Author: Allegra

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

Shut up and witness

I have filked a Mary Chapin Carpenter tune

 

Don’t mean to say that I am an ally, don’t mean to get ahead of where we are
Don’t mean to act a little racist around you, I’m just a little racist in my heart ’cause
It’s been awhile since I felt this feeling that everything in the news gives me
It’s been so long since somebody whispered
Shut up and witness

Didn’t expect to be in this position, didn’t expect to have to rise above
My reputation as a social critic, I’ve been a lazy lady about one love but
Oh the horror and the feelings that the  latest shooting  gives me
It’s been too long since yelled in my good ear
Shut up and witness

The salmon of wisdom

Mike fed me lunch and then we lazed on his balcony until he had to go off to his parents for supper.  It was salmon with fresh dill and garlic, store bought tater salad and a salad of my own concoction, being tomatoes, cucumber, cilantro, feta, green onions and tiny amounts of lemon juice and olive oil.  REALLY GOOD.  I had seconds and thirds of salmon, and spent the afternoon in a state of pleasant repletion, to quote James H. Schmitz.

Today is the last day of church before the summer break.  I won’t be going to the father’s day picnic afterward.  I may go to Wreck – it’s supposed to be another awesome day and I think my symphisis problem has died down to the point I can at least think about it.  Wreck on Solstice / National Aboriginal / Father’s Day is purty awesome.

Forty (ha) words yesterday.  I got a break from the screen, and that was good.

Hey they are potboilers

Why am I so worried?

Yesterday was a day I saw all of my descendents, and how lucky I am to have any at all. Katie is recovering nicely from her trip and Alex was a little trouper (who practically turned himself inside out with smiles when he saw his papa upon his return.)

Alex prefers women, apparently.  He liked Phyllis.  Paul apparently spent a lot of time trying to get his mother to walk.  I can see Keith doing the same thing to me if I’m spared.

Two hundred words yesterday.  I do like Pharos and George.

I’m going to call it.  There is another American Civil War.  Unlike the previous one, it is undeclared… in keeping with current US policy.

 

Moar editing

I’m going to do another pass before I print it out.  It’s a chunk of a tree, after all.

I light a candle for the dead of Charleston, and pray that the Confederate Flag (actually the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia, but whatevs you racist fwads) will never fly above a state capital ever again.

Southern historian Gordon Rhea further wrote in 2011 that:

It is no accident that Confederate symbols have been the mainstay of white supremacist organizations, from the Ku Klux Klan to the skinheads. They did not appropriate the Confederate battle flag simply because it was pretty. They picked it because it was the flag of a nation dedicated to their ideals: ‘that the negro is not equal to the white man‘. The Confederate flag, we are told, represents heritage, not hate. But why should we celebrate a heritage grounded in hate, a heritage whose self-avowed reason for existence was the exploitation and debasement of a sizeable segment of its population?

 

347 words yesterday

I finally got the urge to finish the edits and I will be printing and mailing the second half of the manuscript for UPSUN to Diane this week.

Katie and Alex are back in town, safe home after an exhausting but excellent trip. I am supposed to see them tomorrow and get hairs cut.

I helped my friend Sue with voice work auditions yesterday.  To be of loving service to a friend seeking her creative expression is one of the highest privileges of friendship, also it’s Sue so it was fun.  She definitely brings the fun….

Day drinking yesterday!  It improved my mood treeeemendously, thank you Jeff, and god, did I ever walk a lot yesterday – at least 4 k.  (Once to buy cream, once to mail a letter to those fuckwits at the literary agency, once to the pub, and now BLISTERS.) My groinal issue is no worse today than it was before I walked so maybe the exercises are really helping.

When Paul showed up wanting to walk again supperish I said I’d prefer to keep drinking and so he made me his version of a Michelada and it was very very tasty, and then I gave him the last of the spaghetti with meat sauce I made last week and Keith TEXTED me last night to tell me it was yummy, and that’s great because it was a big batch and I was tired of it and afraid it would go bad.

