Month: June 2023

while I was helping Paul pack

I took sick and vomited up everything I’d eaten or drunk since that mango. I mean, I’ve been feeling punk but this is tiresome (and thank god my meds have cleared). Having gotten rid of my burden, I cleaned up after myself (I didn’t make it to the toilet, although I did make it to the bathroom) and went home. Alex was there because he was under the weather. The puke itself was spectacularly multicoloured – white for the egg, orange for the carrots, brown for the mushrooms, red for the tomatoes, and as soon as I made the mistake of saying that Alex insisted on viewing it and b’lieve me, he was taken aback.

I think I’m going to drink some water and run a bath, I feel really cold. Okay my appetite came back and I just ate an enormous bowl of pho and it stayed down. I threw out all the veg I laboriously prepped this morning, just to be sure.

Ryker was so great. He’s exactly the same amount of busy when he’s in a good mood but it’s way more fun.

My doppelgänger says hi!

come on Ryker let’s go potty

We asked him if he wanted to poo in the toilet and he vehemently said YEAH and then YEAH again when we checked and Grammy took him to the potty and HE PEED RIGHT AWAY. Katie will likely be thrilled, potty readiness has been achieved.

I sang to him and fed him his lunch and I have never, ever, in my life seen a toddler destroy food like Ryker. Guy’s a bottomless pit. Katie is already expressing horror at how much he’ll cost to feed as a teenager.

thinking thoughts

Jeff has offered breakfast at Foreshore restaurant and just thinking about their coffee makes me happy so I have cheerfully agreed. I’ll try to have something better for my kidneys (less sweet, less fatty) so maybe a bowl of oatmeal.

NOPE I HAD THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST (more vegetable matter and fibre) and it was fantastic. For 13.95 you get two eggs, a homemade sausage, a slab of fried ham, a wedge of watermelon, a bowl of English style beans, fried tomatoes and mushrooms and four pieces of sourdough toast. I dare you to find a higher quality homestyle breakfast for less money anywhere in the lower mainland. Coffee’s not included but it’s bottomless once ordered, so…. OBVS I was not going to finish it so we packaged all the remains and it will make ANOTHER MEAL for both of us. God their coffee is superb and we had the resto to ourselves until a gent in conspicuity gear made his conspicuous appearance and sat far away from us. The server as always is an absolute peach of a woman – we do like her so. The ventilation in the restaurant is excellent and we never go when it’s crowded so I feel relatively safe dining unmasked.

Today I’ll head over to Paul’s in the morning and try to help with packing and I’ll pay Dax for the oil and filter.
Right now I’m thinking bout stuff n things.

love all yall have a good one

This is a list of NO GO PHRASES

So now I have to go through TB and remove all of these:

And by X, I mean Y
Are you having a stroke
Aw helllll naw!
Awesomesauce
Awkward
Bacon anything
Bag of dicks
Best ____ ever
Check please
Cray-cray
Debbie Downer
Did I just say that out loud
Douche nozzle
Dumpster fire
Epic fail
Epic fail
Food baby
Garbage people
Go Sports!
Gonna leave a mark
Good talk!
Hard pass
He’s standing right behind me
Here’s the line, here’s you
I absorbed my twin in the womb
I can’t unsee that
I just peed a little
I think that came out wrong
I think we’re done here
I’d tell you but I’d have to kill you
I’ll show myself out
I’ll take ____ for $500, Alex
I’m a hot mess
I’m right here
It’s giving me all the feels
Laughy McLaugherson
Life Hack
Little help?
Nailed it!
Note to self
Random
Really?
Rut-roh!
See what I did there?
Shots fired
Sorry (not sorry)
Spoiler alert
Squad goals
Stay classy
Swipe right
Thanks Obama
Thanks, I guess
That happened one time!
That just happened
That went – well
This is why we can’t have nice things
Too soon
Uh, define _____
Um, in English please
Va-jay-jay
Wait, what?
We have fun
Well played
White people problems
Who hurt you?
Why are we whispering?
Worst ____ ever
You assclown

This is from a writer’s room for TV. Interesting eh wot

a few items

Mo-no-ny-mous
I mean Shakira
Mo-no-ny-mous
And also Cher
Mo-no-ny-mous
Adele and Bono
and Plato, & Cato,
Colette – and don’t forget Voltaire

(This above for mOm, I sang it to her the other day and she laughed so I thought I’d write it down for her.)

Made fruit salad for the meal yesterday. Last I saw, leaving their house, Paul was going to eat the rest before anyone got seconds. It was that good. And candidly, given that he daily complains about how hard his poops are, who minds that he inhales some food value with his roughage.

