Month: October 2022

Anthony Rapp’s response + miscellany

What Rapp says is so dignified. Kevin Spacey is still a predatory asshole and I’ll sing it from the housetops.

 

“I am deeply grateful for the opportunity to have my case heard before a jury, and I thank the members of the jury for their service.”

“Bringing this lawsuit was always about shining a light, as part of the larger movement to stand up against all forms of sexual violence.”

“I pledge to keep on advocating for efforts to ensure that we can live and work in a world that is free from sexual violence of any kind. I sincerely hope that victims can continue to tell their stories and fight for accountability.”

Laryssa Gervan of Vancouver came up with a lovely GRAVE ON FOODS so much mortality in store check out Halloween display

Laryssa Gervan of Vancouver came up with a lovely Halloween display, photo credit to her.

There’s more and more news saying that plastic recycling levels are dropping even as plastic consumption rises.

Don’t buy plastic if you can avoid it. (Link goes to a pop up Christmas store at the 28,000-square-foot Potters Nursery & Garden Centre in Surrey, now till Christmas. BLEAUGH I MEAN IT’S LITERALLY 28000 SQUARE FEET OF TOXIC PLASTIC FROM CHINA AND ELSEWHERE FILLED WITH LEAD AND CADMIUM.)

8649 words on Part II

Still loving Sharpe and Hornblower shows.

RNC demonstrates that it and the ignorant goofballs running it are incapable of understanding spam filters. They have sued Google. Good luck with that, all you Chucks and Karens.

Callister Brewing Company’s Wee Laird Wee Heavy Scottish Ale has won the Canada Beer Cup out of 1000 entrants. What can I say, Vancouver is a beery good place to live, eat and drink.

In more beer news, someone stole Steamworks Brewing’s newest beermobile. IT’S BRIGHT FUCKING ORANGE PEOPLE. This town needs an enema, and I’m unsure where to jam that nozzle cause there be so so so very many bums. Steamworks Beer Mobile Vancouver

the laundry list

put away laundry
police up the spent cans for the recycling
shower
maybe shower twice, just to be sure
change bedding
go for a walk
call my mOm
call some friends
work on part II 8649 words
tell Jeff the fancy breakfast I ordered him is here

in the world:

Russian attacks on Ukrainian power generation infrastructure continue. The last 3 weeks have seen .5 of the Russian population decamp from the Motherland, and Forbes Russia said 700K have scarpered, skewing heavily towards men. Russia of course disputes this figure; the border numbers don’t add up but that honestly could mean anything.

Rishi Sunak will be the youngest and darkest PM the UK has ever had

Abortion, transgender and gay rights continue to be rolled back in the US
also lots of other places too, the place they’re starting is schoolboards, in Canada
absolute playbook

the hot and touchy standoff between China and Taiwan continues. As reported in the Taipei Times, an acceptable on line English language newspaper, the Minister of National Defence Chiu Kuo-cheng has been offered (who knows if they’ll get it in the end, how vaporous is a politician’s promise, in sooth) a TREBLING of the monthly stipend of mandatory conscripts. They already asked for five times as much and the politicians said fine they need a COLA but five times as much is wtf.

More quotatiousness from today’s TT, tell me if you can’t hear the echo of Zelenskyy’s voice in this :

National Security Bureau (NSB) Deputy Director-General Chen Chin-kuang said that at the CCP’s 20th National Congress on Saturday the party included a clause in its constitution saying that it is “adamantly against Taiwan’s independence.”

Chen said that the newly appointed vice chairman and several members of the Central Military Commission have served in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theatre Command or the Vietnam War.

When China’s economic growth begins to slow and its grip on society encounters challenges, the CCP might take action to shift the public’s attention from domestic affairs to foreign affairs, he said.

well ain’t that freaking horrifying?

 

more personally

Image may contain Clothing Apparel Tessa Thompson Human Person Evening Dress Fashion Gown and Robe

this is Tessa Thompson at the 2022 Met Gala – which was some time ago, so this is not NEWS news – photo credit Getty Images. It just blows my mind what that ass (and everything else including her posture and brain) can carry. Anyway, in my fan-a–licious mind this is her blowing a kiss to Janelle Monáe (Tessa appeared in Janelle’s mindblowingly lovely and catchy and sweet song from 2018’s ‘Dirty Computer’, ‘Pynk’ –– in a four years gone callback –– and I’m allowing that notion to cheer me up, because without a word of a lie, I’m emotionally sore at the moment)

It was lovely seeing Ryker and seeing Jeff GURN (english dialectical make faces) at him. Very well lovely possibly isn’t the right word.

