Month: December 2022

a meal, a ride for a friend

We’re still sorting out the dishwasher, but the free movement of water issue seems to be cracked, thank you Jeff.

Around 11 am I baked two chicken breasts, pulled out some salad, steamed some carrot medallions and nuked up a potato. It was a very nice brunch to lunch.

I called Paul to condole with him on Jim, and he asked for a ride home from his volunteer job at the charity second hand store because it was a bit too slippery out there for him, and getting dark. I was glad I had the opportunity.

On the way home I had just enough energy to get two 5 inch pies from The Pie Hole – an apple and a butter pecan that was SPECTACULARLY GOOD. Jeff and I have been feeling poopy so that cheered us up.  I am definitely feeling some of the more off colour effects of the new medication but I imagine I’ll adjust soon. I also ordered an enormous Purdy’s Christmas chocolate package for Jeff (and myself) to address the ‘not feeling all that great’. I mean, what can it hurt.

I am not really writing. I’ll be back to it soon enough.

Nita and Jim Christmas Day 2003

 

 

sad loss

I haven’t received official word, but it appears we’ve lost a family member.

Paul got to his appointment yesterday. It was dark when we got back and I realized it was the first time I had driven in the dark for years. Unpleasant; I managed to get lost in my own old neighbourhood for about two seconds (I turned right one turn too early, had to make a left turn onto 16th during rush hour. LOL no.)

It’s 3 am and I’m up so I’m making coffee.

Gosh I’m sad right now.

pOp is on the mend, word comes.

 

quite a bit of urine

12324 words

Slept most of the day yesterday, then slept all night.  I was advised that this could happen, so it’s probably just me getting used to the new diuretic. The first time I took it I advised my brother that I was now processing fluid from the twilight zone since I seemed to have peed more than my body weight in a single morning. Jeff pictured me as a slowly turning into a raisin on the john, and I pictured myself falling into the toilet after accidentally flushing myself, so that was pretty funny.

I was supposed to get bloodwork done this past week. Today I take Paul to his doctor – appointment is this afternoon. I got the car so I get to do this; and I want to.

I feel pretty good this morning. pOp is continuing to recover well. I hope to hear more about Jim and Jan from Lois and Ruth this week and they will be meeting up with my folks on Wednesday so I’m looking forward to a full report on that as well.

We’re just cleaning up the last of the leftovers from Keith – a ground beef stew, a kidney bean chili and a tortellini stew. Much appreciated, I should tell him when next I see him.

Gotta pee, strangely enough, take my pills and then pee even harder.

Quick visits

I went to the pharmacy finally, start the diuretic this am. I shall pee with even more vigour than I do now, oh doodie.

I visited with Ruth and Lois at Caspell Junction. Both the kids were there. Ruth made a roasted yam and pomegranate seed green salad and I made myself tea and brought the chicken wings I prepared the other day (oven baked from scratch, thank GOD I bought kitchen shears, they make wing prep go MUCH faster). They got reheated along with leftover schnitzel from Balkan house in the air fryer so it was quite a lovely meal of fresh and toasty items.

Lovely (and brief, only two hours) visit, simply topped me up. Ryker is getting molars so he keeps being super busy and then grizzling; chasing after the indoor drone and grizzling, tripping over shit and grizzling. At the same time he was sweet and I got one mini cuddle with him.  Even people he live with swear he’s grown in the last week. He will be his father’s son and simply IMMENSE.

Dax was there and loaned me a DVD; he then left for home to do laundry. How long he and Caspell Junction will be two separate households is anybody’s guess but civility reigned for the occasion so I’m going to keep comments and speculations off line.

Ruth looks great and Lois has grown her hair out long so we’re all silver sisters together. They sat down with Paul previously and worked through many of the issues that have been keeping us up at night with the family and all, and them stepping up like this was matched by how amazingly compliant Paul was with them. Honestly I’d like to see anyone stand before their combined energy and blow them off. Good luck chuckles as John might say.

Keith got his ‘Christmas present’ – money. He intends to buy something entirely frivolous and computer related, which is fine by me. Katie already got her money.

Katie looked happier than I’ve seen her in ages.

THEN in a beautiful example of how nothing happens to me for weeks and then boom, Mike turned up with a new Larrivée spruce top ukelele (for himself I hasten to add) which cost an insane amount of money, but I laughed playing it, it is SO LOUD and the intonation is nothing short of spectacular. I played my ‘Fantasia on the Elementary Theme by Sean Callery’ and ‘the Vancouver song’ and ‘The Friend who bought me this ukelele’ and whatever else I’ve worked up on that instrument and he wants tablature for a couple of those so that will keep me busy; I’ve never used Finale to generate tabs so excellent chance to practice my skills.

