today’s reason to cry

I’m fighting a viral infection according to my bloodwork – let’s just say it came as a complete surprise since no fever, no cough, no real symptoms except gut raunch and I can’t really relate that to illness thanks to how weird my gut has always been – and my liver and kidneys are not working properly. The kidneys part I’m not worried about since I was dehydrated for literally the first time in weeks, but the liver enzymes are worrying.

I’m taking steps but I’m just messed up right now. One of my few consolations is food. I just want to die. (This is what is known as an exaggeration for effect. I want a cessation of effort regarding nourishing food, which is different.)

Keith was here and cooked and fed us beef and bean chili and it continues to be nom. I made biscotti. They turned out excellent, but texturally quite different to what I’m used to since I added the butter to the flour and not the eggs. I now have to get them out of my house before I hurt myself eating half a batch. That should not be a problem. Keith has warned me not to just leave them where Paul can find them; like me he has a hard time not motoring through them.

sawbones today

10:30 appointment. Probably won’t get in until noon. Normally I go across the street and get something from Brown’s Social House but today Keith’s cooking us lunch, so I have to make sure everything he might need to cook is ready to go. Then I’ll show up and EAT. Sounds ideal.

Wordle in three this morning. I should think so, my ancestors would hit me if I didn’t get ‘horse’ in a hurry. gosh did I share the solution? Good thing fewer than ten people read this blog erryday.

Coffee next and some reheated Chinese food. Nom.

Apparently I’m picking up Alex on Friday so Paul and Keith can go to the States to visit Hank and Janice. Good thing I know what to do now! Takes a village, etc.

Yesterday apart from cleaning off the kitchen counter and loading the dishwasher I did nothing. Oh, I practiced. I feel empty and rattling and completely full of leftover wasp nests. I got my February blahs but good. And yet my mood isn’t BAD.  It’s just kinda … blank.

 

 

10 billion dollars and no water

Apparently they’re going to build a high speed rail line between LA and Las Vegas, 218 miles. Las Vegas’ ‘dead pool’ number is 895 feet. That means that if Lake Mead’s reservoir drops below 895 feet, there’s no water for the city.

The city is not projected to see those numbers for at least the next three to four years. Plenty of time to manifest some water from, er, somewhere, when they open the rail line in 2025 LOL.

Mega-projects are dead, when will people see it.

The ‘Cop City’ in Atlanta, which is going to tear down an urban forest to put up a training facility for the descendants of patterrollers, had the construction site set on fire yesterday. The cops have already killed a protester there. This is a generational conflict – in the sense that it will go for a generation.

I cleaned the kitchen counters, ran the dishwasher and ordered dim sum for delivery yesterday. NOM. Jeff was less impressed; we did after all grow up with Tak Sun. Mickey Dee’s for brekky this morning.  Otherwise I did not to a damned thing and I slept like a dead thing for half the day. Feel fine now, though. And I spoke to various family members yesterday and we’re all doing okay, which is lovely news all by itself.

Pedro Pascal said that Sarah Michelle Gellar was a complete sweetheart to him during their filming together in Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the two of them getting on social media and being nice to each other was the tonic I needed this morning. Parasocial relationships, who can live without them LOLOL.

another day simply packed with jam

Yesterday I got up and did my things including laying out my meds for the next week, and ran the dishwasher and made chow mein noodles and tangy marinated tofu with veg. Then Paul called for a walk and possibly lunch. I said I’d be by in an hour during which we watched a rather tiresome Farscape (Jeff was okay with it but so much pointless yelling tho’ Rygel puking was pretty funny) and then I went and got Paul, during which time I chatted with Keith as well which was good because then I knew we had a time limit. Home by two for a family phone call.

