Author: Allegra

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

you little punk

I am still laughing once in a while as I remember a phone call – brief and sputtering – during which I was ATTEMPTING to communicate with Katie and she began to yell,

“HEY I NEED THAT YOU LITTLE PUNK”

and then she told me that Ryker was running madly around her place naked with a pen so she had to chase him down. You could then hear him grizzling in the background for about 4.5 seconds before he started zooming around again.

Those poor cats.

Alex is coming for a sleepover later this week, exact evening to be determined. Jeff is considering asking him to assist with pinball fixing.

My allergies are not horrible – I don’t take antihistamines and I can still manage to sleep – but they sure aren’t great.

Very much enjoying Medium, which Jeff suggested, and it’s proving to be a fine choice as it depicts a solid marriage relationship and normal family life…. as well as the spookier stuff.

Spoke to Dave yesterday and he recommended the new “Vandervalk”.

1685 words on Instructor, still stuck at the old word count on TB. Wordle in 4, Lumosity will happen after some tea and toast.  Then a shopping expotition.

 

lovely afternoon filking

I am very happy about that today. Laundry continueth. I think Jeff’s gone downstairs to watch March Madness.

Today will be ACHOO.

Alder’s my fucking Kryptonite; I feel like my eyelids are sandpaper.

Finally finished Sinner season 3 (so now we’ve finished because we accidentally started on season 4). I appreciate Matt Bomer as an actor but as Jamie Burns he was the among the most detestable characters ever and when he deleted deleted I was very very happy.

My liver is still misbehaving (as evidenced by my output, sorry to be so blunt). I am trying to eat properly but I feel like I don’t want to eat at all unless it’s bad for me, a sad state of affairs. Started the day with tea and fibre bread and marmalade. Promptly upsidedowned the marmalade onto my dress. Changed clothes.

 

 

little bit of everything day

Yesterday I got a key to the Junction FINALEMENT jfc and did a teeny bit of child care coverage while Keith had to run errands and then we put away the groceries that were delivered and Rob W was in the middle of moving and took a two teacup restorative break and we caught up.

Later me and Jeff and Mike watched Frank Grillo and Beau Knapp in Little Dixie, an unapologetically violent and cynical movie with a happy ending.

Today FILKING at Peggy’s

22847 TB, 835 words on new fic.

Image

Lovely weather yesterday

Didn’t go out in it though.

Still thinking about that amazing dense, perfectly iced chocolate cake Peggy brought us. She literally can’t eat chocolate, so it is amazing that she bakes it, but not amazing that it tastes so good. Because she is excellent at most of what she tries, and her hospitality is the model and standard against which I hold myself.

Buster is shedding still, sigh, but nothing like Margot good god.

Tuesday we go to see the new cats. Excitement! One of them is already a lap cat and is in training to be a shoulder cat. Words cannot express Keith’s happiness at this. Hoping to get a pic of him with Ryker passed out and the new olde cat on his shoulder WHILE HE’S GAMING for an update of that last gem! ‘Twould be awesomesauce.

330 words on a new fanfic ‘The Instructor’; I am trying to work on stuff for TotesBoned but it’s not flowing at the moment. Also the plotty stuff approaches and I’m fer shit on that.

Three top scores in Lumosity, Wordle in 4. My brain is working.

I’ve been sleeping through the night and almost four hours extra in the middle of the day. Well, the blood test did say I was fighting a viral infection. As for what the air is like in Vancouver, lemme see now….

Pollen index for Vancouver March 16 2023 VERY HIGH Cedar Juniper, HIGH Alder

the peace of glob be achoo

not alone

Called Dave, his room has changed. Still no ultrasound. His test results continue to puzzle the specialists, often an unwanted combination of words, but his electrolytes are better. His cats have been fed and watered and he has additional phone numbers if he needs them. My relief is most great.

Jeff has been super helpful and kind the last few days. We actually left the house yesterday, picked up some treats, were the only people (almost 100 percent except for some staffers) wearing masks indoors.

Wordle in three, haven’t done Lumosity yet, 22847 words.

James Hong wore googly eyes on his bow tie at the Oscars. You’d have to see the movie ‘EEAAO’ to understand why that’s even funnier than it is on the surface.

Paul is still in Seattle, he’ll be back eventually.

Remembering

Back in 1996, Paul, John, Bounce, Duke, the kids and I all lived on Dee Avenue in Toronto. For five whole weeks, before our lives got upended again and Paul’s transfer to Vancouver came through. Our bedroom had 11 separate walls as I recollect. That was also the house where Paul and I self diagnosed with ADD and where we were living when Keith ran into a car and hurt his ankle and he was so traumatized by the untreated mentally ill man in the ER that we left AMA. Eventually John followed us to Vancouver, where pOp helped him get a job at John’s Jukes.

