Author: Allegra

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

little squib of a post

Katie and Alex were here sleeping in the basement but they’re gone now. She’s got flu, picked it up from Rikes by the sound of things. She woke up and grabbed Alex on the way to pick up Ryker and she’s headed home to her own bed. Jeff and I are glad to have helped and are equally glad to get the basement back.

I’ve revised “Set of Steps” and once I’ve finished tinkering I’ll post it again.
Tink
Knit
K-Tin
Inkt
don’ worry that’s just a note to myself for later, four new characters just stepped up in a whole new world.

yesterday, today, tomorrow second of its name

So yesterday I made coconut chicken soup, today I used the last of the mushrooms for scrambled eggs and mushrooms, and tomorrow I either dine at the gates of heaven or just have a regular meal at a French restaurant with the Dunnetteers, including the Grand Poobah Simon.

Today I will once again attempt to make a packing list. DAMMMMN these mushrooms are good, I have ceased my inhalation of food now.

Jeff got the kitchen fan running again so hopefully I’ll stop setting off the alarm if I’m bothering to cook.

Still playing with my Chromebook. I’m not sure I want to take it to the US, though, I haven’t set up all my daily tasks on it yet.

Alex will be here in about an hour. I missed him. He is such a loving child.

 

stew

After Jeff trundled back downstairs with his third bowl of stew, I quit worrying about whether he liked it or not. LOL

We were watching the season opener for S8 Shetland and I said, “Can I ask you to put away the stew,” and he said, “Way ahead of you.”

So I said, “Can I thank you for putting away the stew?” and he said, “No.”

Reader, it took me about 30 seconds to stop laughing, which is good, because he was trying to be funny.

Today is the anniversary of the ‘love declaration’ on Supernatural, and Guy Fawkes’ Day. I am thinking of a new destiel story or two, but no writing. I’m going to be pretty focussed on the trip to Portland for the next few days.

feeling pretty sad and bent

For reasons I can’t get into.

Jeff is aware and has actually been super supportive so I’m not on the ground, I’m just very demotivated. When I get my mo back I’ll make beef stew with thyme, which I hope Jeff will enjoy. Was very heartened by his defence of my overcooked pancakes – next time I think I’ll a) make the batter thinner and b) have the heat down JUST a smidge.

Towels and cleaning rags washed and put away.

Working on writing down songs this week so they’ll be ready for the con.

How’s this for a deal – I don’t have to take care of Alex on Friday, because his mother will. So we can be on the road first thing!!!

SO EXCITED. less than a week now. MUST FACE THIS NEW THING AND MAKE ALL THE LISTS.

the enshinening has happend

Katie had a bad day at work and knocked off early, she and Suzanne had a chinwag. Alex got to go home early too. Nearly cried when Suzanne folded all my laundry.

Doing relatively okay. Have a powerful urge to go out for breakfast but I think I’m going to make pancakes instead.

 

l8r very sub par pancakes accomplished but at least I used up the strawbs before they went bad.

yesterday Eighth of its name

we didn’t eat until 1:45, but what a meal. Oven baked chicken with onion gravy, oven baked spud cubes and carrots and green beans, fresh prepared. After we watched ‘Currahee’ the first episode of Band of Brothers. Peggy showed up for 2 seconds to give Keith GGma’s knitted sweater back and fled to other errands.

Paul had an excellent time, – he had half a beer, free healthy food, social contact, and the only thing he cared about was Buster making an appearance, he misses his cats so much – but he also showed issues with his illness; as much as he could recount watching TV with the woman across the hall at home, the stairs here were hard on him, and he recounted a tale of being assaulted in the hallway at his residence by two care workers who told him he smelled bad and stripped off his tshirt right there in public. He says he called Ruth to complain and she blew him off and none of that actually sounds plausible. 

Keith was in very high spirits when he arrived but he was exhausted when he left. I know the feeling, but it was a super good visit generally. He was very happy I went to the efforts I did to clean the kitchen, and I did all the clean up afterwards after his half hearted offer to assist, mostly because I move a lot faster. I imagine it’s very annoying to Jeff, but I hate cleaning up at night, I’d far rather do it in the morning when I’m first up and energetic; in this case I attacked everything right away, like the oven sheets and the cast iron pan.

