Author: Allegra

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

No show

Oh my screaming g’s the Detroit Philly game. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Six inches of snow on the camera crew and half the football disappears when you put it down. When the player rooted double handsful of snow out of his face mask I howled.

Furnace is broken, internet is spotty.  Working right now, but who knows later.  It’s been like this for days now.

We’re at the end of Season 4 for Burn Notice and Jeff has declared a short moratorium.  That’s okay, because I’m currently thrilling to the amazing dress sense of the lovely Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.  It’s very much in the Foyle’s War category of murder mysteries, except Australian and Phryne is a SLUTTTT! A cheerful, unapologetic and unambiguous one (but sex scenes are strictly decorous and mostly off screen).  She drives a Hispano Suiza! She has a gold plated pistol, which never seems to have any ammo! She is awesome.  So until I get Michael Westen back, probably about a week from now, I’ll have to watch Farscape and Miss Fisher instead.

Person to see the shop yesterday didn’t show.  Somebody else called, I’m showing it Tuesday.

David Simon (of the Wire) talkin”bout capitalizm.

I am thinking of going to the shooting range the next time Keith and Rob go.

I know I spend a lot of time whining, but I am really happy to be alive, and I’m writing and practicing every day, and there’s food in the fridge, and my friends love me, and my cat is cheerfully indifferent to me unless I’m crinkling packaging.

Eddie is feeling a bit better – his appetite has returned – but he’s now hiding in Jeff’s bathroom cupboard a good chunk of the time.

I have half completed my first of two new homilies (March 9 and May 11, or perhaps the other way around) and intend to have a completed draft of the first by the end of the week. mOm I should have a bit off to you shortly.

The Alberta government has tabled legislation that will prevent public sector union employees from even TALKING about striking.  What unutterable bullshit! My prairie populist ancestors are whirling in their graves like a rotisserie set on stun.

Yay, Natalie Reed is blogging again. She is a queer trans blogger living in Vancouver and she can write like a m*****-******* riot.

Filking today

Tom and Peggus are hosting, which is mahvellous, because you can’t actually turn around in the house upstairs right now.  I need to invite people over to encourage la mighty cleaning.

Showing the shop tomorrow.  We shall see.

I am playing around with Garageband. Got a tune in my head and instead of reaching for my phone, I sang it directly, crappy mike and all, into computer, and it’s adorable.  It needs a minimum of ten hours of brutal work before even a scratch copy is ready, but the sketch is there and the beats have a weight suitable for their height.

Started watching Farscape.  The opening shot made me laugh like a drain.  (Ben Browder, wearing a baby blue open Hawaiian shirt covered in stylized white octopi.  A-DORBZ, progeny!)

There’s a REASON the physio said “And if you don’t exercise every day you’ll get stiff and weak.”  Did my exercises today.  I suppose I am not in the right lineup for getting sympathy on the subject, so least said fastest mended, one supposes.

 

3.5 k yesterday

I walked 2 k to have coffee with Katie first thing and then 1.5 k to take advantage of my first seniors meal deal with my dear friend Sue.  She has auditioned for the role of Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret and I really hope she gets it.

My audition was completed without incident.  By the numbers I have a one in 5 chance of success as they only provide 8 licences and at least 40 people applied.  I’m just glad I got to do it.

Now I have to get back to my previously scheduled insanity….

 

balls in the air

I haven’t been able to sleep with the cpap machine for the last couple of nights because I’m a little stuffed up.  I may take a decongestant at bed time to see if that helps.

Walked two k yesterday with my instrument on my back.  May as well get used to that. Paul and I sang and played for a couple of hours yesterday afternoon.  He put some extremely tasty guitar behind “When You Play the Game of Thrones” and “It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry” and in general we had a very good time.  He talked a bit about retirement but it’s still a ways away, and as always we traded notes about the kids because they are not consistent about what they say to us and sometimes we have to piece things together afterwards.  Paul is continuing to be an awesome dad; I am not sure if Katie really comprehends how lucky she is.  I promised not to refer to the crazy making incident which nearly tipped her into homelessness again, but what with her being employed and helpful Paul has no complaints and Keith is too smart to talk to me about it.

The audition is today.  It is by no means a sure thing but I feel like I at least have a chance.  I will need to come up with warm and comfy clothes for when it’s cold outside and possible some kind of rolling device to convey things from point a to point b.

I am working on  a Southern boogie rock tune set in the Burn Notice universe called ‘Kick your door down’.

 

chorus

Average day, situation normal

Your enemies smile and your loved ones frown

Not much need to be very formal

They’re gonna come back and kick your door down

Verse

This guy Westen is a pain in the ass

Thinks he’s a hero and his friends are no better

Oliver Peoples with the shatterproof glass

Fi needs help so he’s gonna go get her

Chorus

Sam comes hard with the rolling guns and ammo

Westen doesn’t think his tactics are sound

Time gets tight and the package goes blammo

and they’re gonna come back and kick your door down.

 

 

 

 

 

I may be a busker in a future life!

I am thrilled to report that Translink accepted my application and I’ll be auditioning on the morrow. I’ll have to spend money on the licence and the RCMP background check, but I think those are reasonable expenses.  Now I have to figure out where I get to stand and how I keep me and my instrument warm enough to play….

Showed the shop yesterday.

 

Walking to church today

Hey, it’s less than 5 k. I have to stop off at Thrifty’s and get veggies for the soup lunch.

Yesterday Paul and Mike (Nita’s so) and Jim and Jan walked in the woods behind my old building.  After we got ourselves good and wet in the rain and from examining honderds of decaying fungi, we went to the Himalayan Peak.

Here’s something cool about reproducing the techniques of Vermeer.  It’s got art, magic, obsession and technology.

Burn Notice continues to eat my brain.

No movement on selling the cafe.

 

No walkies yesterday

I spent a fair amount of time at the shop cleaning and stooging about for tradesmen, but Ramey changed two lightbulbs without saying anything…. I think he was wondering if I was so clued out I wouldn’t notice.  I thanked him profusely.  The compressor on the walk in is working perfectly again.

Today I have a long list of things to do and I probably won’t get around to any of it.

 

Here is an interesting article about ‘the ring theory’ of kvetching.

Cafe

A man, in all seriousness, offered me a thousand dollars for the cafe yesterday.  It’s really too bad.  After he made his crappy offer he stayed with his brother in law and wife and child, in the shop for another half hour.

I called him later and said I didn’t think it was possible to negotiate in good faith with him, so I cancelled the meeting with the landlord.  The landlord will not sign a lease with this guy until we have an agreement in place.  Which, candidly, isn’t going to happen.

And I walked 5 k yesterday.  I am good and sore in the feets department today, and there’s more coming…

 

 

Taking a break tomorrow

The landpeers are mowing the lawn – which tells you what kind of fall we’re having since the grass is still growing with unrelenting vigour; I saw a hummingbird yesterday morning – and I walked 5 k today.  My feet are singing FUCK YOU in four part discord and my back isn’t much better.  Physio entirely KICKED MY ASS and I am more sore in the shoulder than at any point since I broke it.  That’s it for physio for me… I can’t afford any more as that was a thousand bucks out of pocket or more sincerely mOm and pOp’s pocket.  Anyway I picked up some cables and a tea ball and something to put under Eddie’s dish.

I had brekkie with Katie.

No walking tomorrow, I am very glad to be mobile, and even more glad to be stationary for a while.

 

Now, some Burn Notice.  I am looking forward to some more instruction on the construction of explosive and incendiary devices.