Author: Allegra

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

Hate is strong

I really hate Bell Mobility and their stupid goddamned website.  I went through everything to update my plan and was told, on the same page, that it hadn’t gone through, and it had been confirmed.  I haven’t gotten an email confirming the update, so I am assuming it did not in fact go through.  Emmanuel on chat was helpful.

At some point today I’m hoping we can do a shop. I haven’t left the house to do more than put trash out in three days, so I should probably stir my stumps; on the plus side I can see some of my floor and almost all my clothes are clean.

 

Whineypants

I just backspaced over a thousand words of whining.  THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE.

Only one thing has happened recently worth reporting.  Keith came over yesterday.  I said, “I’m so happy to see you I’m going to clean my glasses so I can see you better.”  He’s rewatching Ken Burns’ Civil War with us.

 

 

Buster report

Buster is rapidly turning into one of my favourite cats.  He is affectionate, vocal without being a pain, coexisting well with Margot (she’s still not a big fan, but has started rimming him while he eats, so that’s something), athletic, a good sport about being stuck in the house while his most recent set of contusions heals, a non finicky eater and A LAP CAT.  He helped me with my most recent homily, huzzah.

 

Homily number almost 20…

I should count them up, although I think one of them has gone missing. Edited later: There are actually 21 but I can’t find the text for Garbage Day.  Drat.  I thought mOm sent it to me.

This morning’s homily, enlivened by 4 newcomers and Alex and Katie (Alex smiling and babbling in a simply enchanting way) went very well.  You can find it here. It was so cute watching Rob W in his Viking hat, being the uncleybear.

In particular, people liked the comment about the draft horse, and they loved the children’s story (different to what you’ll see, but Marilyn did a superb job of cutting it down without cutting it out AND she got participation from the chillums.)

I am going to take the rest of the day off (except for the usual snacks and laundry and whatnot) and fling myself at the novel again starting tomorrow morning.

 

Alex is coming!

I know, most of the world doesn’t care…. anyway, I have put aside a couple of kids books for him, being Koko’s Kitten and The Pokey Little Puppy, seeing as how they are family favourites.  Katie’s going to come some time this morning and we’re going to go for a walk, since I need to mail Tammy’s sweater back to her.

Keith dropped by yesterday and we fed him crudites with crockpot pork chomps and onyums.

I found my will and my burial arrangements yesterday!  I cleaned out the living room, and candidly that is not where I expected to find them.  However they are now back in my room where they belong.

We tried to watch Fleming, the 4 part miniseries, but it was goshawful, so we stopped.  We’re enjoying Salamander, which is Belgian and very suspenseful, and I love love love Filip Peeters, who is about as cute as middle aged men get and has one of the most startlingly asymmetrical faces I’ve seen east of Picasso.  Also, Mike Verdrengh would be perfect as Jordan de Riberac.

I made pancakes for breakfast.  It’s been ages since I did that.

Happy New Year!

I’d like to wish everyone who reads my blog a very happy New Year full of fun, food, family, and frolic, also paid employment and worthy activities as and when required.

I make no resolutions, but I’m going to do a couple of homilies and finish a couple of books -writing, not reading- this year.  I’m also hoping to do some sewing and dejunking.  We’ll see.

 

Bring out the festal CHHHHEEEEESE

So the sometimes annual Feste du Fromage was yesterday, at Patricia’s place. It was lovely to see her and Leanne again; I got sleepy for a second but came to eventually to get talkative again; considering I’d been up since 2 am and didn’t leave until 11 I think I did okay.  I brought cheese, which was definitely hauling coal to Newcastle.

SO HAPPY TO HAVE CHEESE in the fridge.  Because cheese makes everything yummy. ALSO I watched a cheesy movie, The Boxtrolls, earlier that day, so it was really really a lot of cheese to take in. Tracy Morgan’s voice acting in this movie, while terse IS HILARITY.  “I think I’ve lost a lot of blood” is his longest line…. it’s worth it.