It consisted of pieces of melon, blueberries, strawberries, mangoes, the best fucking Bartlett pears I ever et, and oranges. The dressing which is from a recipe I got online, I’m not smart enough to invent it, and it’s for those who can eat dairy: a cup and a half of 10%BF Greek yogurt, three tablespoons of maple syrup and half a capful of vanilla. WORDS CANNOT EXPRESS how nommy it is, and like I said I would have taken home leftovers if there had been any. The mouth feel, good god yall.

Oreo sat on my shoulders a good long while and purred hard in my ear.

I PLAYED A BOARD GAME WITH THREE QUARTERS OF MY DESCENDANTS YESTERDAY. It was Alex’s idea and I had so much fun. Hasbro’s latest version of Clue, if you need to know.

Dax changed the oil in my car. I asked him anxiously from the back deck if the oil was very dirty and he swilled it around in the container and considered the matter and said, ‘Yes’ so dryly that I burst out laughing. I owe him forty bucks for the filter and the oil so I’ll be heading out to drop it off sometime today. Perhaps I’ll combine it with a trip to Peggy’s to ditch that weird fretless bass ukulele.

Made soup yesterday. Started with a litre of unsalted Campbell’s chicken stock, added organic ramen (so damn good), chopped carrots, mushrooms, baby bok choi, a little tiny dab of veggie soup base, a splish of soy sauce. Today or tomorrow I am going to attempt Instant Pot (did you know the parent company is going out of business thanks to asset stripping? Capitalism HOW YOU SUCK) red beans and rice. I may bake up some chicken breasts and taters since the weather seems to be veering off into ‘June-uary’ temperatures.

Thunder and lightning two days ago. Not usual for these parts. We talked about the weather a lot yesterday.

Ryker was just down for his nap and Alex kissed his head AND WOKE HIM UP. He was down for most of the meal and the board game but since he’d gotten no other nap that day and was up at 6:30 Katie was SPARE while Ryker ran around the house terrorizing everything he could and parroting everything his mother said. WITH HER INTONATION. He’s got dozens and dozens of words, some clear enough that people who don’t live with him can understand him. Keith was like that, pristine pronunciation from the git. But Ryker is DIFFERENT. He is stronger, braver (yeah, like no sense of self preservation) smarter, faster, funnier, more able to understand what the adults around him are saying, more able to self-soothe, more durable – he took hits yesterday that would have had me bawling and just walked it off – picking up language so fast. Mike the father brought him back with a pinch bruise on his leg from a recliner, apologetic af, and Katie wasn’t bothered. What can you do? He’s not Alex, or Keith, who conducted themselves from a very early age knowing that the world can bite ya. I told her they should promise each other ten bucks and hand it to whichever of them DOESN’T have to take him to hospital with a broken bone first. You should have seen Katie rubbing her face as she contemplated how many TIMES she’ll likely have to take him to hospital. Like the tshirt said, today we keep the tiny human alive. Except he’s NOT tiny, he can open and shut doors with the handle.

everything about the visit is overshadowed by the fact that Alex is crying every day about how he can no longer go to second street school because his mother can’t afford to live in the catchment area. And the landlord fucked her over by not giving her a duly completed eviction notice so she can’t move up the BC housing list. This world is a horrible place for my children right now and I am helpless.

Over 500 words on TB yesterday. Richie and Blossom have finally met.

Much better

Gosh, I can’t believe how much better I feel this morning! It’s as if everything feels clearer and lighter.

Today’s Father’s Day. My pOp is best pOp, your argument is invalid. Okay, Leo’s a good father, and he fathered good fathers! Damnit, so is Terry. So was Jim (actually among the best) and then there’s Tom, he was a bighearted dad, and my grandads, and Barry, and David, and actually my life is full of good dads. Paul was among them. He’s still family, but he has passed into the part of the world where he is no longer really a dad. Katie didn’t advertise it as a father’s day meal but we’re getting together tonight. I hear Dax is fixing to change the oil in Paul’s Echo.

I am going to endeavour to persevere; I hope you all can manage that today. We are for going schlepping when the grocery opens.

A long joke, stolen from saturn128 on reddit. Typos have been corrected and it’s been slightly edited.

One day Fibonacci goes to the fair with his friends: Ms. One, Mr. Five, and Dr. Twenty.

While Fibonacci perused the fairgrounds, his friends decided to enjoy a variety of different competitions and games.

Ms. One thought to try her hand at the ring toss and ball throwing games. She’s a pretty good shot and quickly wins a pair of adorable stuffed toys shaped, oddly enough, like small cherry trees.