I couldn’t for the life of me remember the name of the street.

So after looking at Toronto maps for a while I finally remembered “Knob Hill Farms” which was walking distance from there. They closed in 2001 but I got the locations and was able to backtrack the address.

Hope that asteroid misses us today.

Anniversary of Marx’s death date today.

 

another day of grey

Wordle in 4, Lumosity is indicating that my brain has fallen out of my ass, 22841 words.

mOm recommended Wong & Winchester and Jeff and I are liking it. We’re working our way through season three of Sinner (Matt Bomer is the villain) and it’s the usual freaky psychological stuff, but intensely interesting. Season 2 Zone Blanche rewatch yields continuing gems. Finished Last of Us season one; a really fine entertainment. Finding out that the giraffe (a local Canadian zoo provided it) was real instead of CGI was a trip… that was Bella Ramsey actually putting something in its gob, lol.

Peggy showed up with cake and soda bread, she got the last of the biscotti in exchange. Absolutely no one complaining. Love all around.

I am still feeling very small and useless.

 

tiresome

Still exhausted from all the sturm und drang of the last couple of days, but things calmed down.

I have not yet met Sam and Oreo, the new cats at Junction, but it’s something I look forward to.

Ke Huy Kuan winning best supporting actor for his role in the candidly amazing “Everything Everywhere All At Once” is so well deserved I can’t say how much. He was a) a sophisticated actor (an actor playing an actor) b) a universe hopping battle ninja c) a henpecked husband and d) a fully realized human being. He was the spindle that movie whirled around. Crying and saying to his mother ‘Mom I won an Oscar’…. just amazing – hugging Harrison Ford, with whom he starred in his first important film, so many years ago…. I didn’t watch ‘The Big Show’ but I got a feed full of it this morning. Happy feelings.

I have lots of other thoughts about what’s going on in my world, but sometimes the inside voice is the one to use.

 

bad friend

As much as I might think I have the mental and physical energy to hop on a plane and go to Toronto to assist Dave with cat care, I don’t. Yesterday was full of panic attacks and self-excoriation for being a bad friend. I should not have volunteered. And now I get to phone someone who’s sick, lonely and literally isolated and tell him that. Thank all the anarchist saints Catherine volunteered.

It’s not about me, but I can’t help. Just the idea of going to an airport fills me with LITERALLY existential dread. I mean, I probably just got over a silent case of COVID (I lost my most of my sense of smell and as things stand now I have to hold things up to my nose to tell what they smell like) which the Canadian government has just admitted was all part of a mass-disabling event, and now I want to get it again? Just thinking about taking my medications, or having to transit everywhere, and then having to come home; I’m on the ground wailing.

I wish I had any good news to share.

 

sunshine

Got a couple of turns around the park in yesterday.

Suzanne came, cleaned and departed. We had the back door wide open most of the time she was here and it really felt wonderful, a ginyouwine spring clean. Should have seen Suzanne’s face when I told her that Daxus and I had had an adult conversation about something of import to both of us. (And that I ran away with my tail between my legs, yes I did, but it’s all good.)

Still feel empty and irritable but nothing like earlier this week. Jeff has news on the client front that I’ll let him share when he’s ready.

We’re rewatching Zone Blanche and my very parasocial love affair with the adjutant known as “Nounours” (Teddy Bear, which he is) is renewed.

https://64.media.tumblr.com/13a885350d42e08383550b11382a7ced/5c31f4593020b6e5-68/s400x600/11c41aefd2bc867d9d0365ea1630e2563fc1e02e.gifv

abovenoted is a tyrannosaurus on a skateboard

Apparently Keith and Paul are off to the States this weekend.

Laundry and fridge duty today I fear.

“Margaret’s Hope” tea from Great Wall Tea tastes like frikkin soap.

(later) I just got off the phone from North York General Hospital and Dave’s been admitted. He’s in room 334 on 3 North. He’s in isolation but I’m hoping to contact him later today as he was asleep just now.

I swore I’d never get on an airplane again. I may break my vow.

 

Please spare a kindly thought

My friend Dave has also had bad news and he is so ill that his specialist told him to go to the ER. I cannot imagine his state of mind at the moment but Dave if you’re reading this I’ll be thinking of you until the next time I hear from you.

We could have done a shop this morning but I’m in no mood to leave the house. I may go later this morning but right now I have no urge.

Roasted veg scrambled eggs this morning…. damn it was tasty! Had to stop drinking coffee though because I use cream, so it’s tea for me for the foreseeable since cream in tea tastes godawful.