I played Otto on the back deck in the fading daylight.

Then Paul asked me to play this song on my laptop.  About halfway through the song I was weeping (I was listening to the music and never watched the video because there was too much light on on the screen), and I turned to him and said, are you crying, and he said yes.  And we sat there and cried, because even though the words are not about my feelings, I felt the song as a great elegy to all the beautiful things that have died out of my life and the creativity humans bring to keeping the beautiful memories of people and events and the big grand sweep of life where they can see them.  I’m not expecting anybody else to react as we did, but every once in a while Paul and I completely sync up on something, and neither of us can predict or prevent it.  I honour what is and I’m glad it is.

Colin’s dad died yesterday. I light a candle for his journey. Colin is already in Abbotsford and Catherine will be flying out but I imagine she will be too busy and grieving to stop by.

Be kind, my darlings.  Life is frequently short and infrequently sweet.

the nullity, the lack, the absence

So, not a word yesterday.  I won’t repine, I’ll try again today.

Went for a walk at 5 am (wut no cream for coffee??? this is an outrage…)

Feel like doing the Michigan Rag?  I thought you might.

More jazz from a rather unexpected direction.  Thank you Lemming!

Waiting for my peeps to come home (sad face) – no word on when Mike and Paul and Katie and Alex are coming home yet, or maybe they’re home and haven’t called me, which will make me more than sad face.

 

 

menny wurdz

1072 to be exact. The writing was pretty well evenly split between early in the morning and last thing before bed.  Discovering my own process is interesting.  I try to write the really emotional bits first thing in the morning, and the goofier stuff at night. No cpap.  Very hot and allergic right now in Vancouver.  The allergy index says moderate, but I’m streaming from my nose and eyes pretty much constantly, so HELLO SEXY GRASS GET OUT OF MY FACE NOW PUHLEASE.

Gif for mOm. Nina Paley continues to be one of my fave modern artistes.

Okay, enuf stuff time to write.

 

Back on the cpap

1.7 hours last night, and 200 words so far this morning.  Off to Sapperton days later this am. Hopefully I won’t expire of sunstroke or boredom.

…later

596 total for the day.

 

Sue and I nearly fried, but I looked at her after we’d been there for 2 hours and said I bet you want me to bring your car around and she said o would you please when the time comes and I fetched it and there was much rejoicing since we didn’t get a serious conversation in three hours.  I’m reconsidering going to pride New west… It’ll be another frying day almost for sure.  I bought beer on the way back to the car, I had a thirst that could throw a frikkin’ shadow by the time I got home.

Church was the blessing of the animals, and of course the only animals there were dogs.  I lit a candle for a men’s group and a UU movie group.  The youth did a beautiful meditation and all in all it was very pleasant.

 

Updates and more death

Pentium, Tammy’s remaining kitty, was euthanized yesterday.  I am so glad Mike was in Toronto.  I’ve supported him through a pet death so this seems like karma sneaking in.

Got to talk to Paul and Phyllis on the phone yesterday. They and Katie and Alex were taking the sights in Port Stanley, always a family favourite with the folks.  Phyllis (to be candid) sounded exhausted so I hope he’s not chivying her too hard.  Phyllis seems smitten with Alex, although how things could go differently is hard to figure.

Keith came by yesterday.  Being on the spectrum – both of us – makes our communication extremely intense, haphazard and painful at times, but this turned out well so I’m going to characterize it as a win.  He’s enjoying the mix of work that he has right now, including supplying eyeglasses through his company to X-Files.

Buster’s back/butt wound should get veterinary attention in my view, but I don’t own him.  All I know is that had Margot received such a wound I’d have her into the exam room in 12 hours; portions of the wound are now 72 hours old and not crusting over so I am quite concerned about an abscess.  Fortunately Margot is only subject to persistent eye goobers, thanks to her allergies, and I’m trying to stay on top of those by removing them every time her eyes get droopy.  She does not thank me, but she usually quits running and lets me pick her up when I’m persistent.

