I really do be enjoying it. What the hell is wrong with me? LOL.
Wordle in 4, no words but lots of thinking, lumosity not done yet two top five scores.
Month: April 2023
May I be conducted to hell
with ‘certain parties’ as my escort.
That was without a doubt (music aside) the most bland and unobjectionable spring festival service I’ve ever been to. There were many mitigating factors so I won’t linger but A. bless her came up to me afterward and said there was entiiiiirely too much God in that service and I could not but agree. Of course if you’re going to suck up to the three remaining and three closeted theists in the group, Easter’s the time to pull da bunny fum da sack. The bunny in this case being a fantastical holy-ish trinity of Reb Jeshua, Ramadan and the seder. I remind myself of mitigating factors and turn to
HOW I GOTS MISTOOK FOR A MAN TODAY while wearing a dress
and earrings that matched my
tights that matched my
decorative scarf in pretty colours that my mother made, and I haven’t worn all those things together in likely a decade at this point, probably church the last time too…. L. greeted me most sweetly and kindly but I was somewhat reserved as I had just put my mask on and my – you know – social anxiety spikes when I’m indoors and masked however ecstatic I am to see various people.
I digress to think about what happens to middle aged women wearing face masks. Bigots don’t want people wearing face masks because they want to be able to ‘clock’ you. You are assigned a gender at birth and wherever you migrate on your gender journey, most people want to believe they can tell and understand when presenting and presumed gender at birth don’t line up. But that doesn’t actually have any bearing on the reason I was mistook for a man…. I be somewhat digressing again, the thing, the evil thing I do for effect.
So I sing tenor now among other things (I recently checked my vocal range and …) and Keith got asked if he was the one providing the harmony. LOLOLOL I was literally as gender presenting as I can physically manage at this point and MY VOICE gave me away as a man, hiding behind a mask I MEAN LITERALLY folks for those who understand …. .
& I don’t mean to boast, but this life of mine gives me the most perfect moments of clarity and solidarity. I’ve been gender non-conforming all my life. I have no problem with my assigned whatever-as-normative, but I keep having little moments like that, and it pleases me. It’s not just the autism that makes me gender divergent; there’s something in me, neither brain nor frame, that makes me other than ‘woman’. Not 100%. Sure, able to do the madonna thing, co nursing your children how hard core. But I am not 100% woman, and I was like that before having Keith literally
And then I fucked it up totally by going off in a classic autistic meltdown with C. May I be conducted to hell. Which was where we came in. But somehow, you know,
—- SCROLL DOWN
I DIGRESS
Peggy was there and fled as someone else arrived, but I don’t know if the two events were connected so she just might have felt like walking home. I’m going to call her. Maybe she just got sick of the service. As far as I could tell they were still getting people drifting in at half time, including a previously called minister. (Love what she’s done with her hair.) Rob W was there and sat next to me during the service. In case anyone in the audio radiance thinks there’s anything between us, he told me I was too fat when I approached him after Paul and I broke up and I’ve only gotten fatter since, and I’ve reached the age when perfect isolation from romantic relationships is accompanied by nearly perfect peace. Had a few words with Rose, Marilyn, collected a hug from John, and it was all good. Even with me being a complete ass I still feel better, and Keith bless him dragged me out in good time AND I mailed a letter on the way home. Cast your bread upon the waters (it was a letter to the landlord asking if she had any vacancies this summer), and may Christ and his sanctified angels come to your aid in terms of finding food for delivery in this town today….. I reject McDonalds on this Holy Sunday.
amusement
how is it, the elderly woman remarked, that all she did was volunteer to print the agenda and take minutes and somehow she ended up with most of the action items. So the family meeting happened, there were no children present, and I got most of the action items. This seemed to be an arrangement that everyone was happy with.
This morning I need to contact Keith and find out if we’re coordinating a trip to church or he’s going by himself.
I know I got things done yesterday (I came home from the meeting with a whole cooked chicken and chocolate ice cream and I’m pretty sure I emptied the dishwasher) but it all fades in my memory thanks to the emotional challenge of the meeting. I so feel for Paul! but Katie and Keith get a round of applause for what they’ve been doing, which is facing up to the housing disaster in their immediate future.
Keith and Paul DO NOT WANT to break the household up. A replacement apartment or dwelling to take them is at least fifteen hundred dollars more than what they have and what they have is steps from untenable anyway. Katie’s been carrying more than her portion of the rent and pretty much all the groceries since she moved in – and she MADE ALL THE ARRANGEMENTS AND DID MOST OF THE PACKING FOR THE LAST MOVE – and she needs a break from being the pack mule. Katie can’t help but want to since she’s exhausted and wants to concentrate on her boys. She and Dax have decided not to live together until they have a few more things sorted out and that’s very mature of them. (But it will happen eventually is the hoped for outcome….)
And of course my mood was altered even further when I heard Marianne Faithfull’s “Deep Water” for the first time yesterday and cried and cried and cried because I couldn’t stop. It’s about the experience of having dementia from the inside and it is at once one of the bleakest and most sympathetic songs I ever heard, breathing past her cthonic voice and the simple piano accompaniment.