We went straight to the peepee hut at Fraser Foreshore because Paul thought to tell me about it before he had to march into the bushes and play “Aren’t I cute Mr. LOO’OUT WIF MY WEENIE HANGING OUT” and I thought you know what, it’s here, I shall go too. Because the day was so lowering and mizabrub, what with rain that was doing the classic ‘Vancouver dry rain’ thing that it does, it was nice to find a place to park nearby the johns for once, and the misery continued what with the fire over in Richmond ‘cross Sto:lo throwing the densest blackest most apocalyptic looking smoke across the entire southern horizon and THEN a bank of cloud rolled across the landscape and ENTIRELY hid the smoke, as if we hadn’t in our dozens of park-goers and dog walkers SEEN THE SMOKE and it was like God holding me in the palm of my own head’s hand and saying, “SEE, YOU CAN’T TRUST ANYTHING.” With a wave of the weather some catastrophe was removed from my sensorium. Something close obscures something far, but the something far still is. A leedle epistemology promulgated by my forever strange assessments of the world.

Word came later that it was a fire in a pile of recycled building materials and the smoke was way worse than the fire, which was put out in an hour.

Nice, brisk walk. The wind picked up. A convention of little leashed dogs in jackets with a purple clad toddler much shorter than Ryker wading into the middle of them (everyone behaved). The wind picked up some more. The blown mist turned into gentle rain that was colder than a well-diggers butt in February. The rain got worse. We stopped to search for the smoke, and found it. All we could see was a tiny bit of it through a tunnel of thinner fog. Never smelled it, I never saw the cloud cross the river, although you could see the grey discolouration of it through the smear of clouds and fog on the River Road side. Paul and I were doing the fogey sprint for the last hundred meters as the rain got steadily worse, and got ourselves into the car puffing and blowing like lolruses.

 

I was wearing my Oodie. Little did I know that when you get an Oodie wet, it grips onto certain kinds of plastic really hard, so there I am, trying like fury to turn the fucking steering wheel to get out of the parking lot and NOTHING is happening. It was easy to diagnose this king hell driving hazard so I paused, shifted my suddenly EXTRA CLINGY clothing into a less ‘this will be hard to explain to the accident investigator’ style, and we finally got out of there.

Then I took Paul back to our place and we had the noodles I made earlier. Then he asked me to do his feet which was no problem, he was like a month overdue. I clipped his nails, buffed everything down so he can’t snag his socks, and rubbed balm on his foot cracks, also helped him get his socks back on. I really enjoyed having him today and we didn’t have a cross word between us (either way). We’re allowed to be snarky but not mean if you know what I mean.

Apart from the two assholes who tried to t-bone us on the way home, and the weather getting steadily worse (wet snow by the time we arrived) everything was peachy, and as I watched Paul go up the stairs and into the house I thought he looked jauntier than he had in ages. I did ask him if he’s depressed though and he says maybe a few degrees more than his baseline, but managing. Know iggzackly what you mean, my dude, I really do.

Then on the way home I trekkethed to ‘The Pie Hole’ (‘Forkin’ Good’, as the packaging notes) and got 2 smores cookies, and two hand pies, one blueberry for Jeff and one butter pecan for me. For reasons I do not understand, I had an allergic reaction to my pie (which was damned tasty) and my thung thwole up and got a great big hive right in the middle of it.  No other hives I can feel or see, and no other symptoms. Very tiresome, Jeff’s going to finish it, we’ve got nothing but tragedy in this house, can’t you tell? I’m laughing. I made off with one of the smores and it was fine. Is it possible I’m getting a nut allergy, because I’m already careful around peanuts, cautious around cashews, and eschewing hazelnuts altogether, including, sadly, Nutella, until I feel comfortable enough to re-test.

Then we watched the last Lidia Poët, which was wonderful, and then one of the Stargate TV movies (Ark of Truth) and then I went to bed early. That was my day.

 

wotta burst

22648 words, Wordle in four when it SHOULDA BEEN TWO. Two top fives in Lumosity.

