off their unwitting selves.  I make no excuses and I take comfort in what POC activists have said to me on the subject of having racist relatives. Intersectionality has many dead ends.
  7. I don’t drag my poor dead ex-husband to any street parties hoping for anti-racism cookies.  It’s just a variant of the “some of my best friends…” argument and did I mention he’s dead? Since he can’t defend himself or me, I’ll leave him in the peace of his grave, and spare his bereaved family the notion that some white clownbag married to one of their relatives 30 odd years ago is trying to score points from prior association with him. This will be the last time I mention him in this context, since I prefer to think of him listening to art rock and writing poetry and being settled in a chair with cats draped all over him and making wry comments, than sighing heavily while delivering Negroes 101, as he was forced to do many times during our brief (2 year) marriage.

“Two centuries ago, a former European colony decided to catch up with Europe. It succeeded so well that the United States of America became a monster, in which the taints, the sickness and the inhumanity of Europe have grown to appalling dimensions”
Frantz Fanon

Going shooting with the boys later.

Jeff took me to brekkie at Coming Home and we watched in horror as the fire inspector came in and started the process of shutting the restaurant down.  God.

Made chocolate chip cookies.  They are damned good.

Now I’m going to head downstairs and watch the rest of the UEFA game, Germany France.

 

ZiZi

Apparently when you show Alex a picture of me that’s what he says.  I get a name, me happy.

I think the BLM:TO activists did the right thing, and I don’t give a shit, I said, and I repeat, I do not give a shit whether this puts the TPS in a rough position with respect to Pride TO or any other group.  The police have the legal monopoly on the use of force and they have done quite enough to abuse the honour this century so far.

According to Chanda Hsu Prescod-Weinstein:

I wish people were this upset about the stop and card programs. Or the databases of Black people that police are maintaining. Or Toronto police killing Black men. Or the fact that half of Black children in Montreal live in poverty. Or the fact that half of Black Toronto’s youth may not graduate high school. Or the fact that the Prime Minister talked during the election about “cultural problems” and “their music.”

Don’t take the side of the oppressor, it’s like trying to block the sun.

Off to do family oriented things later today which will not make it onto the blog, but all is well, and all will be well.

Daw, Iceland lost

Glad they got two goals in the second half, though.  I think France really wants to win the UEFA tournament, and I also think if they face the Germans it’ll be volcanic.

Wales got through, and good for them.

Made lemon curd again.  It’s even more sour than the last time.

Burns Bog is on fire.  It’s one of the lower Mainland’s ecological jewels but with climate warming it may just burn out. A transmission tower is already down; no revisions to air quality have been made but it’s already making apartment dwellers pull the fire alarm miles from the fire, so I’m sure you can work it out.  Let’s hope it rains and rains hard.

 

Warcraft

I expected to hate it and it was quite enjoyable. This is the movie… I only ever watched Keith play the game.

Mike called after the soccer semifinal and of course Germany finally won over Italy in the shootout. We went to pho at Miss Saigon across from Metrotown. I’m now contemplating having it for brekky.

ALMOST 3 weeks now, no coffee. Jeff says you can have a small amount every month or so, but I figure twice a year if that will be good enough for me.

New orthotics are working out well, I’m very pleased.

Elie Weisel is dead the same week Trump used AntiJew imagery on his Twitter feed. God is most assuredly an iron.

Weak as a kitten

I’m going to check my temperature. I’m weak as a kitten, slept most of yesterday, could not eat anything, feel entirely crappy since all of my bones ache.  As is usual when I’m subpar my night was filled with wacky dreams and scary crap.

My back hurts so much I’m practically weeping as I type this.  Off to the painkillers.