 

New poem – the sieve

This is not a suicide note:
I’d bang on my brother’s door and waken him
rather than leave him my corpse ***on purpose***
ew, I mean, ew

my consciousness wrote the suicide note to you
but the smelly part is still here

I know that my procession
through these eroded markers
was foretold
but the weeping was tiresome
and I had no patience with the acidic streams
for – did you know – your tears become more basic
over the course of the day, and it’s 2 am here

I pull a stray hair out of my mouth and continue
in the present tense
<<< fly back and forth
destroyers of narrative >>>
I cry as if I could be cleansed
rather than imprisoned
behind bars of vapour

quit potchkying around and write this damned thing

it is my salute to those I love who live still
and everything they taught me, all of which
I will take with me to my niche
in the columbarium
for everything I’ve learned is nothing
compared to what is coming
it’s the brutal and the lucky
who will live
another sieve for humanity

I passed through one, today
Most days I don’t know
how close I came

but I do today

slipping away

Poor Paul. He used to sew things, but that hasn’t been for years. Yesterday he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and told me he made it. I told him he hadn’t because he doesn’t handsew seams (all of his sewing was machine sewing) and he got all quiet and sad and I feel – and felt – like a jerk.

Everything else about our walk at Fraser Foreshore was exceedingly pleasant. The chickadees recognized us and put on an aerial display I HAVE NEVER BEFORE WITNESSED.

One of them did a 180 IN FRONT OF MY FACE to get my attention and beg for treats. One landed 4 inches from Paul’s elbow (he got to see it). And one of them flew into a tree and deliberately grabbed a branch with one claw and swung upside down to impress me.

You have never heard a white woman apologize so hard to anyone. ‘I AM SO SORRY I BROUGHT NO SUNFLOWER SEEDS I AM BAD’

After we picked up more coloured markers for Alex and Keith fed me a salami and swiss bagel for lunch.

Katie gave me a ride with Alex back to my place and currently he’s wrapped himself like a blanket burrito. He’ll awaken in an hour or so and then we can walk to Timmy Ho’s.

god this is hard

Well I committed an emotional mistake in front of my grandson tonight and I’ll be lucky if I haven’t scarred him for life. Anyway I decided to show him video of what his mum looked like when she was Riker’s age and there is actually video of her, she didn’t get completely eaten by second baby syndrome and not have any pictures. He got to see John when he was slender and hirsute, and then there was Kaitlyn as a toddler and then Grandma Caspell. I backed out of that and then we watched Keith jump out of an aircraft in a tandem jump – had a video taken as a souvenir, and that was awesome, although thanks to the swipe of the passing breeze across his brow his expression was not always as dignified as he might have preferred in retrospect.

He got to see how red and enormous his mother’s infantile hemangioma was – and how it completely vanished. I had a hemangioma when I was born too.

Then I found the video, before in the brilliant sunshine taking off from Lake Weslemkoon, and after, of the crash at Buttonville Airport that nearly took the lives of Paul, Wally Solotow, me and both the kids – Katie in utero.

Hearing my own voice as Paul took video of the crashed aircraft at the darkened side of the runway, calmly saying that Keith took no permanent harm and that if he was experiencing discomfort he’d be crying, put me in no stable state of mind. I’m fine and I’ll be fine since I have a minor child in the house but I IMMEDIATELY changed the name of the file so I never have to watch it again without a goddamned content warning. Bugger me but that was awful. Of course I knew then that Paul was taking video, but the great river of time had released me from that memory, and now I was watching the lopsided aircraft in the terrible light and there it was in realtime.

I ordered mickey d’s for supper for Alex and then forgot to order Jeff’s burger.

8520 words

didn’t get the wordle this morning

sigh

whiplash feels

Woke up and immediately started weeping about the state of the world; sought to distract myself with internet, checked my email and there was a blessed message from Alex the Gamer via his mother, indicating that he desired to hang out here and have an overnight. Maybe he only cares about the donuts in the morning but apparently I’m the one he wants to see. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to have two sets of grandparents close by when I was growing up. I hope I help make him so many happy memories that they all start to blur together.

I need to put together some activities for him, I was very low energy the last time he was here.

Drought in the US is very concerning for food supplies across the planet. I imagine many domestic animals will a) not be purchased, because there’s no fodder and b) be slaughtered early because there’s no fodder. Meat prices have no option but to rise.

Managed the wordle in four this morning – without cheating.