We ordered White Spot for delivery (Mike paid, bless him), drank dealcoholized beers, watched some Rick and Morty and rewatched the first ep of Wednesday so Mike could get its measure. Then about 7 he went home. Work continues to be foul and hauling two shifts, one for here and one for training in the Philippines. He’s exhausted and has a permanent sleep deficit and insomnia and he’s just going to collapse if this keeps up but that’s capitalizm for ya.

And of course with that much social contact I was both exhausted and buzzing.

12261 words

pOp home

I have a two inch long scrape on my left calf. Doesn’t look like it’s going to do anything untoward but it hurts like a righteous mofo.

I’m awake early after finally being diurnal. That can of poopsie right at supper shifted me out of bed.

Cold in the house, too.

11098 words

Wordle in five.

Off to do my Lumosity games now since my sensorium is now telling me I’m up. I think I may have caught the ick from Alex.

argh meds

still no pick up meds why you be like this allegra

I’M TELL YOU PARKING LOT VERY BAD, VERY BAD FOR CRAZY PEOPLE

in both senses of the word, here,

anyway

but I sat Alex and quit bugging Paul about anything except what was in front of us and the day went fine and then I MAILED A LETTER TO Ontie Mary which I suspect she will find somewhat amusing. I got money out of the bank. I grabbed some food that Jeff doesn’t like and got the hell out of Westminster Square.

Then I slammed my leg in the car door getting out of the car (snow and ice were factors) and it still hurts and it’s an hour later (we watched the first ep of TV Willow, we loved it) and ow ow ow but I’m home safe and happy to be so

and the house is clean

day plus childcare

So Alex is sick at home, Suzanne is coming here today, I need to drive over there to cover because Katie’s at work and Keith’s got an appointment. Paul is probably not even awake yet.

This was the deal. I help. I had finally gotten together the gumption to clean my room (I can claim it, you don’t have to believe it) and THERE YA GO. I’ll be too whacked when I get home, especially since I’ll be combining it with Necessary Errands.

The roads suck and I’m not too clear on what kind of tires are on the Echo. WHEEEEEEEEE

WHEEEEEE

WHEE

 

whee

Good morning morning

I did not go and pick up my prescription, so now I must find my crampons before I go outside.

10642 words on current project

ventusky.com is a beautiful site that visualizes weather data in real time across the globe. Hours of fun.

pOp is still in hospital as far as I know but should be home shortly.

There is beautiful shiny white snow all over everything and the world is quieter. It wasn’t even that cold in the house yesterday because the wind dropped away to nothing.

L.M. Sacasas said in his newsletter this morning that long form reading seems to be getting forgotten as a readerly activity… all we’re doing is dipping in to things.  I’m quoting a large piece of it because I think it’s an important thought.

Reading is not one thing

This is another point that (Maryanne) Wolf stresses throughout her interview. It seems pedantic to mention it, but, again, we are dealing with realities so deeply woven into our daily practices that we cease to think about them at all. Their obviousness paradoxically draws a veil over them. Even though images and video have proliferated exponentially in just the last two decades, we are still swimming in a sea of written words. Many of us spend hours each day reading various kinds of text: emails, text messages, posts on social media, product descriptions on retail websites, reviews, articles, recipes, essays, books, reports, etc. The list can go on and on. But these various texts invite or require different forms of reading. We might glance, we might skim, we might do little more than search for keywords, we might read deliberately, or we might find ourselves immersed in what Wolf calls deep reading. We can imagine these modes of reading existing on a spectrum of effort and care with many other points in between.

It would be a mistake to say that deep reading is the only kind of reading we should ever do.¹ In fact, it would be absurd to think that. The problem, in my case, is that I am constantly engaged in modes of reading on only one side of that spectrum, which then habituate me to be resistant to forms of reading on the other end. As I began reading the novel I’m now close to finishing, it was difficult for me to get lost in the story. When I do read something that is intellectually demanding, I find my mind wandering from the page after only a few moments. I assume that by now this is just how most people feel about reading and that some may not even know that there is any other way. (Of course, I could just be consoling myself by projecting my own vices onto others.)

And it is not just that there are various kinds of texts, some more demanding and others less. It is also that the physical form of the text matters. The history of reading or the history of the book is instructive on this point. One of my favorite books about reading is Ivan Illich’s In the Vineyard of the Text, which is unfortunately rather hard to find. In it, Illich focuses on a very specific moment in the 12th century when a set of textual innovations changed the nature of the book and, thus, how we read. Consequently, Illich argued these developments changed the whole intellectual culture of the Western Europe. What were these innovations? They were seemingly trivial things like chapter headings, indices, and page layouts conducive to silent reading.² Much of this had to do with facilitating random access to the text. The end result, in Illich’s view, was the sundering of the text from its material instantiation. In How We Became Posthuman, Katherine Hayles sets out to tell the story of “how information lost its body.” For his part, Illich would say that this happened decisively in the 12th century when it became possible to conceive of something called the text separately from its instantiation in the material form of a book. “The page,” Illich observed, “lost the quality of soil in which words are rooted.”