Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Destiel fannage

Added later, watched the Supernatural from last night, it was adorable, there was just so much squee with the boys.

Mailed a letter to mOm and another to Barry. Yes I said I mailed it already. No I didn’t actually until now. Mild chest pain (completely normal at this point) on the way up the hill; the problem is that if I stop I fall down or want to, and it’s been raining, so no work in the garden. I think I’m going to have to get one of those stool canes. I had rocks to sit on in Mt. Seymour but they’re thin on the ground in urban settings. Best part of the walk was no mask.

I should walk some more later, perhaps I’ll be able to talk Jeff into coming. Maybe not so much hillage with the walkage

terrifying podcast about what canada should do in case of political instability before/during/after the election and during the transition period, if any.

 

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This is absolutely terrible but it made me laugh.

Welp, I’m awake. Guess I’m having a cup of tea and some breakfast.

Had a nice long talk yesterday with my mOm about my medical woes. I’ll be fine, I’ll be fine; but my body fell apart after that infection in March, and there’s one symptom in particular that makes me think it’s post COVID, but I guess I’ll never know and should get right with not knowing, while I’m working on improving things.

Here’s Jan M. as a retail worker in 2020

She’s been posting costumes every day on her ‘gram, and some of them have been awesome, why she even did a Castiel the other day. AND I DEAD NOW

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Palate cleanser

content warning Possible Misandry; stereotyping of men; helpful nomenclature; I totally agree with this and since this is my space, in which I can talk about anything but that which might offend my mOm (and believe me, at 80 plus and a lifelong atheist and sf fan, my mOm can tighten her belt around plenty of weird shit, even if she doesn’t understand a word of it) so be warned

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so now, since I already know the outcome, I’m going to ask my mOm to have pOp pick himself out of the lineup

They’re going to disagree, and then they are going to laugh very hard. For those who know them, enjoy!

right okay fine let me kick this in the goolies

How to Stop Being Offended by Everyone (in just 13 steps)

JFC. This woman need a course correction, but I’m not giving her one in the comments. Here’s the skinnified version of what she said:

My being offended is a choice; take a few breaths before responding; consider the source; discern if it was intentional; interrogate the sense of being offended, is it you or the circumstances; locate the part of you that feels victimized; send yourself loving energy rather than going off; listen to the opposing perspective; release yourself of the duty to police other people’s views; wait 24 hours to respond; and I’m quoting #11 in full because it’s SUCH BULLSHIT I WANT YOU TO SAVOUR er EXPERIENCE ITS EXCESSIVELY SHITTY QUALITY: “11. Remind yourself that we are a collective, and that the person that “wronged” you is from the same Source as you. We all have the same “cosmic DNA”. So hating them is hating you”; see the lesson from the offence as a gift; don’t stay offended.

I’ll be simple, I’ll be brief. Imagine giving this advice to a Black person who’s reading about how Black people are terrible workers; to a trans woman who’s experiencing harassment from cis-magats on the internet; to a woman reading something about feminism and allyship from the man who raped her; to an Indigenous person being mocked for eating country food when they could be vegan and ‘save the planet’; or a Jew sent the long-nosed Pepe meme; or a disabled queer person encouraged to just die already and quit ‘draining the public purse’.

THE ADVICE LOOKS DIFFERENT NOW DOESN’T IT. Don’t tell me who I can’t hate, you peccary-approximate clickbaiter. Listen to the opposing perspective when THEY WANT TO KILL ME and or MY FRIENDS. GET FUCKED! NO, SERIOUSLY! AFTER YOU!

Kelly Albano wrote the above noted clickbait. I’d like to annoy her until she drops the pretence that she’s calm, but I have other shit to do today than tell another white woman that she’s totally fucking clueless about how this feel-good advice appears during climate crisis, fascism on the march, destroyed norms of media balance and public behaviour, kids incarcerated and separated from their parents for being brown and poor, and the future of our young people destroyed by crony capitalism. Fuck you, Kelly Albano. Stay in your bubble and quit posting crap.

