Author: Allegra

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

slime bunny

Giant African Snails make great pets, said no one ever, except some people do keep them.

r/aww - The Giant African Snail. It's a slimy bunny

 

I made an online order. They said they delivered the printer ink… it was a yoga mat. I did actually order a yoga mat, but the one they sent is the size of a bum imprint. I am not confused and angry! I am just confused!

r/Art - Maskissing, Johnson Tsang, Digital, 2020

This image shows two offwhite masks, formed into human faces and kissing. Maskissing, Johnson Tsang, Digital, 2020

 

Bee democracy. I think I want to read that book. Did I tell you Lois and Bob have bees. They had an empty hive and put attractant in it a couple of years ago, no dice. Then this year a swarm appeared and moved in. Now we know how they made the decision! By consensus!

a baby hummingbird drinks from a raspberry while in a woman's palm. It has just voided onto her hand.
Baby hummingbird

Baby hummingbird drinking from a raspberry and peeing cause that tiny bod ain’t got no room to store anything

stolen from @ddoniolvalcroze on twitter

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LOLOLOLOL

Okay so in this picture of two merged transit ads, there was a KFC ad underneath and a VW car ad on to…. the mashup, with the corporate logos on either end, reads as follows:

A car powered on ~ free range chickens

& designed by a team ~ of hand picked potatoes

Experience driving on ~ Mushrooms & Coke

Stolen from @ghostwoods on twitter

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I died when I saw this. It’s a picture of a man dressed in  ice cream cone – as in, looking exactly like a man sized cartoon-eyed ice cream cone –  taking a selfie in the BR store bathroom with the legend “How tf am I essential worker”

I stole from @dannolan, goodness alone knows who made it or how he tripped over it.

walkita walkita

So I walked 3.8 k today!  Got my meds straightened out, and they had everything ready for me, AND THEN PEGGY DELIVERED PIE

¿what’s wrong with life?  nothing’s wrong. I owe her biscotti, big time.

 

ok my knees hurt, but not that much.

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Honestly, even though he posts lots of other interesting stuff, the bedrock reason I follow @TheTattooedProf (Kevin Gannon) is because of this darned cute little dog Lulu, the little dog of a mutt&jeff pair. (The other dog is Huge.) The expression on this dog’s face when the smoker is going (MEETS BOX?? MEETS BOX!!) is very funny; they well know that smell is associated with excellently yummy meat.

My new mattress came yay.

My current mattress was seven years old YAY I HAVE A BLOG so I can keep track of stuff like this and I want, need and deserve a better mattress and why not, it got fourteen years of wear since I never get out of bed. I

I have already ranted about my complete lack of getting any goddamned testing done today – to mOm, on the phone, but the gist is the req was refused because the doc was insisting I needed a pregnancy test. So all that effort wasted. Walked home, realized I’m almost out of prescribed medication. After a cheering and calming conversationâ„¢ with a pharmacist I will strap muh walkin’ shoes back on in a few minutes and go and get an emergency supply sufficient to get me through until the doc gets back from vacation.

Damn, that salad I made is at peak comestibility. The flavours ran together but the textures stay perky. NOM.

Receipt:

quarter cup sweet onion chopped not too fine

one red pepper de pithed and chopped not too fine but not too big, either, and squarish

half of an english cuke peeled and chopped into palpable bits

as many pitted black olives as look fancy without killing the vibe

as many bocconcini pearls (pearls being the same thing as bocconcini just teeny) as you can bear to part with since the wee fuckers are so damned expensive —— but they make a lovely break from the rest of the textures

a heaping teaspoon of drained capers (optional)

two small tomatoes, deseeded and chopped not too fine because frens I detest tomato seeds. I know without them, no tomatoes, but I dinna wan them in me wame.

Receipt ends:

 

 

so cute

If the above noted bouncy little burro disappears, that’s what it is, a young burro hopping around a paddock.

off to get tested for diabeeeeetus this am. Nothing by mouth until after the test’s over sigh and it’s six am and I’m starving and I don’t even leave for another hour.

almost the best grandparents in the world (from Japan, obvs)

Now I have the Totoro song in my head.

r/pics - This Japanese couple built a life size Totoro for their grandchildren

My strongest weapon, my weakest link

That would be my mind, although Jeff might argue that it’s really my farts.

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2020 really is something.

Stopped watching Hannibal, it turned out that even if it was network tv it’s giving me the collywobbles.

Walk and lunch with Paul yesterday was most pleasant. Weather continues particularly fine. The Usual Domestic Tasks like laundry and dishes continue….

533 words of fanfic.