 

 

 

 

Mist in my vision

The Drop, James Gandolfini’s last performance, was wonderful, a neatly crafted, beautifully shot gangster movie.  Tom Hardy veers between lyrical romance and brute physical menace with such restraint that he can use virtually the same expressions to convey them both.  Noomi Rapace is not quite wasted as the utility grade girlfriend, and my ranting pants are at the dry cleaners so I’ll skip to the next part… it had a good score.

Enjoyed Knights of Badassdom, although the overarching conceit of the movie is that if a woman wants to be a meretricious poser and dump the insanely hot Ryan Kwanten that means she should be transformed into a succubus, tortured and summarily killed while Summer Glau looks fondly on. Boys, take your relationship problems a little further downwind before you next write a script.  Bechdel test oh come on now Allegra you’re being oversensitive.  No, I’m not, and neither do I need to belabour the point.

I LOVED PRIDE.  It was a lovely, cheerful, excruciatingly funny, tear-jerking, heartbreaking YA MY PEOPLE movie, and I wouldn’t change a thing about any of the performances.  The music was so good all I can say is anybody in their twenties when this music was the bee’s knees will think they died and woke up listening to CFNY.

Sue upped and back from church one congregant viz me, plus she brought cookies so bonus hit points for her.  I hope to feast her for her birthday. I love my little church. Marilyn’s been laid low with a cold for two weeks and only just struggled back to civilization, so taking on leading the service was much appreciated given her challenges.

Briefly saw Brooke and her Beancat, whose grasp of rhetorical artifice firms apace, and in whom I see alarming signs of possibly becoming an insanely highpriced lawyer.  Dood be smart.

Back to the grind of a mere 2000 words.  A bagatelle, if you can’t see the anchor tied to my ass!

The title of this post is taken from today’s homily, and is about a beautiful moment, not a sad one.

New song

This is all there is so far.  It’s very bluegrass.

 

Well my pa don’t say much but he don’t like none of my suitors

and my ma never stops like a wasp in a winderpane

My sisters they fume and they tell me it’s my duty

Though I don’t want to wed, suitors come to me again

Crowdin’ round, night and day

crowdin’ round, braggin’ and laughin’

Crowdin’ round, beggin’ kisses sayin’

When you gonna marry me?

I have sent them all off down the road in dusty twilight

and in peace I can pull down and play my mandolin

in the dark by the gatepost I hear a banjo twangin

And he’s far enough away that my pa can’t call it sin

Crowdin’ round, night and day

crowdin’ round, braggin’ and laughin’

Crowdin’ round, beggin’ kisses saying

When you gonna marry me?

All my life I’ve looked after my sisters and my brothers

now they tell me to marry and move out my trousseau

I’m worn out with this fam’ly and now must start another

Ne’er to sail foreign seas now, or hike in mountain snow

Crowdin’ round, night and day

crowdin’ round, braggin’ and laughin’

Crowdin’ round, beggin’ kisses saying

When you gonna marry me?

Some nights after my suitor let the banjo introduce him

He appears and then shyly asks me for my hand

He’d not press me with children, as having the impression

It was something a husband and wife jointly planned

Chorus

Oh you speak to my heart, but what other chains are hiding

Shall I spend all my days by a stove and a sink

Shall I gasp in a fact’ry or wait upon your presence

While you gamble in brothels and spend your health in drink

 

 

 

 

 

 

Into the Woods

Saw the wussified, bowdlerized, defanged and diznified version of Sondheim’s Into the Woods last night with Sue.  I enjoyed it.  Chris Pine ripppppping his shirt off in the Agony song was pretty funny, and Emily Blunt was bloody marvellous, but really all the cast was good, and I enjoyed it.  I’m actually glad I saw it on the big screen as it is quite pretty.

Also I ate poutine and drank beer (except for parties I’m not keeping it in the house anymore).  Now I’m going to get up, make coffee and get stuff done.  Since there is literally no more episodic tv to watch unless we’re rewatching SG1, which is okay too I guess.