Yesterday I put off getting out the door for errands too long. Jeff got embroiled in a work issue and was no longer in a position to offer me a ride. I did a cognition check, decided that if I was literally going to be driving two blocks and back again I COULD DO THIS THING so I went to Burnaby Square and I got my damned meds and I got my blood work did (as always the vampire women at Lifelabs gave THE PERFECT STICK) and EKG (COLD AND RIPITTY SKIN COMING OFF) and I peed in the container (prob’ly not enough, I was dehydrated all day yesterday) and confirmed it would all be read before next Tuesday’s doc appointment.

I got back in the car and decided that Jeff, after bringing treats home various times of late which perked me some considerable, needed to have something treat-like so I went to M&M Meats and bought two chookity pop pies, one lazzyggna, one breaded shrimpity thing, and a box of mini creamitypuffs. We had cream puffs and shrimps for supper, WE RAGRET NUFFINK, especially when we contemplate the amusement this will prompt in our elders….. On the way out of the M&M’s at The Royal Square Mall (not the Royal City Centre, which is also in New Westminster 2 km away) IT HAILED.

I thought it was graupel, but it was round, and it beaned me, and stung my little head. I thought, OW and put the food in the back seat and then ran over to Sally’s and grabbed more emory boards since Jeff is continually frowning over how snaggy my fingernails are any time I hand him something. After pricing meshuggas (I am sorry, but I didn’t mean to reenact the entire drugstore scene from ‘What’s Up Doc’ (“How much is it without the …”) while out for a shopping jaunt – they tried to charge me $43.95 for an emory board and I’m, like, haaannnh???) I paid the 6 bucks total for my self-care order (I’m just trying to meet MINIMALLY APPROVED GIRLY STANDARDS THOU MISERABLE GODS OF GENDER CONFORMITY BOOOO) I went outside, received the continued icy blessing of hail-strikes on my bean, and departed for home; the hail stopped before I even left the parking lot of the mall.

Stopped watching Station Eleven. Any time an episode ends with two small girl children appearing to voluntarily blow themselves up killing a family member at the behest of a post-apocalyptic prophet I am going to fucking check out because I am already well aware of the extent to which #notallmen will destroy things to assert control over them and would prefer not to have the point made in the story with shrapnel-laced chunks of what should have been the carriers of our future.

Jessica Wildfire’s most recent post is one of the hardest and most necessary things I’ve read lately. You don’t have to read it and I’m not linking to it because it’s very very bleak, but you can search for it under her name and ‘Behavioural Sink’ on substack. It confirms in me that Keith laboriously helping to build community in his own way IS the way out. We must all community build or die. We find what we can do for that community and we build it. It also explains why reddit is full of straight women who’ve stopped dating….

 

Elliptical story telling

There was a point, yesterday afternoon, after watching episode five of A Spy Among Friends and while watching episode three of Station Eleven, when I started babbling at Jeff about ‘elliptical story telling’. As an example, there is a flashback inside a flashback in one episode.

almost a thousand words follow:

Continue reading Elliptical story telling

twitter borkage

I can’t see my feed. I can follow more people but I can’t see any of my new content on twitter and I wish I could talk about how sad it makes me without sounding like an idiot. On line IT press says it’s a ‘code loop nightmare’.

(an hour later, it reappeared)

No progress on Totally Boned. My protagonists are queer / asexual / non heteronormative and I’m glad they are, because Fox media isn’t just coming for trans kids anymore; they’ve started to say completely unhinged things about asexuals, too. In my own small way I am fighting against the dehumanization of sexual and affectional minorities.

Wordle in five. Top five in three out of five games this morning although my working memory seems to have stepped out for two joints.

OMG the Call the Midwife wedding episode made me cry pretty much continuously. And now I’m crying again reading about the suicide of a Black woman in STEM. Why do we make women carry so much in this life and why do we hate women who aren’t white so much ….

Snow disappeared enough to order burgers and shakes for dinner.

I hope we’re all prepared for the ADDITIONAL SNOW we’re getting tonight. Up to 15 cm of dense white death will fall from the sky.