Mike called, and then showed up with equal but even more theatrical result; he brought my birthday present early – a chromebook. I’m currently setting it up, having charged it. I’ll have a computer with nothing personal on it TO TAKE TO THE STATES which is why he gave it to me early. I was blown away and loudly and repeatedly thanked him.

And I didn’t have Alex yesterday, he stayed home with his dad. So I didn’t have to run away in the middle of a conversation to be with him, and that was nice timing too.

set of steps – new poem / song

YES I WROTE A SONG IN G#/Ab and I’m working on Uke chords…. I tightened the bottom string half a tone:::: and VOILA no more stretching my pinky like Elastoman’s dick stuck in a door.

An algorithm is a series set of steps
A set series of steps
Designed to get you to a certain place
what do I call how I got this way
I point and mimic and then I say
I’m
a set of steps in process
I
have not reached my the objective
It’s just as near and far
As the products of a star
I’m just a set of processes in tandem
Reaching for something
That looks like an objective.

And I said hold up, wait, wait a minute, stop
hold up, wait, wait a minute, stop
I said, hold up, wait, wait a minute
stop

Just getting here? my line
Went from being mats of slime!
To sitting on cardboard with a dog
begging for a dime!
The weight of my brain
On my neck
Is driving me insane
But I’m a set of steps
Flying in close formation
All my trials and tribulations
Are a set of steps

The algorithm looks a bit like plot
But it’s really not
And everything you grab on the way by
Is fleeting as the mood of the sky
I didn’t make the rules that I’m I am forced to live by
But something happened a long way back
You don’t always defend Don’t always play defence
Sometimes you can roll attack
Attack all the things that are holding you back
And
get a new (x3)
set of steps

You can’t erase
Or sponge off wipe out the old ones
They remain, they make themselves plain
They go through the same shit (steps, if you can’t swear) again and again
(They bleed through our whole lives again and again alternate line)
You don’t have free will and you can’t abstain
From the old set of steps

You don’t have free will
but something cunning and false
You can’t be mistaken for anyone else
The gametes roll/ed like invisible dice
And this part (snare slap) is almost automatic

(here follows a 2 minute percussive guitar solo, often omitted

to represent

ahem

the mating dance)

You can’t escape the way you were made
Nor will folks in the future I’m very much afraid
If we fuck with the steps they will fuck right back
(If we mess with the steps they will mess right back)
And we aren’t prepared to take steps like that

New poem – Someone must sell tickets

Imagine this : 107 beats per minute.
We’re used to hearing stuff synced
up to clocks so this is an almost
indivisible number for regular counted
time, the time of sports and records and
estimates and comparisons.

If you can’t hear, the part of your brain
that handles math and/or got rerouted
from where it would go if you could hear, that will do the job.

The brass instruments that are playing
in this tempo are lazy, barely registering,
with that unnatural dampening only the best can perform.
The percussion is robotic, uninspired,
trying very hard to be a clock
and yet not able to be there. There’s always an urge to speed up,

never to slow down.
The high hat and the snare
have the same unfortunate conversation,
the same eight bars, over and over again.
The brass is having trouble breathing,
each instrument breaks slowly free
of the ensemble of soft, tight harmonies, a
pinball bounce against the constraints of melody.

The flugelhorn, the trombones and the tubas
pause in horror as the piercing notes of the cornet
and the blaring agitated french horn crash into each other.

They perfect an oscillation which mimics the collision
of two great stellar masses. No one in the audience
cares about that, most of them want their money back.

sadly no

The laundry despite my best wishes did not self assemble and haul itself upstairs but remained, grimly inanimate, over the entire surface of the furnace/laundry room. Sigh.

Jeff is making sleep noises after his Grand Evening Out. I await his probably later than usual rise to enquire about how everything went.

Lovely but brief convo with Dave last night.

The bear scares, fireworks, whistling shrieking dying noises went on for hours and hours. Poor Buster hid and stayed that way, and he’d already received a challenge from Ryker, who was here RUNNING NON STOP AND THROWING MY SHIT AROUND while Katie stuffed a contact lens into Alex’s eye, put on her sugar skull jewelled face gems and Alex got into his costume. It was absolutely exhausting and he was only here 45 minutes. It was all I could do to drag myself upright. I managed to get him to sit still for half a minute but other than that I was literally chasing him.