It’s been deliciously sunny and breezy and not too hot.

412 words yesterday, mostly on Pharos.

Mike is planning on renting an entire commercial sauna for his birthday.  Man o Man, that’s gonna be some party.

 

There’s this woman in Spokane who is white and has been pretending to be black since she was in University.  This is what I have to say about her:

Libertarians are calling Rachel D. the ultimate manifestation of white guilt. I’m calling her as a gender-flopped urban Grey Owl.  Her romanticization of black culture without living through a black childhood isn’t guilt, it’s a minor mental disorder.

Further:  SHE EMBODIES WHAT MY TAG RACEFAIL IS FOR.

 

No words

I messed about with editing.

I suspect I’m feeling jelly of all my travelling friends and rellies.

I’m going to buy a bead curtain on line if I don’t cobble together something from around hear out of scraps. I have an idea that would be fabulous and would take about two hours or less to make, but it’s one of those things that would turn into a HALF DONE PROJECT and go back in a drawer if I didn’t power through it all at once.

(note from 2020, I did make it, and it keeps flies out and Jeff quite likes it, and I used fabric scraps from DRESSEW.)

Love this comic.

Love this collection of critters.  Next time somebody starts talking God’s law to you regarding the proper constitution of a family, remember the Goose, the Hen and the Ducklings.

I made ONE OFFHAND COMMENT on Reddit, and doubled my comment karma OVERNIGHT. The internet is a wacky place.  Oh, and I had to school a guy who was telling me that I wasn’t being a good feminist.  He didn’t respond, but I got 16 upvotes, so go me.

RIP Christopher Lee and Ron Moody

I know he was knighted, but I no longer acknowledge the right of the so-called Queen of England to bestow honours.  Yes, I know she’s been a benevolent spirit during my life, but only for me.  Seeing what she represents in terms of the people whose land got stolen opened my eyes.

Here’s an obit.

Ron Moody has likewise made his last exit, stage left.

418 words yesterday, mostly infill.

No bead curtain.

MOTIVE HAS THREE SEASONS? Yes.  And we are watching them.  I adore how it twists one aspect of the police procedural so that the tension is evenly balanced throughout the show, and I adore even harder how instead of making three or four episodes a season arc-heavy, it spreads the arc out like breadcrumbs throughout the season. No GARBARCAGE here.

It’s kinda cool to be watching a show starring Canadian actors without constantly thinking how awful they are. (quite the reverse…) Kristen Lehman was born in New West, after all, and Louis Ferreira was born in the Azores and moved to Toronto when he was a tad.  The guest stars are usually pretty good as well, including Molly Parker and Charles Martin Smith, who also directed.  Actors from SG1 pop up with amusing regularity, sometimes causing Jeff and I to pause the show to try and figure it out, before we give up and go to imdb.

 

Coffee and curtains

Today I have a mission – to buy a bead curtain for the back door to keep the flies out when it is clement enough to leave the back door open.

Also, to check and make sure I actually DID get rid of the ant infestation.

I’d like to apologize for saying which instead of with in yesterday’s post.  Sometimes when I’m taking dictation from myself I get it wrong.

Margot has slimmed down to her summer weight, both in terms of body and fur. By the time July rolls around she seems almost drawn, but a very small change in her exercise level makes a huge difference.  Then around October she becomes a hair explosion again, and by the end of February if I’m not brushing her diligently every day she ends up a matted mess.  I hope I don’t die before she does, I don’t know a soul who would keep up the maintenance regimen. I got a little cat malt into her yesterday but she gets bored easily and wandered away before I could get a full dose into her.

1049 words yesterday.  Not a record but respectable, and it’s on a really cute scene.  I think I’m done with the chapter in which Pharos meets his dad, and I think I managed to stick the landing.

So no editing yesterday.  I wonder if by telling myself I should edit today I’ll give myself another 1000 word day… it all started making sense when I realized it doesn’t matter what mood I’m in.

Coffee’s on and hot, time to get some.