Oh well. Off to do some of the things I promised I would do. And it’s not like I didn’t see it coming. Ask for the minutes, get the hours, I say.
Jeff and I are very much wishing to thank Dave D for his recommendation of “Endeavour” because we just consumed the first series with happiness. It’s quite a period piece (early 60s) and the scripts are thoughtful and not peppered with 21st c neologisms.
family meeting at the junction
Wordle in 6 (yikes), 3 personal best scores in Lumosity, about 138 words on TB, no other project work to speak of. Managed to run the dishwasher, match some socks and take Paul for a walk in the neighbourhood. My urge to dejunk tanked as soon as the sun went behind a cloud and now I’m just trying to gut it out. Still six boxes, sigh.
The family meeting is for noon. I sure hope there’s an agenda.
Pollen is high
The cedar and juniper are in full burst, but the alder has died back a little so I can think again. Whatever’s blooming right now has stuck Jeff under a thumbtack of blankness. Why can’t we get a cold nap LOL and freeze some of this gunk out of the air?
Oh well, it’s going to rain all weekend (at times ‘heavily’ so I guess we’ll have to check the back drain at some point). So perhaps we shall get some relief.
Sounds like me and Keith are going to church this weekend.
Dishwasher’s running, trained Buster, made peppermint tea for Jeff, got dressed, took my meds, reheated coffee, brushed my teeth.
Lumosity 1 top 5 score, wordle in 4, no words. Dejunking and organizing stuff for the garage sale. I wrote the ad for the garage sale and sent it off to Keith and Kate for word approval (since they live in that house). Once they approve it I’ll talk to their downstairs neighbours.
anything to stop the whining
jfc, this doordash driver seems to be determined to drive up and down every laneway before she brings us our food; it’s been almost an hour so I imagine everything will be stone cold when she gets here.
Spoke to Jackie, Paul and Keith today. Suzanne was here for the enshinening. She left with some of the diatomaceous earth, too, plus that bag o’ walnuts. It’s been a day of surprises and realizations.
I need to run some errands tomorrow and get a grand planning board off the ground. For the Yard Sale.
Because Jeff is awesome
I couldn’t get an audio file to convert through Finale, no surprise because as software ages it gets less useful (I was successfully able to do it previously, which was annoying when alluvasudden…) And he fixed it for me.
So here’s the little sucker. The ‘experiments in glissando’ part is the vocal chorus sliding around and giving an ‘original Star Trek’ feel (sorry.) It took about thirteen seconds to write, I was just noodling, but I got sounds I really enjoyed and spent far more time reassigning instruments than actually making the tune happen.
Honestly I could play with Finale all day but I don’t usually get something useable that fast; unless I know exactly what tune I am recording.
Yesterday I found my copy of Machine Language, the one Dave self-printed, and it had silverfish damage. But that’s okay, I got diatomaceous earth yesterday.
ALSO…. I shouted down the stairs, “Hey Jeff I’m going to Rona want me to get anything!?” because we’re housemates and housemates look after each other’s interests. For 14 YEARS WE BEEN LIVING IN THIS HOUSE and we NEVER REPLACED THE INCREDIBLY SCRATCHED UP PEEPHOLE AT THE FRONT DOOR.
Jeff bounded up the stairs like a man on a mission and said, “Eckshully, yes.” We took measurements but the easiest was just removing it. He did, and I took to Rona. Then when I got there I met Barbara THE WONDER WORKER and she found me the diatomaceous earth and the identical peephole to the one I was replacing in (I’m not joking) 30 seconds. It took me longer to check out by far than get the stuff I needed. She said please review my performance and possibly win a thousand bucks of hardware store stuff and so I went home and did precisely that. We’ve gone from being blind to being able to see where Buster is sitting on the stairs. IT IS JEFF’S DOING AND MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES.
Buster did SEVEN pawclaps this morning in an almost unprecedented second training session. HE BUMPED MY LEFT SHIN WITH HIS HEAD REPEATEDLY, his signal for TRAINING NOW. Then we did run and chase and he loved that too. What an excellent felis cattus he is.
Started Endeavour on Dave’s recommendation, really liking it so far. Medium continues to be VERY ENJOYABLE in a lot of different ways; the scripts and the performances continue to be top tier.
Finished Mary’s letter and printed it, hope to get it mailed today.
Wordle in 4, fallow on the writing still unless you count that Finale squib, ha ha, I don’t, and Lumosity was my lowest scores in forever which is funny because I feel quite perky.
I made coffee, now to drink it while it’s still hot.
@dandantransient on twitter: Missionary work is just crowd sourced genocide
a little Easter humour
Lou-ann Neel cross posted this on facebook.
Also I learned how to say ‘stupid person’ in an Indigenous language from across the Salish Sea and it’s a simply lovely word…..
Three top five scores in Lumosity. Time to roast almonds. I may walk over to the Rona for the silverfish killer if it stays so pleasant.