Mr. Five, being a man with a hearty appetite, went to sign up for the pie eating contest. When the time came to compete, Mr. Five set to his task with a ravenous fervour. The competition was brutal and incredibly messy, but by the end Five had scarfed over a dozen pies.

Dr. Twenty wandered to an area a little more removed from the main fairground. He was, in fact, looking for the tent that he knew would host the poker tables. Dr. Twenty was an avid gambler, a man of numbers and statistics as well. Upon finding the tables, Dr. Twenty is already prepared with his own bet. Placing ten dollars in the pot, he is dealt his cards and solidifies his poker face. After a solid hour of cards, the doctor had won over three times as much as he had originally bet.

All the while, Fibonacci had walked between his friends and checked on their activities. In his wanderings he had run into an acquaintance of the group. They asked, “How did the others fare in their games?”

Fibonacci responds, “Oh, One won two trees, five ate thirteen, Twenty won $34.55.”

feelin a bit better

I don’t feel great but I’m going to quit whining anyway.

It was good to see Oreo and Paul and Keith yesterday. Paul and I almost made it to Pho Edmonds but his blood pressure tanked and he was super dizzy. (He’s been messing around with his meds and taking them at different times of the day to figure out which is best. I take mine in the morning and just put up with the hour (usually considerably less time) of dizziness and nausea. Bonus, my body tells me if I’ve missed my morning meds. No, I’m not overmedicated.

I bought 45 dollah of fruit and veg yesterday and now I’m chopping it up and roasting it and I made a pure vegetarian stirfly yesterday and apart from the canned baby corn and the fact that thanks to salt restrictions it was blannnnnnd, Jeff approved. It has within it: bamboo shoots, baby corn, baby bok choi, bean sprouts, carrots, mushrooms, broccoli. Oil and oregano brushed long eggplant is in the oven for snackies later; I just ate a quarter of a very sweet but extremely firm cantaloupe and I’m quietly working on my tea while I go through the rest of my morning routine.

Supper at Katie’s tomorrow.

 

From my mind to the world

So I thought about calling friends yesterday, and instead out of the blue Tish called and Keith called and that was pleasant.

Did three turns around the upper park with Jeff yesterday. Suzanne has come and gone and the bathrooms are shinier.

My bloodwork came back and while my kidneys aren’t exactly failing, all the numbers are seriously out of whack; this accounts for my lack of appetite and powerful urge to be unconscious most of the day I reckon. Since the only change that will make any difference is diet, I feel like I’ll never eat anything good again in my life and just have to suffer through this ongoing mania for calories and tastiness by eating things that ARE NOT TREATS. I had a hardcooked egg and a salad for breakfast. I don’t know what else I can do.

Sent 1350 words off to mOm yesterday.

I’m supposed to go to Paul’s in a couple of hours. I feel wretched, and poopy.

New Poem It Is a Source of Constant Surprise

When I think of the way I used to think about you, it’s a rebuke 

to the mundane way I think of you now. 

In those days you were an apparition

fantastical goat god and that brief relief from diapers 

and the portable midden of culture that is this holy shit quotidian. 

Our ancestors, ringed ‘round us like eyes in firelight

are amazed at our carts and our flying machines

the little man in the phone

and the big man on the ceiling

who can put carriages in the firmament that carry messages here and there.

They in their silence convey stupefaction nor can they believe our dailyness

feeding our carts with an elixir of monsters from the centre of the earth

so they can go fast in careful rows 

They don’t suss the wonder of combustion while understanding very well

the long footrest makes it go. 

My contemporaries on this earth have worn through novelty 

come out on the side where all the natural dirt is;

all the glacial rocks flensed from the hide of our mother

ground down into grit are beautiful

mostly because they don’t have any fucking plastic in them. 

And yes, I am still thinking of you; you are an overhead projection in my life

I’ll look up and there’s a different quote, since you are that quotable

projected on the ceiling. The next time I look it will be different, as you will be.

Back then you were always the same, and that just isn’t true any more.

feeling pregnant

I don’t know if it will be a story, a song, a rant, a poem or a drawing but it’s not gas even if it must vent sooooon.

I have something creative in me that has to come out … is what I mean to say. This is a something creative that is not making a batch of cinnamon buns, which I did yestreen.

Today I bleached most of the coffee cups. I think a while back I ran the dishwasher with no soap and while everything was sterile when we were done there was tea baked on. Gave ’em all a thorough rinse and put ’em in the dish rack.

