I did my normal morning stuff and then communicated a bunch with Katie. I got a couple of rental applications queried and took what I’d printed out over to her to fill it out (I checked her work) and provided all the stamps and envelopes and put it in the mailbox for her. It was lovely to interact with her because she was un-surrounded by children and could complete a thought. It was sad to interact with her because she once again has to pack up her entire life and move on and can look forward to a lot of domestic strife in the meantime. Anyway I was helping her look for coops inside a three km radius, so that kept me busy part of the day.
Called Lois and Ruth and Lois called me back. I did my best to give a brief and unemotional account of what’s going to be happening with her brO now that he’s about to be renovicted and it was one of the most challenging conversations I’ve had in ages. Her affect was so different from what I’m used to I was almost crying when I got off the phone, and just got the feeling I should never have called her. Her terse, “Well I guess I’ll just have to talk to Katie then” was frankly terrifying, like I’d really fucked up by calling her. (I’d asked Katie first…) . I then got extremely angry with myself for doing the autistic ‘Let other people constantly reset your emotional clock without reference to whether it serves your needs or not’ and instead of crying I wrote 364 words on TB and sent them to my mOm. I’m a fucking adult I need to act like one. The next three months are going to be among the most challenging for our family since the two interprovincial moves in five weeks BS we had to pull in October 96 and we need as many adults pulling oars as possible.
Matched up a bunch of socks and put the last of my clothes away. I’m trying to get to get to closet zero so all I need is a dresser… since I’ll likely be moving to a smaller space within the next couple of years. Almost everything in my closet is either craft stuff or clothes I wear when I forget how uncomfortable or full of holes they are; I could probably torch the lot without missing it. Unfortunately part of my mental health issues is a weeeeeee touch of hoarding, especially with regard to clothing; ever since I was little I’ve gotten extraordinarily attached to specific items of clothing for really bizarre reasons and I get so very sad when I have to say goodbye. Thank god I haven’t changed a dress size in the best part of fifteen years. My body is fine at two hundred pounds thanks, although my hips, knees and ankles have a fine three part chorus of ‘fuck you’s’ to add to the mix.
Then I picked up treats for me and Jeff as he was feeling not fantastic. I prepared to have a simply nothing day for the rest of the day except for meal prep when Mike called and we went for a walk at the Quay. Coming up on sunset the wind came up, but it was very pleasant walking on the eastern side of the Quay with the wind at our backs while Mike played “Let it Be” on his travel uke. Then we sat in the relatively warm truck while cloud watching. It was beautiful. We talked, but not a lot. Mike is one of those people I feel obliged to chatter around.
He described a troubling encounter he had with an asshole trying to get to Grouse VIA THE SERVICE ROAD FOR VANTAN. You get a key to the gate with your membership, which Mike has, and as he went through some white guy in an expensive car tailgated him through the gate, and since he was in the way, Mike couldn’t lock the gate. Said white man peremptorily told him to get out of his way, he was on his way to Grouse Mountain. Mike told him it was a private road and that he was mistaken. The man yelled and raved for about ten minutes ordering Mike to get out of his way, and Mike said, “I have food, drink, a bed, musical instruments and many books in my vehicle. I can sit here for literally hours, mebbe days. Can you?” and with many more loud swears and slurs the white guy left. This town, I fuc’n tell you.
Mike still had to do a food shop so he dropped me back home and I FINALLY got the tofu out that I’ve been marinating for two days at this point. Marinade was soy sauce, maple syrup, hoisin sauce, white vinegar and an inch of ginger. I laboriously separated the marinated ginger out of the marinade, added some soy sauce and garlic, and then cooked up two onions, some leftover broccoli, the pack of medium tofu marinated and cubed, some Nantes carrot, some big ol’ mushrooms, some bean sprouts and sadly, the worst prepared mung bean vermicelli in the history of white people attempting to cook Chinese food. It is still identifiable as noodles but it became a mass of grey, somewhat non-food-appearing gelatinous goo, which instead of becoming easier to handle with the addition of some sesame oil, became darker, & better tasting but certainly not more attractive as a foodstuff, quite the reverse. In my defence I thought it was rice vermicelli; mung bean is fussier – and there were no cooking instructions thanks to it being manufactured in Taiwan, where babies are born knowing how to cook mung bean vermicelli. Full disclosure – I went to the internet for instructions and did not follow the instructions exactly. I thought 25 seconds is weirdly specific, what do they know, and got GLOP. Jeff did pronounce the tofu tasty – it’s worth it trying to get some flavour into that stuff.
Jeff because he is a good sport actually tried some of the ‘noodles’ and pronounced them weird – it is – but everything else in the stir fry is edible and he will have no trouble eating his way around the non-food appearing science fiction glue I cooked him.
Hey pOp, Bugs Bunny has been spotted in Santiago Chile!
A ‘new study’ says a glass of wine or beer a day is fine for your health. Maybe so but I’m not drinking except for special occasions, like Henry Kissinger dying.
Woke up this morning sore from how much walking and errand running and standing to cook I did yesterday. Nothing but slapping frozen food in the oven for me today I swear and nukin’ leftovers.
Lumosity one top score, the rest was Teh Suck, Wordle in three. Writing accomplished as noted.