SO MUCH RUNNINESS. I think the forsythia are blooming, but this is what we’re sneezing over today:
High:
Aspen, Poplar
High:
Cedar, Juniper, etc.
Moderate:
Alder
the repetition
I told mOm about it, but I’ll tell all of you because there’s aspects of grandmotherhood that are not perfect, but then grandmother activates her superpower: waiting.
When Alex was born I got to hold him. Then I didn’t get to go near him until he was talking, because he was an anxious baby and only his mother would do. But I waited. I didn’t argue with his mom (over a baby? wow, to make mom unhappy) or scold the baby for not liking me or take to social media about how his parents were keeping him from me, I waited.
And now we have the funniest and tenderest conversations lying in the dark when he comes over for a sleepover, and he only comes over when he wants to. To be liked by a child because you’re family and you love them and you’re just part of their world is a very steadying and grounding thing.
So when I watch Ryker, who’s being looked after three days a week by Suzanne (who says it’s exhausting, and I know that is true) as he SL O O W LY wakes up after his nap by repeatedly banging his forehead into the unpadded collarbones and shoulder bones of her chest, while occasionally sitting up to giggle, I am not filled with resentment at being usurped. I am filled with contentment that my grandson has all the care he needs, that he is safe, and that he sometimes giggles sleepily to himself for no other reason that he’s happy to be alive, and if it’s Suzanne prompting those giggles, I’ll share in them soon enough.
He’s starting to talk. He says ‘up’, and babbles a bit. Paul says he’s a screamer, but I got no evidence of that yesterday.
Paul was at his volunteer job at the thrift store, but Keith and Suzanne and I had a brief convo about ‘the situation’ and the garage sale, and I filled Dax in as he might have something he wanted to put in the sale. I ran an errand after – I finally have big envelopes for the big letters in large print I send to people, as well as chunks of manuscript for mOm – and I got another reel for the label-maker. Damn !! going in to Staples is hazardous, but apart from the big bag of Wine Gums I left with what I was erranding for.
I only did a small amount of decrufting yesterday, but I am working at it every day and I can see progress. I’ll see a LOT MORE progress once I get Grandad’s desk cleared off.
Wordle in 5 – it was a bear – and I’m supposed to get up and do a shop and I only just woke up LOL. Lumosity and other stuff later I guess.
Just shopped. Opened the Nut Hut delivery and they sent me $15 of organic walnuts FOR FREE. So I’m giving the whole bag to Suzanne when she comes tomorrow because they are the nicest walnuts EVAR.
Everyone have a fantastic day.
I have finished labelling the family stories
THERE ARE SO MANY! the same quantity in family calendars.
some of them have had pages very lightly et by silverfish so I have to get on the diatomaceous earth asap. No sense having family history that I can’t access cause it got et.
I thought before I went to sleep I’d do something in Finale: I tried to get ‘experiments in Glissando’ to post here but I couldn’t get it to work with the audio player. Sigh. It sounds like bandits approaching a temple.
Ordinary Monday
The UConn Huskies won it all at ‘Squeaky-Squeaky Time’ which is how we refer to March Madness.
Two best of scores in Lumosity, Wordle in 3 and it only took 20 seconds, and I think I wrote two words yesterday.
Since I was up at 1 after going to bed at the regular time, I napped quite extensively. Got a coffee in my belleh right now and I’m about to label some of the family history books mOm sent us and then take them to their new home downstairs since I poached the shelf they were in for my own room.
We ordered fish for supper. It was really good.
Ran the dishwasher, emptied and refilled it, also did me a load of laundry so I am ONCE AGAIN CAUGHT UP …. can you fathom it.
For Trotsky Tuesday, enjoy: A rebellion.
A reminder that I wouldn’t have my current crop of grandchildren if Paul’s Great grandmother hadn’t refused to get on the Titanic.
Today I’m off to Caspell Junction in the morning to make travel arrangements for Jim’s Celebration of Life and talk about the garage sale. I’ll either take Paul for a walk or we’ll run errands somewhere in there. Moar Later.
it’s April so the ants are back
sigh, just brushed one off that was crawling on me
recycling
I read on reddit that a great way to deal with paper if you don’t want to shred it (Jeff has a shredder but I have A LOT OF PAPER TO SHRED) is to turn it into papier mâché and yup, that works – I experimented with 20 year old tax returns yesterday.
Happy Easter for those who celebrate! Reread (or read, lol) my King Jesus homily if you’re in the mood.
busy day yesterday
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.
fix fix fix
Got three pieces of ‘finding a place to live’ mail into the post box today for Katie, picked up a few treats on the way home.
She’s at the house by herself; Alex is off to Suzanne’s and Ryker’s with his da. She was heavily engaged with the laundry when I arrived but took a break to fill out some paperwork for a coop.
Now that I’ve actually expended some effort on the problem for today, I have done my best for my family and that is enough for now, and I can eat my candy bar and watch TV knowing that I am not a complete lazy bumme.