The ladies who lunch and love Dunnett are being quite clear in their comms regarding a Dunnett lunch this year… Zoom or a breezy warmed patio to eat. One said that COVID is still happening no matter what politicians and pundits want you to believe, and she’s quite right. I await the decision of the group. I’m kinda hoping for a patio, but you know me, any chance of a trough and brew and I shake off my bleak rationalizations and get in a cab.

8267 words on Part II.

Jeff got me a two salads a burger and a shake last night. It was very good to eat.

Good morning to everyone except the woman who threatened to call the police on a man taking his daughter to the women’s washroom at Walmart. (someplace in the states).

Steve Bannon got four months. As an abolitionist I can’t approve. As a human being with a wilderness of conflicting political trends inside me, I hope he uses the opportunity for reflection, perhaps some self-improvement.

 

Locked out

I posted on twitter about Elon Musk and the CPC and my account’s locked. I can’t get back in because I don’t have a cell phone any more for 2 step authentication.

I’m almost happy about this. It’s proof that everything about the app is corrupt. Jeff thinks they’ll recheck and then I’ll get my account back, but I don’t care if I do.

I will miss my friends.

Steve Bannon only got 4 months. OH YEAH…. I’M AN ABOLITIONIST.

I believe Anthony Rapp

I always found him more credible than Kevin Spacey the man ””’HEAVILY ALLEGED ””” and now acquitted of sexually assaulting him when he was FOURTEEN.

Cousin Alex, has indicated, in consequence of conversations with other people in show business, that she believes him too.

Kevin Spacey was small time when it happened, but over and over again older white men are privileged over everyone else and we now have a world that reflects that.

A police officer with the RCMP was murdered here in Burnaby the other day and it’s sad for so many reasons. She was specifically trained to work with vulnerable populations and one of them stabbed her. There was a handwritten note on the spot of her death, “I’m sorry you didn’t make it, I hope you heard us coming.”

I’m angry because I’m afraid the RCMP will use this death as a reason to back away from less violent policing. If they don’t that would be a proper memorial for Cst. Shaelyn Yang.

I’m angry because in all likelihood she was a good cop and good cops seem to get pushed out of the profession one way or another.

I’ll be watching the trial of the man arrested for her murder with interest.

Got my flu shot availability notification; picked up my medications.

Dunnett Day is in planning mode; I don’t think I’ll attend this year. Although I may well if we’re on a heated patio.

8215 words Part II

Suzanne was here yesterday and clean floors actually temporarily existed. She finished the Part I of Totally Boned that I printed for her and wants to give it to her sister Fran now, and I approved. Go litul bok.

I bought myself a steak & lobster dinner for delivery last night. I was so emotionally exhausted after I left Katie’s (although it was awesome to see Alex (new favorite Game ‘Doors’ on Roblox, got a brief tour) and Ryker (who made strange at me). I got very self-indulgent. Briefly saw Keith; he was going walking with a friend and he gave me a hug on the way out the door which I was not expecting and much enjoyed.

Why was I emotionally exhausted – because Paul is, despite many conversations at this point, not actually understanding or able to do anything to help slow his dementia (besides exercise), he’s still in denial about it and not understanding why pestering Keith about his efforts to get a cat (they have mice AND they are all cat people) is counterproductive (Keith’s busting ass).

The reason I went over there was to record any family story he liked with the help of family photos so he could remember and he literally could not put more than a sentence together about any of the pictures we were looking at. I asked him about The House on Wortley Road (that’s the way he says it) and he couldn’t give me more than a couple of sentences and was just randomly saying stuff and saying things like “That’s a good picture of us” (from the Pan Pacific Christmas Party… I think that’s the one where Jarmo nearly got thrown out of the hotel for playing 20th Century Schizoid Man really loud in his room or was it War Pig, I was so effing drunk that night).

I have to start approaching him for this stuff first thing in the morning. And you know what, I’m not really in any shape to do this. He’s already a shell of himself (still cheerful and talkative, just not… himself)  and I was crying in the car on the way back but not loud enough for him to notice.

Ryker is run walking falling crawling at ninety miles an hour. There’s no baby gate for the front stairs (he would basically be in traction for a year if he fell down them) and he crawls CLOSE to the stairs but doesn’t seem interested in flinging himself down them, which is a perfectly fine sign of intelligence. What he does love to do is climb things. He was climbing the elliptical machine the folks have and everything turns and I thought he would end up clipping himself and he did… cried for two seconds.

