Author: Allegra

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

Grinding continues

267 words yesterday.

Mike took me to dinner last night.  We started at a restaurant I’m not going to name because I’m going to trash it so badly.

We walked in, and rather than the delightful scents of (not common but not unheard of subcontinental cuisine) we got incense and B.O., a combination that made my tummy (it was 7 and I hadn’t had anything to eat since noon) contract like a beercan idly squeezed by the Hulk.

Mike responded in the affirmative when I said, “Can you smell that?”

A two top and a four top came in while we were waiting.

In the brief time we were in there the server, who might have held some other position in the establishment, did the following:

stayed behind the counter fooling around with the touch screen cash register for about 7 minutes.  I know, because when Mike said, “Do you want to bail?” I said, “Let’s give him five minutes,” and more than that went by.

Left half a dozen menus on our table and used it as his source for menus as other people came in.  I have never in my entire life had the table I was sitting at be used as a menu holder.  I wanted to say something but I saw the expression on the guy’s face and I was concerned that I’d be scolded for commenting.

Brought round glasses of water en masse for everyone.

Served precisely one bowl of soup.  Every top was loaded and in seven minutes he served one customer.

Disappeared into the kitchen, once for quite a while, only reappearing with food the once.

Was short with anyone who asked him to take their order.  (Mike and I didn’t even try. EVEN THOUGH WE KNEW EXACTLY WHAT WE WANTED BEFORE WE SET FOOT IN THE RESTAURANT.)

Yeah.  I stopped being appalled after a minute or two, I was just trying to give everyone a chance, while ambiance soaked in.

When, a couple of minutes after we got the water we still hadn’t had our order taken, we bailed.  I am pretty sure the B.O. belonged to the customer closest to the door; I’m very tolerant of body odour, but this was the smell of a guy who lives on fenugreek and then marinates in his clothes in the hot sun for a couple of days in a row.

To illustrate…

To round out the glory of this experience, a three year old child was actively crying or grizzling the entire time in the corner, yeah Allegra do please backspace over something if you’re going to say something insensitive and racist so I’m skipping that little observation, and some of the worst music ever recorded and not sung in English was crapping out of the speakers.

So we up and flew away and went to Indian Bombay Bistro instead, where the chicken tikka masala and mogo and chickpeas and pilau rice were amazing.

Mike wanted his Cards against Humanity deck so we briefly dropped by Planet Bachelor and grabbed them, then back to Geekhaus for the mandolin (Edith, not Otto), and I offered some body work and pummelled Mike’s calves (still messed from the Beach, haw) and upper back until my hands got tired and then Mike went home about 9.

Shoot, I should take down the table so Jeff can exercise.  Welp, gotta go!

keyed up

Paul came over and took me for a walk in Oakalla.  They have put barn own nesting boxes up, which strikes me as a weird part of the year to be doing that in but still pleasant to see.

After we went to the hardware store.  Paul is tired of handing over his key set every time I drive (I usually drive since I don’t normally hit things and terrorize other passengers and since I don’t have cataracts.) So I got a key cut for his car and he got zip ties and a privacy screen for the front balcony at his place.

I had a key for Paul’s car previously but gave it back and now it just seemed more convenient to get another since I’m driving it so much.

We also picked up beer and cider.  Right about now Paul’s stooging about the airport to go pick up visitors from Australia, buddies of his girlfriend’s about to tour the Northwest Passage.  They will come back to his place and likely crash hard after a fourteen hour flight.  I hope they have a good time.

I wrote absolutely nothing yesterday.  I waffle, I waffle.

Grinding

Final count is just under a thousand words for yesterday.  I got myself set up for today’s big scene.

I’ll just leave this here for mOm.  Permanent reference – glow in the dark fingering weight yarn.  Tom Smith of filking fame posted it to facebook and crafters were immediately hauling out their alien fairisle patterns.  I think it would make great babywear, but what do I know, I don’t craft except once in a very long while and never with particular succes.

Keith was supposed to come by yesterday and never did.  I publicly express disappointment.

Hot as balls, weatherwise.  I’m quoting my cousin.

Bingewatch of S1 West Wing continues.

Writing is slow

160 words so far today; I have broken 65000 words which means… nothing if it doesn’t get published.  Well it means that I’ve written 5000 new words since mOm last looked at the mss.  If I was a proper writer (which I will never be) I’d not show it to anyone until it was ready.

I SAW ALEX YESTERDAY.  He got filthy.  We called it Alex in the Park, the Enfilthening.  Watching him eat a piece of nectarine made me laugh.  Bite, shudder, smile, gum, swallow. I played Otto for him, and sang.  He was much more interested in eating and playing in the sand pile (which I obligingly turned a portion of into mud, which he also enjoyed, thus the filth.)

Watching Katie with her son I am so glad my mOm was not particularly censorious about my child rearing.  We have a family history of shutting the hell up unless it really is demonstrably a safety issue.  Ensuring his immune system grows up hella strong is good; dirt is a social convention, to an extent.

The hormones of parental love make one so swift and so fierce, and in after times it is hard to remember how hard they pulled.

He napped, and then he scared himself with the exercise ball. Katie and I worked on her resumé while he napped, so it was all quite convenient.

His crawling is, erm, vigorous, and he wanted to kill the fan and eat the cat food.

He has six teeth and enjoys showing them in an extremely googoo making grin.  He shared this grin with his greatuncle a few times, including the “Why are you making that remarkably enjoyable noise!?” smile.

 

 

 

ah English… where a sharp guy can be a dull dog who’s too blunt in making his point.