Yes yes, Kelly, this is advice for something that ‘offends you’ — not for something that’s an existential threat. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT, you oft-scratched scab, white women have this tremendous tendency to send shit like this to marginalized people. Yup, I see it ALL THE FUCKING TIME on twitter; they will repurpose this feelgoodery to douchewaddery in four seconds flat and some poor schlub who’s legit angry is going to get told to wind it in by a thirty-five year old white woman who’s never been stopped by the cops for anything and who thinks this shit’s a blessing on a troubled world, when it’s just going to get used to hurt people who aren’t ‘evolved enough’ – Jesus wept – not to get angry when someone’s trying to KILL THEM.

And I’m not talking on twitter about this. The idea that someone I know might forward this shite to a marginalized person who’s suffering is fuckin’ more than I can handle.

 

 

the wilds of Coquitlam

I wanted to just post the video of our trek yesterday. No comment, just the train wreck of ongoing wtfery.

Jeff said he wanted to drive somewhere for a client and I made a face. I know how terrible that part of town is (for driving, Coquitlam is quat nahss as far as greenery etc goes) and I wanted to help navigate, so I went in the car with Jeff and almost, but not quite, navigated us into a large scale portal of a Horror Dimension.

Jeff kiboshed the idea of sharing the footage with a right royal Kibosh, because essentially we didn’t do anything but swear at fate, the other drivers, and the signage.

Among other sweary things: the signage on Highway 1 as you drive just short of the Port Mann bridge. The signage as you come off 7B onto Lougheed, which just sucks in conventional terms; the signage that was COMPLETELY OBSCURED BY OVERGROWTH and it’s a fucking good thing I knew which way to direct Jeff to turn; THE FACT THAT NOT A SINGLE FUCKING PLACE OF BUSINESS ON LOUGHEED HIGHWAY BETWEEN THE 7B EXIT AND OXFORD ACTUALLY HAS ITS STREET NUMBER FACING THE ROADWAY.

The footage of us both cursing at all of this will be lost to history, and Jeff’s perfectly happy about that. The joint wail we let out when we saw the grown-over sign, though, that being lost to history mekketh me sad.

The client visit took about twenty minutes.

We solaced ourselves with Mickey D’s and Toim Tayeem.

Finding out that Phil’s ancestors were among the first to move to England – I would have bet money on that.

that’s how you advertise

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Give the people useful info!

Slept most of the day yesterday, still managed to do a load of laundry and sleep a full night just now…

more from England, in this case from @JonnElledge, for pOp

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donated to the Potlatch Fund today.

I want a proper breakfast and I already ate one. GREEDY GUTS

remember went pOp didn’t hear the woman trying to plead guilty when the cop didn’t show?  This university professor SHOWS THE SAME ENERGY

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I have mailed the letter to my mOm

I felt much better walking up the hill today. I have no idea why. I’ve been feeling so punk. If I write a letter a day I have to mail that and so rain or shine I have to leave the house. The outside is still there. The bush tits flew over my head in the alley, and this year’s black squirrel taunted me in the yard. Collected three more squash and washed them.

Finished sorting the empty seeds from the full ones from the tray of dried sunflower seeds. Many of the seeds in the head failed to set on properly, no surprise as it never got full sun, and fell over and was totally crooked and I know Jeff backed into it at least once so let’s say it never got a perfect shot.  I was a bit worried because I harvested them wet, like SOAKED from two days of rain, but I had to because the raccoons chawed a quarter of the head off, THANKS ASSHOLES. My dodge of putting them on a perforated tray as they were drying seemed to work, and I moved them around when I walked by them, and they dried perfectly, and are now resting in an appropriately labelled sealed envelope, waiting dispersal as gifts.