Suzanne appealed to me to come back to facebook so I did.

Made a pork and cabbage fry, it was so good I had thirds and there’s hardly any left in the fridge. Unusually for me I made a sauce to go with and that realllly improved things, must remember to make sauce for stir fry more often. Half a pork tenderloin, three slices of cabbage about a cm wide, chopped, rude amounts of garlic and ginger, carrot and baby peppers that Linda got for us. (We finished the honeydew, it really was exceptional). Added thai fish sauce, soy sauce, cornstarch and a bit of water, and all fried in safflower oil. Pepper to taste.

Wordle in three this morning. It was a good word considering the racket last night.

I can’t believe Katie managed to get the freaking contact in his eye. We’re such a weird family.

I believe this.

 

I try not to be angry

but oh well, it’s kinda chronic

Today’s the day Alex is wearing coloured contacts as part of a family costume set (he’ll be a zombie, he loves zombies). They’re going trick or treating in Burnaby. I’d love to see them but it’s unlikely.

We won’t give out candy this year. We don’t want it in the house actually. However if it goes on sale after I won’t be responsible etc etc.

Must put away laundry.

Tomorrow Paul and Keith are coming over for lunch and Keith’s going to make lunch. I was over at Suzanne’s yestreen to clip Lucky’s claws. (I showed up, looked at him, pulled out the clippers I brought with me and did all ten front claws so fast he scarcely had time to ding me (I got a miniscule scratch on the palm of my left hand, which healed up overnight) and then we had tea (her new teapot is wonderful, and she always puts out Yorkshire Gold when I arrive) and chatted. Suzanne wryly predicted we wouldn’t actually be eating until 3 o’clock. (Keith pontificates while he cooks, which slows things down considerable and he also said he’ll arrive at noon and walk to the market for fresh ingredients, so you do the math LOLOL) At least I have two beers in the fridge leftover from Leo and can offer them to the boys.

Tonight Jeff is using his Magic Tickets™ and going to a Canuckleheads game, Canucks are 5-2-1 and the Nashville Predators are 4-4-0 so it should at least be a contest rather than a snorefest. He’s taking his friend Rob and I hope they have all the fun, it will be an excellent break.

Editing on Totally Boned is quietly taking place in the background. I am a wordy sumbitch, so I’ve been taking out words.

 

 

i am disgust

Just woke up in the middle of my usual sleep cycle, wide awake.

Hopefully I can tire myself out. Did manage to remember that I’ve got wet laundry, so maybe that’s what woke me up (I dreamed the doorbell rang, actually) – I sprang to full consciousness. So I trudged downstairs, Buster mewing at me, to swap the laundry.

Speaking of Buster, I figured out how to ask him to make a choice between two activities yesterday morning. I put the brush down on the floor next to the ‘birdy’ he likes playing with and I said, “Kisses brush, kisses birdy?” and he walked forward RIGHT AWAY and nosed the birdy so I played with him for a while. It was amazing how fast he did it.

 

 

disgusting thought (you have been warned)

I just passed wind of such malign pungency that Jeff begged for a new air supply and threw his mother’s ancient quilt over his head in a futile bid to maintain the desire to keep breathing. His distress was so great that I was obliged to turn the fan on, full blast, but the room is small and the stench recirculated with great speed. I then bid him adieu, glad that I had shared my bounty.

 

a trifle of luck

Jeff has won two Global Privilege Levels™ hockey tickets so I am thrilled he will be able to share this bounty with a friend and eschew the cheap seats. I basically told him I’d be happy to go if everyone else on his list was busy, but this is too good not to share with a hockey-loving friend.

I am feeling lucky meself. I got to talk about my grandchildren at lunch yesterday but I said, “Sorry, no pictures, I think it’s gauche, especially when you can look for grandson goo on my vanity site and fill your boots.” THE RELIEF ON THEIR FACES I am going to write a song IT WAS SO INSPIRING, three relentlessly childless-by-choice people not having to deal with interminable grandson pics LOLOLOL. And of course, I’ve known most of them for 20 years as acquaintances so I know to the eyebrow raise just how little they want to see those pics. I’m so glad I lost my phone, at least for now. It was also a good day to be a well-masking autistic, believe me, because if I’d brought my 11 year old inner self to the party I would have had so much more to say, to less happiness among the attendees, equal parts LOL.