 

 

 

Biscotti exclamation mark

So I need to find some packaging to get the biscotti off to the people who need to get it in the mail, and separate the JEFF AND I ARE EATING THESE biscotti from the ones I’m mailing off. This batch is even better than the last one and it is JAM PACKED WITH ALMONDS.

Going to see Paul this am for a walk. Also if I can force myself to get some blood work done that would be cool.

no change on word count

Wordle in 3.

Twitter isn’t paying its suppliers and is laying off people so fast cracks and breakages and outages are happening all the time. I will probably end up on Mastodon. I wish I didn’t love twitter so much.

 

 

Made beef stew

Oh, it is yummy. And soon it will be gone. And when it’s gone, I’ll make tofu and egg and pork and chicken fried noodles. Or something.

22,300 words.

Happy birthday Tammy darling, hope you have an awesome day!!

As for the rest of you, love yourself today with some self-care.

Don’t know if it’s self care; I think I’ll make some more biscotti. Paul phoned yesterday to thank me for the last batch.

Digestion equals weirdness

Something is rearranging itself amidships. Nothing hurts, but it’s very odd and my usual schedule is non existent. For example I was woken from a sound sleep at 2 am for a run to the john…. but everything was fine. Just urgent. It is possible this is Metformin reminding me that it needs to be taken 1.5 hours earlier in the evening, in which case, carry on, noble poop chute.

Suzanne was here, and I slept through most of it since I was having a super off day. She folded my last load of laundry, may blessings rain. She’s barely recovered from her walking pneumonia. No fever or cough or anything, for me it was just exhaustion. Sometimes I think I have to schedule a recovery day after seeing Paul. Katie advised that she saw the salt I got for her and got into her biscotti delivery already.

Got the Wordle in three (such a lucky guess, that second one) and two top five scores and one best score in Lumosity, so my general feeling that whatever my body is doing my brain is in reasonable order continues. Celebrated with a giant mug of coffee. Nom.

Today, STEW. We bought a roast yesterday so I cut it in half so that Jeff and I can have a mini roast beast for a Sunday dinner soon and hacked the other half into stew bites. Also prepped all the rest of the meat we purchased yesterday into strips for stir fries, so I’m ready to go with pork and chicken strips.

Keith and Alex are having a wonderful time in Victoria and you have no idea how happy that makes me. mOm is bursting with family visit vibes in consequence. It’s very nice to have family that you like, trust, enjoy and honour. I greet and thank my ancestors and accept their gifts and lessons with humility and a desire to honour them. ‘cept for the land stealing bit, but if my suspicions are correct and I’m descended from the Sakai the land stealing is kinda what we did/do and we’ll have to unlearn it.

Every morning with Buster is different. He made it abundantly clear that he has no interest in training today and so I dropped treats on his head and watched as he lay down and lazily stretched out to pop them in his mouth (he uses his front paws like hands A LOT).

A couple of days back the flicker was on the food platform yelling for sunflower seeds; two mornings ago a fox sparrow danced up and down the side yard, cheeping, very obviously dancing for food (Jeff was most struck by its movements, which seemed out of the ordinary). And the crows came in droves yesterday; I put out all the suet and fat from the meat trimmings just before sunset, when the crows are overhead going back to their roosts, and it was GONE within MINUTES. Better some fat get in their bellies than it turn into rancid malodorous vapours in the compost bucket.

Cousin Alex is hosting her mOm this weekend.

If you get a chance to see John Waters’ 2015 commencement address it’s worth seeing. Elder creators who gave themselves to their art and support up and comers so fiercely are a blessing on this world.

There is at least a foot of snow on everything. It is already starting to melt but lord God I am not looking forward to shovelling the front sidewalk. Jeff will assess what else may need to be done and then do it. I’m taking the little chair out there with me, I came so close to stroking out the last brace of snowfalls (or it felt that way, I ‘greyed out’ a couple of times.)

22099 words. For whatever reason this part is easy to write. Then I finish the section (it’s too long to be a chapter) by going back to where I started with Blossom, and mirroring their journey in Guyana with a road trip. TO OTTAWA and beyond LOL.