 

Later…. 877 words, phew, I can go watch the Sunday Night Haul. RICK AND MORTY HERE I COME.

rrr

No Wreck Beach yesterday – I was too ill to deal with the stairs.  I feel fine now, of course.

Also, hardly any words at all yesterday and the day before, I think I managed 135 words.  Hope I manage better today.

not much to report

Sinatra under siege.

World’s cutest seal pup (think Pharos.)

I wrote about a hundred words yesterday.

I mostly concentrated on interviewing the candidate for GP (she passed…. she’s my age and she understands about pubic symphysis pain,  yo.)

I looked up yo.  It was popularized in American culture when blacks and Italians mingled in Philadelphia neighbourhoods. It is turning into a singular gender neutral pronoun in Baltimore. “Yo laughed” “I called yo”.

I use it at the end of sentences like the character Jesse in Breaking Bad, or to respond when my name is called, or very occasionally to call attention, “Yo, Paul!”

I am feeling sickly amidships.  It’s painful and really distracting from writing. Yo.

 

Guru Purnima

Today is a day to celebrate spiritual and academic teachers:

Jeff, because he’s both.

My fOlks of course.

Doug Bain and John Hamilton, two of my high school teachers who are most responsible for shaping how I think and why I bother to.

Sue Sparlin.

Patricia!  So pithy, so witty, so wise.  If you ever decide to write a book of life advice, I will be ripping pages out of the typewriter as they come and killing myself laughin’, I’m sure.

Mike and Jarmo.

Dorothy Dunnett.

I won’t say all the Unitarian ministers I’ve ever had dealings with, but most of them.

And the Grey Hymnal, a haven from the stupidity of the world.

All the black, trans*, differently othered and First Nations activists who have kicked my ass and pointed my thoughts in a different direction.  Without their clear voices, without their clear vision, I’m just another temporarily-abled settler colonial gender essentialist living the good life on unceded land.

 

Happy birthday Jeff.

My goodbye to a dogooder organization

All my outrage leaked away when I realized most white activists care more about dead male lions killed by dentists than dead First Nations women killed by cops.  I need to get away from social media and get my moral bearings for a while.  There can be no more important issues than how we treat each other in our daily lives, and whose lives need our love and care most.  I don’t trust the opinions of your organization on what is important any more.  Thank you for your work.

Moar wurz

600 wordie word blurdie birdies yesterday. I am very much enjoying having the editrix on facebook now, we are trading witticisms with much amusement.

I broke the small fan yesterday.  I accidentally kicked it over when I was carrying laundry and one of the fan blades snapped.  I had only recently rearranged the airflow to bring ac air to the basement and the difference was so remarkable Jeff was saying FAN under his breath within minutes. (The fan also pushes air down the hallway so cooler air has easier access to our bedrooms – I was FUCKING SWELTERING last night and it’s not a good look on a post menopausal woman.)  We’re off to the hardware store to get another one as soon as it opens.

Sorry Jeff.

 

 

Walkies

Keith and Paul came over last night and we walked in the neighbourhood.

Apart from running laundry and writing and a brief schlep and returning library books I did nothing yesterday.  Very happy with progress. I read George’s most recent blog post to Chipper and she enjoyed it; I also fired it off to mOm.

I have to stay off the internet today, it makes me so unreasonably mad!  Although I do enjoy knowing what my friends are up to. Also, when a man disagrees with me it isn’t always misogyny although Jumping Jimmy Christmas it appears that way sometimes.

So I looked up the guy’s name on the internet, found out that he’s a prof at a University one of my fOlks graduated from, read his student reviews, and realized that even if he is a published sf author, and even if his comments on genre are pronounced with professorial fussiness – I don’t have to take him as seriously as he obviously takes himself.  All before 7 am.

The reason I say this is as follows.  He says Madeleine L’Engle’s Wrinkle in Time ruined the genre fiction by mixing magic based (fantasy) and science based (science fiction).

OH BWA TO THE HA TO THE HA HA HA.

It’s all fiction, ya dingbat.  Genre is a convenience.  It’s not holy textual purity for crying out loud.

I am mashing genres so hard with this trilogy they’ve all gone off to get ice and aspirin, but they’ll be back.

 

Being a middle aged fannish woman looks like this

“Oh we’ve never seen anything present with those symptoms before, and candidly if you lost 40 (gained 20) pounds most of the problems – which appear to be in your head anyway – would go away, and here’s an antidepresessant and here’s an antipsychotic since I haven’t destroyed your ability to complain about your imaginary symptoms and there’s another test I’d like you to try. I wouldn’t be using that word iatrogenic in quite that snippy tone my dear.” Rinse, repeat with different doctors, 15 years later get a diagnosis from literally the FIRST DOCTOR WHO TAKES A PROPER HISTORY OH MY GOD. I wish I had heard this story only once. I have heard variants of it at least once a year for the last ten.  I only dodged it by stopping with the prescription mood drugs. I know I would have had a smoother time of it this last while, but life with the mountains ground down to a Vancouver lawn in July and the deep rolling waters turned into greasy holes full of algae ten feet deep / across is no place I want to live.

 

Also, god damn child abusers.  We need to end this scourge.

 

Sauna

Mike rented the basement of the Hastings Sauna and I got very warm last night.  Also in attendance were Jarmo and Susanna, Cassidy and Paul.

I was really careful not to get overheated and I did sleep reasonably well until I woke up half an hour ago.

Thus concludes Mike’s birthday weekend.  Hope to write lots today, only managed 200 words yesterday.