The hammered guitar song is responsible for me toasting one set of strings, lol – the bronze wrapping is coming off and making the string buzz

Disney Princess not

So a chickadee at Fraser Foreshore Park tried to cadge food out of me – twice, and I was still chuckling when an elderly German lady and her daughter/caregiver came along the path and held up a flicker feather, so I identified it for her, and she went along her way blessing me, so that was weird.

SO MUCH COYOTE SCAT, one lot was black as tar and shiny.

Saw a heron perched at the little pond. Went and looked at the mighty Stô:Lō from the Glenlyon observation platform.

After, took Paul to the Pho Hong and picked up some more cactus soil and little pots as the babies all germinated. Like….. all in the same day. Germination rate of over 90 percent for two year old seed, so that was nice. They’re all in pots now and I put them outside after getting the soil nice and saturated.

Hey pOp which snail are you?

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“Open image in new tab” or your OS equivalent will pop this pic larger. Shown is a three by three grid of charming snails from medieval illuminated manuscripts. Some of them look very medieval and some look quite contemporary, although the one with a boar’s head is a bit much.

And here’s a good article about the philosophy of consciousness.  Pull quote:

I think of consciousness as a weakly emergent phenomenon, not dissimilar from, say, the wetness of water (though a lot more complicated)

Massimo Pigliucci is the K D Irani Professor of Philosophy at the City College of New York and he’s written about Stoic philosophy

stoic quotes when someone properly grounded life should have look outside themselves approval epictetus wisdom nature

 

yesterday in bed

Up at 3, back in bed at 8, up at noon, back down for another 4 hours, up at 6:30, back down at 9. What a day.

I don’t know why, but I wuz bagged. I think it’s possible it was some kind of migraine; I got physical symptoms yesterday that were ghastly. Then at 9 when I went back to bed I lay in bed writhing for an hour because I thought I was having a heart attack. It was completely psychological, and really horrible. (Real heart attacks don’t go away *every time you sit up to go fetch your brother to go to the hospital*).

I did a lot of breathing and shifting my position to get comfy, and finally slept.

Now I’m going to get up, make tea and get a freaking grip on myself.

A beautiful blue, white and gold sunset
Sunset off the deck last night

equilibrium

The president of Belarus shut off the internet in his country to prevent the spread of a viral video in which a large audience of workers started shouting at him to resign. (apparently he said the only way you’re getting rid of me is killing me and he got the response he oh so richly warranted.) The tankies are sad for him. What is a tankie? It’s a fascist who wants statist communists with brutal regimes to be perfect and powerful. They defend governments like North Korea. No, I’m not joking, I wish I was.

I have re-achieved emotional equilibrium. I wrote another 700 words after I finished the last edit to my blog yesterday. Jeff took me to breakfast. I wear a mask at IHOP whenever I’m not at my own table. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. My current fave mask is the one I got from Vancouver Aquarium. Next fave is the first one I made, the white one. It’s very comfortable and the most adjustable. Next fave is a standard medical mask. I ordered a bunch more cloth masks from an Indigenous supplier; one of them is a brilliant blue with Coastal art hummingbirds all over it so I bet I know where that one will end up. The other ones I think have stylized orcas, I might be wrong. Kima would be pissed.

There is fresh tea. I make a couple of pots a day and transfer most of it into the iced tea container, once it’s cooled off.

Operation Pee Constantly is still going well. The last lingering wackiness amidships from the kidney stones and the mild infection afterwards is done, thank glob. I’m still getting used to exactly how MUCH more water I have to drink every day to keep this happy state of affairs going, but hopefully I will retrain my body to properly experience thirst.

I am still drinking black tea, but it’s not recommended for a kidney diet, so I’m trying to have at most two cups a day.

Katie recommended bocconcini pearls for cheese and no sodium cheese is a wonderful damned thing, let me assure you. I’m also drinking the low sodium V-8, which tastes weird, which makes me want to put Worcestershire sauce in it, which vitiates its low salt status. La la la. Change of habits continues. Jeff hasn’t minded the not buying treats regimen – we have a whole line of treats we bought pretty much every time we went out to Save-On but I’ll have to make do with home made cinnamon buns, scones and cakes, what a tragedy.

There’s a Buy-Low opening August 26 walking distance from here; they’ll have in house butcher and bakery, among other things. I know people who dislike this chain but they are distinctly cheaper than Save-On, and possibly they will deliver, so we shall see. Anyway it’s close enough to walk. It will be interesting to see where to park for this critter and which roadway one exits from.

Glucose tolerance test on Friday. This will be the fourth time in my life I’ve taken it. This time it’s likely that the DIABEETUS DONE GOT ME although of course I can always adjust my diet (not really, but).

Used the word vitiate in a tweet today. Thought I was using it correctly, looked it up anyway, I was.