I left before Dax came over. He thinks I hate him. I don’t any more but I was damned if I was going to let my emotional exhaustion trigger some kind of autistic meltdown and really didn’t want to open that door on Katie.

Jessica’s dad’s surgery was CANCELLED. He needs a triple bypass, he’s in heart failure, and he won’t get the operation until Monday at the earliest. It’s brain-punching news and Jessica and Katie are both terrified he’ll die before he can even have the surgery.

The chaos in the UK is unbelievable, and still life persists there. Brittwitter is alternating wails of angry disbelief, extremely funny reaction pictures, and people saying that Liz Truss, in flattening the pound and killing the queen, is the greatest revolutionary of her generation.

I’m going to try to do something productive today; haven’t figured out what. The rain has finally come and it’s such a relief to be able to breathe. Okay done my daily blog, COFFEE GET IN MY TANK GODDAMN YOU

Liz Truss, folks

Nathan @churchofwolves <—- the author and a ‘mutual’ on twitter (we follow each other – he lives in Glasgow.)

Truss fails upwards, tanks the economy, eats shit on the international stage and nets herself 12x the state pension annually for life. Burn this fucking country to the ground.

LizTruss will be entitled to claim up to £115,000 per year from the taxpayer for the rest of her life once she leaves office, despite likely being one of the shortest-serving prime ministers in history.

https://nationalworld.com/news/politics/public-duties-cost-allowance-liz-truss-will-be-able-to-claim-up-to-ps115000-per-year-to-maintain-public-duties-after-leaving-office-3882642

Based on average life expectancy that’s upwards of FOUR MILLION QUID for TWO MONTHS of being an unmitigated omnishambles.

I’m going to be raging about this all day, fuck.

 

 

I just had to share unmitigated omnishambles with you.

So… someone in the UK slapped two googly eyes on a head of lettuce and asked the internet to bet if it would outlast Liz Truss. Current betting is …. not looking good.

WHILE I WAS TYPING THAT I LEARNED SHE RESIGNED.

Much love to Ontie Mary this morning. I told the story to Jeff over breakfast yesterday of what happened when she watched Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope with her kids in the theatre. As I recollect the story she sussed the movie as being CLASSIC HOLLYWOOD and cheered the heroes and yelled at the villains ….

and got told to behave by her kids.

no.

says.

aunt.

Mary.

during the night

I woke up and realized the air quality was much better. It’s not clear but the elephant got off my chest.

By ditching Anjali Appadurai the BC NDP have indicated SO many things.

  1. Don’t want someone who isn’t beholden to the CPC getting the nom, let alone elected
  2. Currently existing troughpigs in the NDP might get rooted out
  3. Got to keep all but the police unions in line
  4. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY WANT MORE YOUNG PEOPLE IN THE PARTY except to work hard and do what they’re told
  5. WHY ON EARTH WOULD THEY WANT TO LET A BUNCH OF FORMER GREENS INTO THE PARTY to challenge them on policy
  6. Why would they let a bunch of young people who are against non stop resource extraction in the teeth of global climate change into the party?
  7. Why would they want people who are for justice and reconciliation (Deeds, not Words) with respect to Indigenous anywhere near the reins?
  8. I could talk about misogyny and racism too but I spose you can take it as read.

bobbles and bits

164 aqi this morning – very unhealthy…. unhealthy enough that can set off a smoke detector in some cases. Check this screen capture from Ventusky, the bowl o’ smoke we’re sitting in right now, and how there’s a huge mass of it to the east of us. Thanks Jeff for reminding me of Ventusky’s existence.

Sound brain training on Lumosity this morning, and got the wordle in three tries which made me happy.

8014 words on Part II, this next bit will be a lot less tricky. and then I’m back in the plot farm.

Putin is following the Syria plan for Ukraine. Destroy power, water, hospitals, universities/schools and cultural touchstones. If the Democrats lose the house, the Republicans will stop aid to Ukraine, at which point the Ukrainians will lose the ‘eye in the sky’ assistance from American spy satellites as well as the boatloads of matériel they’re getting every month now. Whether Germany, France and England will come up with more is an open question. China isn’t being helpful, they’ve got local and China Sea issues of their own.

Three loads of laundry yesterday, now to fold and bring upstairs sigh.

Ryker can run when someone’s holding his hand but can only take three steps on his own. I KNOW THOSE FEELS RYKER.

I looked in on Jeff this morning and I’m getting us some IHOP brekky.

I am coming along nicely on the ‘Elementary’ theme on ukulele.

SO LOOKING FORWARD to Andor later today.