I started writing a letter to Barry after I mailed mOm’s, but by the third page I began to get the feeling that perhaps I was misplacing the tone a sensible woman of six decades would take in a family letter to a much loved uncle. Upon a re-read, I sounded like I was very nonchalantly in the middle of a WHOO HOO psychotic episode, so I’m shelving that project, likely forever, hey, no harm, no foul, in favour of working on my blog, instead. I don’t know what inspired me to go so Hunter S. Thompson on my own uncle but perhaps it was me reacting poorly to the notion that even after he’s dead, he’ll be a better raconteur than me, so I thought to make up in outrageousness what I did not have in sheer skill.

Phew. Really dodged a bullet. I’ll try again later and perhaps accrue a few possible topics which will be of joint interest with little possibility of causing offence or concern or possibly even consternation.

I need an alarm clock now, as I do not have a phone (why do I want a cop in my pocket) and for the meantime Jeff is loaning me a ‘not working as a phone phone’ / basic electronic minder, with a couple of games on it. That will go off when I need to take me meds, he already programmed it.

The sun has come out. It’s really quite welcome. I’m sneezing a lot; apparently mold allergies are moderate right now. My nose has been runny as well. I’m still feeling very bleak, but I’ve got cheese in the house, is one allowed to feel bleak when one has no fewer than four kinds of cheese in the house and I’m only including that ghastly parmesan on a technicality.

Lunch a cold chicken / green salad, no dressing, no added salt.

My attention span is a little speck on the move, like one of the floaters in my eyes (my floaters have been worse of late), but I’m still managing to dole myself out tasks and do them. Will today be the day of whole wheat bruschetta? Who can be certain? The signs show no favour to one thing over another. It is all a dreadful flux, and we who gaze toward certainty do not enjoy the vertiginous bumps and G-loaded slams between here and there.

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I guess I’m not good at getting up again.

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Mailed off another letter

One of the ways to fight anxiety is to think about other people, so I’m trying to write entertaining letters to relatives and friends.

Anyway, if you want a letter, private message me with your mailing address.

Katie dropped by for a visit. Alex was with Suzanne, Dax’s mum, and Katie had just dropped Paul off at the airport – he never, ever, tells me when he’s going to the US, it’s always been startling to me, no matter how many times I learn about it after he’s gone, which has literally been dozens of times, which just goes to show that I am a slow learner. He’s agreed to quarantine after he comes back, and if he misses his friends and girlfriend in the US who can blame him.

She said her car had a mind of its own and she ended up in my driveway. We had a very long and very necessary chat out on the deck. There was laughing, crying and swearing, and she is such a dear person to me. She was feeling a bit low, but she managed to cheer me up, and that was helpful.

Last night I had my first nightmare that I can remember in years. It was horrifying because my subconscious was saying that it’s better to be dead (or to kill someone else to spare them) than to go through whatever was happening (some unspecified apocalypse). I can’t actually say what it was about because the internet is forever, but let’s just say it was nauseating and disheartening and framed me as an entirely heartless and cruel person with no connection to the future of this earth.

And it was all so calm. HORRIBLE things were happening, and myself and my unnamed conspirator proceeded through our horrible response to them as if neither of us had a hair out of place or a care in the world.

Very slowly, as I realized what we had done, I decided to call the cops, and then I woke up.

 

Made chicken breasts, bok choi and onions in ginger and garlic, and green salad for supper last night. Practiced lots, still working on arrangements.

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user chewmynails posted this on reddit saying the MIL crocheted this

r/aww - My MIL crochet my cat her own couch

Speaking of kitties, Buster has been training HARD. He’s a good chonky boi.

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from @gabrielsherman on twitter

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This is quite the poem, eh? Inglorious in Excelsis by Brian Bilston

FOG

Woke up to a blanket of fog that hemmed the world into to a block. Couldn’t even see to the school.

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Continuing to work on a fleshing out and providing lyrics to a couple of songs.

Buster had 3 training sessions yesterday. He’s already trained this morning.

Oatmeal and tea for breakfast.