All the errands I’d run if I was made out of energy:

take that fretless bass ukulele back to Peggy. It was borrowed from her and a gent I don’t know loaned it to her and I CAN’T STAND THE SMELL it’s like it lived in a moldy basement for a hunnert years. BUT IT SOUNDS SO COOL (LARRY DAVID UNCERTAINTY GIF)

walk for 45 minutes at least

do a shop

bathe; maybe get really radical and brush my teeth

write a thousand words

rehearse/noodle/compose

pay bills

try to obtain my credit score

call at least a couple of my friends

play around on Bluesky, the replacement for twitter, some more (I like it so far)

What I’ll probably do:

Whine continuously and pause for my video call with my doc to get my scrips renewed. I do not want a holter monitor. I do not want a colonoscopy. We shall see. If she complains I’ll say, can you go back to the part of my file that says I have ADD? get corrected, sheesh.

Already got my first Notice of Assessment back, holeeee that was fast. Thank you Jeff as always my home guard!!! My taxes are again up to date, phew.

Suzanne comes today but this will likely be her last Thursday with us because her jobs are changing up and we need to find another four hour block – weekend most likely.

Watched a Russian soldier surrender to a drone on video this morning. The alternative was eating a grenade launched from a nearby chopper, so I’m glad he’ll eventually go home to his family.

Buster was a good boy at the vet and gets his teeth cleaned next week.

Glenda Jackson, 87, passed at home in Blackheath today. Rest well my left wing goddess.

 

 

chimichanga and Mr. Ho’s

It was lovely to see Tom, Chari, Brian and Mike at Mr. Hos. None of us had a drop of alcohol.

It was also very lovely, earlier in the day, to see Ryker who is A BUSY LITTLE BOY WHO NEVER STOPS MOVING. And broke a corelle dish, in accordance with the prophecy.

Keith cooked me a chimichanga with cheese and Suzanne made me a cup of tea and told me she can’t do second Thursday’s any more because she got a better paying position for that day but she can do an evening or weekend or morning instead. So Jeff and I will have to talk about what’s most convenient.

On the way back I got Jeff a strawberry rhubarb five inch from Pie Hole and us some relaxants from The Bohemian. Took a cab to the restaurant like a sensible person.

Curvebeak was back this morning (Jeff noticed him the other day, he’s uh, hard not to notice with that incredible honker) and it’s just aggravating because I don’t have any sound and healthy crow food except…. hardcooked eggs, (wut?) so I peeled him an egg and put it out for him. Felt weird. Accidentally let Buster out but he has to stay in for his appointment at the vet today so we for sure can lay hands on him when it’s time to go. I coaxed him back in with many treats.

Just checked what I fed Curvebeak, every scrap of the egg is gone. Well, he got one fifth of his calories for the day I guess, they eat 12 oz a day.

 

Peaceful day

I wrote 657 words yesterday on TB, so I’m very happy I’m making progress at all after such a long break. Thinking about going shlepping this morning until I remembered that on Monday everything is pretty much shopped over and there’s never any of the milk that I drink.

Made chocolate syrup this morning and the container I’ve been using since I was working at Statpower finally gave up the ghost and cracked, and I’m sad because I get very attached to my stuff and now it’s going out in the recycling.

STILL eating leftovers from the meal Cindy bought us on Friday and it’s still nommy. (The restaurant, Argo, calls it ‘dinner for two’ but that’s in a universe when two eighteen year old body builders need sustenance, believe me.) I should be through it today. Bought fish for dinner last night. I was supposed to run errands but I changed into my pjs and lounged the entire day, when I wasn’t writing and running the dishwasher and making iced tea and forgetting to press ‘send’ on the dinner order, making Jeff wait an hour and a half for his halibut….

mOm enjoyed the poetry chapbook I sent her.

Katie called me to go for a walk and I didn’t feel right enough to go even though it meant missing seeing Ryker. Sigh.

I hope I write again today but who knows what the day will bring.

 

concert went great

Cindy received plaudits for her glorious voice, of course, and Lem was happy to see me. She fed me again, blessed woman.

Buster was making little wailing noises and walking around at my feet as I was sitting on Couch # 3 in the media room. Jeff was watching Le Mans or playing Borderlands, I can’t remember which. I said, “What’s wrong buddy?” Then I said, “Yesterday it was very noisy around here… Alex, and then me and Cindy rehearsing. Are you upset because it was noisy?” He gave me a look and then jumped into my lap.
 
Buster doesn’t have a problem with TV noise unless a) there’s a dog barking and he can see the ‘stupid dog’ b) there’s a big animal noise like an elephant trumpeting or a lion roaring c) there’s prolonged bass rumbling. It’s real life noise that gets him down.
My computer’s battery continues to slowly die. If it’s at full charge and unplugged from the charger it takes about 20 minutes to get to 50 % – My Reaction:
I am pleasantly still tired but I only have one errand today so that’s good. My errands yesterday went well.