All is merry and bright

  1. Paul gave me and Jeff motion detector lights; the upgetting to pee is now a lot easier.  Paul’s approach to Christmas gifts is to buy a bag of useful objects and let you pick which one you like – this year the theme was light, so it was headlamp, motion detector light or keychain flashlight.
  2. I was really resentful about ‘having’ to do Christmas dinner, and then I asked myself what it would take to be less resentful.  I immediately thought “If I don’t have to buy the turkey and lug it home!”  To which Paul happily agreed, and Keith lugged it over here.  Resentment vanished, I went to Granville Island with Tammy for the rest of the veg and happily lugged that home.
  3. I made vegan squash soup – there wasn’t enough for everybody and it was damned good.
  4. so much good beer – pumpkin ale, winter ale, shipwreck IPA! Tammy brought some nice wine.
  5. The turkey was good – the meat delicious, the skin like an advertisement – but what was really amazing was the gravy. I ended up eating it cold as a side for leftover pie, and it was SO GOOD.  It was pan dripping gravy.  I stuck the pan drippings in a blender, added a tablespoon of cake flour and about half a cup of milk, blended the shit out of it and then nuked it for a minute.  From such pedestrian beginnings came a voluptuously smooth gravy with a meaty and almost nutty flavour.
  6. Mike and Tammy and Paul and Katie and Keith and I sang and played afterwards, and Alex grooved along.  He really really likes music, and he is most fabulously strong.  He apparently likes his Christmas present, which was a stuffed T Rex. Paul introduced Tammy to Never Set the Cat on Fire, which was wonderful.
  7. Wine was spilled on Granny’s linen tablecloth… horrors! and it came out again the next morning with some Amaze.  Tablecloth is clean, folded and ready for use.
  8. Earlier this week I got the lobster dinner I have been drooling for, except it was lunch, and it was with Tammy, so it was pretty much perfect.
  9. Although the kitchen is once again the habitation of orcs this morning, I HAD cleaned up and ran a dishwasher and got rid of the empties and straightened out the living room the next morning and returned some sanity to the proceedings.
  10. Today I hope to get cat litter.  With two cats, more shit.  It is the law.
  11. Autumn is a boy.  He is now Buster.  Jeff and I are fine with this, but not fine with not noticing earlier.  He will be snipped in a week or so.
  12. He has been to the vet for suturing because he’s already gotten in fights. Margot was disturbed by him before, but with a cone on his head she is Miss Hissy each time he approaches.
  13. I am really enjoying everybody’s pics of how happy their Christmas has been.  The various traditions from around the world and around the various ethnicities of my friends and flist make me happy in their variety and conviviality.
  14. I am sad to have missed Christmas Eve service because it was the last time a certain church member will ever provide music for us, because he is awesome, but also sick.  As sad as I am about this, I made happy memories in my own home with my loves and kin.
  15. Keith was sober, and he was Mom’s taxi.  He: ferried Tammy to and from Edmonds, drove his sister home, drove Rob to Church and drove Mike and his Dad home.  As happy as I was to see Alex, Keith did a lot to make the evening perfect, and I am now considering (which I can do here, since he never reads my blog, haw haw) how I shall appropriately reward him for his service.
  16. A car was stolen from in front of our house at 3:30 am Christmas morning.  I spoke to a Burnaby RCMP officer about it… Jeff and I were asleep at the time, or in no position to see what was happening.  I thanked her for working Christmas Day and wished for her to stay safe out there.
  17. I made chocolate cake.  I am thinking perhaps cinnamon rolls later. The turkey soup is made and in the freezer.

This concludes my report….

Today’s meal

The bird goes in the oven at 1.  No stuffing this time.  The rest of the day is me counting back from when supper hits the table (’round 5:15), prepping veggies so they have a fighting chance of being ready to go at the appointed time, fetching guests from Skytrain stations and cleaning things.

Watched this PG family adventure movie yesterday and quite liked it: Ragnarok. With bonus Sofia Helin from the Bridge series.