Because I have a minor child in my on-loan car 8-10 times a week, as a responsible adult I should have what the current technology supports in terms of safety, to wit a phone. Who wants to give me a phone and I’ll get going on that. Yes I know I said something different in the last paragraph~ what are you, the thought police. Tsk, tsk. I want a granny phone, only as much access as it takes to text and phone.

Bsky continues to be fair winds and strong engagement. People are much more accepting of my content and I wander around ‘liking’ things and occasionally commenting but I have zero urge to land on people’s necks and scold the living crap out of them like I had for the entire last six months I was on Xitter.

They need money, and if they provide a couple more robust in-app services (thread unroll, good CHRIST, mebbe DMs tho I’m onthefence about that, better list curation, GIF SUPPORT SEE EARLIER BLASPHOOMERY, block lists of words) I’m all for a $5 per month subscription. It’s that much in entertainment, news, self-expression and validation, and that indefinable sense of community that makes you adopt a chaos bi expat Scot in Anchorage because he’s ABSO HILARIOUS and then stop following him because you really are not that interested in him emitting an extended oops chronicle of the married women he’s boned because he was too drunk to ask for life stats first. Farewell, you know who you are, and please don’t drink yourself to death even if you think it’s mandated.

LOOONG discussion about earthquakes in the vancouver subreddit. Got some good ideas, shared some. My song about Vancouver mods will soon be a memory. Maybe I’ll go back and delete it har har. (No. I mean it will disappear when the site goes down later this year, although I’ll have a backup.)

apologies if the site is slow

Yesterday was wonderful. We got to talk. Because there were only four of us. I will remember! Out again in a week with more of the gang, at the Faux Bourgeois. I just reviewed the menu and I’m a puddlodrool.

Got there late, of course. Bought an outfit to wear on the way, more or less, because it had occurred to me that I don’t have an uptodate or comfy or hole-free dress to wear to a formal occasion or funeral and good lord I’m 64 I need to be able to dress for a funeral on a moment’s notice. (My long black dress from eShakti is full of holes and going grey and frayed.) However, only Susanne was on time (no surprise there since she ‘carries polish and precision’ into everything she does). Jan was her usual bubbly self, including a hilarious and useful stream of consciousness narrative about hearing aids. Simon himself is a complete pet, with the manner of an enthusiastic guest archaeologist on Time Team with a hush hush job. We didn’t get into Dunnett, but it was lovely to hear of everyone’s travels in Dunnett country.

Anyway Jan was not trying to convince me that after I get back from Portlandia I need to get my hearing tested but I will, since the test is free after 65.

The SUN WAS BLASTING and the swimmers were swimming in the bay and the mountains and the sea and the boats. The food was divine – worth the expense in my view – and I washed it all down with a cup of tea. Very pleasant to sit in the Boathouse and love the world.

Got gas into the car at the station at Clark and 12th, which is easily one of the worst gas stations in the city for how many people want to use it vs how big the goddamned lot is. Managed to get out of there without hitting or being it by anyone.

Completely rewrote the Vancouver Mods song on the way home in the car.

Back again to Vera and a pleasant evening quietly at home.

off to kiss the ring of the poobah of Dunnettry

Lunch with the head of the Dunnett society as arranged by Jan J. It will be a small but convivial gathering at an upscale chain restaurant downtown. Haven’t seen the folks in ages, should be fun.

I wanted to clean out the fridge but I didn’t want to bend. I got Alex to do it for me by telling him we were going to do a podcast of the clean out and how gross it was. We were hoping that poor Jeff would come back from the dentist and give us a hard time about the smell in the middle of it all but Alex WAS TOO EFFICIENT. That kid is somethin’ else, lemme tell ya.

Internet and power are completely gone in Gaza. The ground assault begins, and it can’t actually be considered anything except an extermination. A genocide.

Hundreds of Jews were carted off to jail in NYC yesterday for protesting.