equilibrium

The president of Belarus shut off the internet in his country to prevent the spread of a viral video in which a large audience of workers started shouting at him to resign. (apparently he said the only way you’re getting rid of me is killing me and he got the response he oh so richly warranted.) The tankies are sad for him. What is a tankie? It’s a fascist who wants statist communists with brutal regimes to be perfect and powerful. They defend governments like North Korea. No, I’m not joking, I wish I was.

I have re-achieved emotional equilibrium. I wrote another 700 words after I finished the last edit to my blog yesterday. Jeff took me to breakfast. I wear a mask at IHOP whenever I’m not at my own table. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. My current fave mask is the one I got from Vancouver Aquarium. Next fave is the first one I made, the white one. It’s very comfortable and the most adjustable. Next fave is a standard medical mask. I ordered a bunch more cloth masks from an Indigenous supplier; one of them is a brilliant blue with Coastal art hummingbirds all over it so I bet I know where that one will end up. The other ones I think have stylized orcas, I might be wrong. Kima would be pissed.

There is fresh tea. I make a couple of pots a day and transfer most of it into the iced tea container, once it’s cooled off.

Operation Pee Constantly is still going well. The last lingering wackiness amidships from the kidney stones and the mild infection afterwards is done, thank glob. I’m still getting used to exactly how MUCH more water I have to drink every day to keep this happy state of affairs going, but hopefully I will retrain my body to properly experience thirst.

I am still drinking black tea, but it’s not recommended for a kidney diet, so I’m trying to have at most two cups a day.

Katie recommended bocconcini pearls for cheese and no sodium cheese is a wonderful damned thing, let me assure you. I’m also drinking the low sodium V-8, which tastes weird, which makes me want to put Worcestershire sauce in it, which vitiates its low salt status. La la la. Change of habits continues. Jeff hasn’t minded the not buying treats regimen – we have a whole line of treats we bought pretty much every time we went out to Save-On but I’ll have to make do with home made cinnamon buns, scones and cakes, what a tragedy.

There’s a Buy-Low opening August 26 walking distance from here; they’ll have in house butcher and bakery, among other things. I know people who dislike this chain but they are distinctly cheaper than Save-On, and possibly they will deliver, so we shall see. Anyway it’s close enough to walk. It will be interesting to see where to park for this critter and which roadway one exits from.

Glucose tolerance test on Friday. This will be the fourth time in my life I’ve taken it. This time it’s likely that the DIABEETUS DONE GOT ME although of course I can always adjust my diet (not really, but).

Used the word vitiate in a tweet today. Thought I was using it correctly, looked it up anyway, I was.

mood crashed again

after a couple of days of feeling better I’m feeling iffy again. I think I’ll force myself out of the house to go to a farmer’s market up at Brentwood this morning. Jeff hasn’t shown any interest in going, so I’ll suit up and take the bus, since it’s just one hop.

The pumpkins and the two surviving sunflowers are doing well, and I did get some carrots.  Everything else in my garden sucks because you have to water things. My mOm knows about how to get things to grow but I’m forgetful and lazy and those are two things a farmer cannot be.

Five hundred words on the fanfic. Inexperienced character is being exposed to ETOH, hijinks ensue. (ETOH means al k hall)

Image Erica Henderson, Eisner-winning artist, made this

@ericafails on twitter

THE US IS A FAILED STATE

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Looking Inside Myself, 2002, carved whalebone by Susie Silook, artist of Siberian Yupik, Inupiaq descent

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Rogers, 2012, Post Gazette

Rob Rogers was fired from the Post Gazette in 2018 because all mainstream media outlets in the US are owned by right wing oligarchs

ah the good old days – open in a new tab and it should be (just barely) readable.

featured-1918-pandemic-1597264987762.jpg

THIS IS KOYUKI

He is a ‘cat monk’ in Japan. Nice blink, Koyuki.

Brief walk with Paul yesterday. Weather outrageously glorious. Four hundred words of fanfic. No practicing of instruments.

Katie will never read this, or not likely read this, but this is for her. Image

SPRITES

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PHOTO CREDIT STEPHEN HUMMEL MCDONALD OBSERVATORY FORT DAVIS TEXAS from an extensive wild storm in May of 2020

Post COVID paper

Infographic about post-COVID

If you click on it, it expands to a readable size.

Katie and Mike BOTH dropped by yesterday, Mike to pick up lentil soup and drop off sous-vide chicken breasts, nom, and Katie to just lay eyes on me and tell me about her life updates, which include what appears to be a shot at being happy, so, I’m like. YEAH SURE I want you to be happy, why the fuck wouldn’t I. She’s known him since high school, it’s not like he fell out of the sky. I haven’t met him, mostly because I don’t have to during a pandemic, but Paul and Keith have.

We talked about how the world is half mad with grief, and those who show no grief show fear and anger.

No walkies with Paul.

Made more lentil soup, made more dough for cinnamon buns; the ones I made yesterday morning are, like, gonzo. I guess Jeff and I really really liked them.

Finished watching season two of the Alienist. It’s much like the first season in some ways, but they handled a trope about as tastefully as one can, and the man follows the woman to her new job rather than the other way around, so that was a nice break, and there was an extremely satisfying revenge killing, one of the best and promptest ever. You killed my brother, I ain’t giving you the CHANCE to prepare to die, I’m just going to shoot you in the back. YES.

When I was researching the show I learned that the author of the original source material had a family story that possibly affected his writing; his dad committed a murder that was embedded in scandal and served time for it. Then he had a fifty year career in newspapers. I wish I was a white guy.

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This is a Balmain dress from the 50s. Dress looks like she was hung by her heels, dipped in white chocolate and rolled in glitter-encrusted dust bunnies.

Brief note re Kamala Harris

I got an education in miniature while watching berniebros attack Black women on twitter during the run up to the 2016 election. I got another miniature education when not-stupid white American migrants to Canada told me to my face that there’s no way Bernie supporters could be so ignorant, like TOTALLY shut me down while in the next minute being super chill about Indigenous rights so….

(but she was the kind of person who BREAKS UP OVER TEXT MESSAGE SO FUCK ‘ER and I could go on but t’isn’t my story)

Anyway my position on Kamala Harris is clear to me, the evergreen ‘siddown and shaddap’, at least on twitter. If I’m going to have a white lady opinion, it will be here.

Kamala Harris has been chosen as Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 US presidential election.

 

 

 

 

Jeff is home

Victoria trip a success by all accounts.

Fed Paul lunch (beef and cabbage stirfry, which was delicioso thanks) and went for a really most pleasant walk in the 12th Ave School yard. The weather yesterday was so delightful, everything fresh under mixed skies.

For some reason I felt like I should call Peggy, and we ended up talking in part about how the more sensitive among us are grieving for the whole world right now.

I’m watching Hannibal without Jeff. It’s kind of exploitative but that’s the whole point I think.

I donated to Red Cross Lebanon for the Beirut explosion.

This is Jim being silly.

This is beadwork by the stellar Gwich’in artist Margaret Nazon.

listening to Oumou Sangaré on Spotify

the album is called Seya

Kept Buster in overnight, let him out at 4:30.

Trying to think what else to do today besides go for a walk with Paul.

I have a lot of swirling thoughts in my head

Once upon a time
there was a staple gun
it mostly was for work
but sometimes was for fun
when there were bills to post
and scores to settle
we could do it all
with hurtling bits of metal

Picture the tune for this as something like a fifties pablum ballad