Paul reiterated that he had a lovely time hiking. He didn’t know how much he missed a walk with some challenge (for me it was super challenging, and it’s an ‘easy’ trail.) He wants to do it again so I’m looking for relatively short but somewhat challenging local hikes, if anyone has any ideas.

Spoke briefly to Keith. We talked about politics mostly, because man, there’s just so MUCH of it right now. The BC Election held our attention for a while.

Apart from mold allergens the air quality is pretty good today.

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Off to the grocery store

I made cinnamon sticks from the dough I made yesterday..

I did my standard ninja shop. By this I mean I make sure Jeff gets a good look at me, and then steam to the last place in the store he’d look for me. I’m pretending that I’m doing it on purpose, but it’s just the ADD. AW SHIT I NEED MILK O I FORDOTTED THE BOCCONCINI PEARLS o how I love dose tings anyway. Then there’s the moment halfway through the shop when I actually look at the list again.

I put half of the cinnamon sticks in the freezer. They are dreffle tasty. Possible not best to consume them all at once since it’s essentially half a loaf of bread with sugar and butter on top.

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Me at Goldie Lake

Allegra at Goldie Lake October 2020

Photo credit Paul Caspell

Jesus Christ in mitten strings, at this point if a cis man tells me he’s into Warhammer I’m going to assume that glum darkness with misogyny is his emotional colour palette and may I also mention that I prefer it when people show, rather than threaten to show, their reasoning skills. I just read through one of the most ghastly misogynistic piece of shit threads ever, and now the whole game has a stench I must avoid.

Yesterday and today

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I do believe you have to be human to die of COVID so I’m assuming most of these people are safe. Yes indeed Trump has tested positive for COVID. It’s the biggest security risk possible and Pence must be just drooling over how Trump could be permanently rendered unPresidential. I really only care about Stephen Miller. If I could publicly announce what I intend to do if he dies of COVID I’m not sure any of you would enjoy it. Trump needs to stay alive because Pence is worse.

Tom needs a heart valve. Schedule willing and the surgeon don’t catch COVID he’s having surgery next week. Tom is one of my favourite people and I like Peggy even more than that so the stress and confusion and foreboding they must be feeling is something else and I guess today is the day I get off my ass and make bikkies for Peggy.

I had a really productive day yesterday, (I pulled up the dead vines in the garden, still need to finish that) and wrote a letter to a family member and did a load of laundry and rehearsed on  three instruments and worked more on You do me Wrong)) and then lost my cell phone. I mean I hiked a reasonably challenging trail with Paul, whose foot seems completely healed. It’s only 3 k, but we went to Goldie Lake, and I took some great pictures, and then somewhere between the last marker post and the parking lot I lost my phone.

Paul took pictures. I’ll keep bugging him until he answers.

somebody shot heroin in Mt Seymour Park I found the needle.

Did I mention in December we have to stop having that little rent break. It was only 25 bucks a month but there’s nothing like feeling you’re putting one over on your landlord.

Now I have to buy a pomodora clock and a proper alarm clock and go back to a paper/electric calendar. Life is twagic.

My phone was set to send me a notification of my meeting with the RN yesterday but it didn’t go off, and that’s another reason I’m glad I lost my phone.

I hated my phone because at this point 3/4 of my calls were spam or phishing texts or women exhorting me in Toisanese or Mandarin.

I’ve actually wanted to stop having that bill every month. Seventy bucks for shitty service and overages after 2 gigs, **** my **** and then there’s the issue of having a cop in my pocket.

I cancelled my service and had to deal with two humans over half an hour to make that happen. I changed the most important passwords just in case there’s something in my phone that will enable them to get my shit. So Google, the blog, my social media accounts…and I went very crunchy and hard and strong on the passwords this time.

Roses are red

Sydney’s in Australia

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courtesy of @thesarahyork

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omg @Stonekettle on twitter this morning saying “If you want sympathy look in the dictionary between shit and syphilis” with respect to Trump’s positive COVID test.