Author: Allegra

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

Nairobi

Woke up this morning, checked facebook and found out that relatives of a friend of mine were under fire in Westgate Mall in Nairobi.  I told Salim that I could only hope that I’d never get into religion or politics to the extent that I felt shooting my neighbours was appropriate.  Twenty dead at least, fifty injured at least.  What a world.

Saw Keith briefly yesterday, and read the Shiduri sequence out of the Epic of Gilgamesh to him.  I liked the new translation / new gloss of it so much I actually bought it.  As a writer I guess I feel I should own the oldest surviving story (there are older documents but they are storage related…).

My stop digging exercises have commenced; the kitchen is coming along and I’ll be poking at other piles of disorder gradually over the next few weeks.  Rome wasn’t destroyed in a day.  Also, wrote stuff yesterday, put a song into Songwriter, did some ‘work on my projects’ stuff as well as cleaning and watching tv.  Also, applied for a job, since one of my contacts hailed me and gave me the frequency.  Nothing is likely to come of it, but I can’t look any gift horses in any particular elevation.

The exercises continue apace.  Next physio Monday, next doc appointment a month.

I tried the cpap again last night and MAYBE got two hours.  I think my sleep disorder is actually a little more nuanced than this machine can deal with.  Also, I really think I’ve got the wrong mask.

I got a really good and extremely cheap back rest for the driver’s seat in Ziva.  She has been very well behaved since she was smacked in the parking lot.

 

Another nibble on the café.

 

I leave you with a John Shirley quote (from New Taboos).

People who are quadriplegic have stated that they feel less emotion than they could when they could still feel their entire bodies. The projection of the self into our electronics reduces the relationship to the body, the seat of our emotions, and for several reasons that might lead to an increase in psychopathology.

 

 

 

 

The two of Cups

So, I was processing one of the cards for Tarot for Atheists, and I had been dodging the two of Cups because I never felt comfortable with it.  This time I really meditated on it for a long time… and now I have my new interpretation of the card.  Here it is in poetic form, but you get the general idea.  As a standalone, it’s fine, but the card interpretation changes radically in readings.

 

the two of cups

 

in profile stern

bearing a grail, or great stirrup cup

she stands so that her tabard barely stirs

against his touch, against his moving will

no occasion of beauty or grace

as they part

their attachment sundered

by disease

body-borne and spirit-lowering

see the winged lion flying expressionless

the cabin announcement of bad news

cruising into crazy danger

and l o  o  k the lion’s got a caduceus

jammed up his ass

the point of which is resting on

the young man’s hand, and wow

garlands of paper flowers or hell

maybe he sprang for roses

(they got the picture done professionally

after all)

you can tell this young man putters

over his appearance

he is in full vigour and sweetness

and wants you to choke on it

to eat the entirety of his cruelty, which is

of two fold kind;

that he is young and beautiful which he

need not say for it is for anyone to say

and that he must make you drown

in your own decay, hating the smugness

and hatred of the old, you get reflected

decades later.  It was you who did this, you.

 

in the meantime they are going to break up

he gave her clap, or his coke addiction

cost something. or she went crazy

or got in a car accident and couldn’t fuck anymore.

me, I’m hoping that red roof

in the background may be an inn.

wotcher

How’s everybody this morning?  Good?  Not so good!? Hm. Let me see what I can do about that.

Just when La Mami Naturaleza seems to have shot her last bolt in the weird department, along comes something like this.  Do please watch the video.

I bought and now have used a bunch of equipment for my rehab.  I am already stronger and more able to extend my arm forwards at 90 degrees.  Jeff rolls his eyes when I do exercises while watching TV, it’s quite distracting.

Jeff’s first impressions of the Mac Mini. There’s something useful in there about the Home/End issue which people transitioning from pc to mac always trip over.

Hey, I don’t mind fashion when it looks like this.  Possibly, erm, not suitable for work.

More evidence, although it didn’t need to be adduced, why Stephen Fry fucking RULES.

The Nepean Redskins will be changing their name and logo at the end of this season.  VERY PLEASED ABOUT THIS.  On the other hand there is this piece of dreck masquerading as a sports common tater.  In a hundred years we will look back and wonder why the hell we did this to ourselves.

And in this Brave New World, homeless people use Bitcoins.

I could do this without breaking a sweat. After all, I’ve already done it, just ask Jeff.

 

 

 

Hot sauce

There has been some of this stuff in my fridge pretty much continuously since I met Paul.

We finished Long Way Round.  I loved it.  If you love motorcycles, OR love travelogues OR are a fan of Ewan McGregor it’s worth seeing the whole thing.

May I just state for the record that Archie Panjabi is amazing in her role as Kalinda in The Good Wife.  She could play Kiaya Khatun or Roxelana Sultan if Lymond ever came to the screen…. that would be so awesome.

Breaking Bad is coming to an end within a few weeks. Here are a couple of articles I enjoyed.  Albuquerque.

and also A Pictorial History.

Keith dropped by yesterday.  Paul and he have a new tortoiseshell barn cat  they imported from the US.  Her name is Ayesha, and she does not want to be a housecat. She is, however, quite mellow.  I haven’t met her yet and look forward to making her acquaintance when she is better settled in.

Eddie let me clip his nails the other day with only one low wail to indicate his opinion of the indignity.

It’s been rainy and blecchy.

Cpap machine for a couple of hours last night.  I took it off when I couldn’t actually sleep with it on.  This is turning into a sore trial…

 

 

 

Bertrand Russell’s Liberal Decalogue

  1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
  2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
  3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
  4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
  5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
  6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
  7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
  8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
  9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
  10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.

It’s a sad long story

But if you want a brief good death, you might want to consider it.

There was a LONG convo on facebook this morning about people always wanting to know how somebody died.  I want to know so there wasn’t any suffering.  However, some people want to know so they can shame the dead for asking for it.  It was a really interesting conversation and I’m glad I participated.  I just don’t want to say the wrong thing, yanno?

Fraser Health is coming by the shop tomorrow to inspect it.  Good thing it’s clean and free of vermin.

I guess I have to announce a re-opening date.  I will advise the inspector that this will entirely depend on what my doc says.

Got some mando time in, happy sigh….

Great, there’s a new, big, formal, scary climate change denying group of scientists.  If they look right, they’re right, right?  The basic tenet is that nothing humans can do can change the climate.  Everything problematic about the climate is external to human beings.  In a sense, they are right, I suppose.  When it comes down, nothing humans can do will help, I spose.

Funniest thing about this is not the SKY DRAGON of bad climate science they want to slay, it’s the methane that’s going to come out of the ocean.  So let’s worry about SEADRAGONS instead.  Go on Jeff, I know you heard that the same way I did…

Friends and relatives

I AM SO LUCKY.  Won’t go into teedails, but I am fortunate to have kindly and discerning friends and relatives.

The hat I loaned to Sue won’t be required.  The writer.director of her fringe show bailed at the last moment.  That must be awful.  I told her to keep the hat until she had taken a headshot, as it is marvellous and looks so wonderful on her.

Shoulder wasn’t bad yesterday after physio but today it HURTS LIKE HELL.  Also I am feeling fluish, so I think I am bailing on church today.

Chipper asked me to drive across Canada with her… I am considering it.

what is the meaning of this candy corn on the cob?

We are already halfway through the second season of Hell on Wheels.  It’s filling up the big empty Deadwood part of my heart.  It is not as good as Deadwood, but, ah, she ain’t Rose, if you know what I mean. And Anson Mount has the most superb range of vocalizations I have ever heard out of an actor.  He can convey more with a single grunt…. or stifled laugh… or sigh of regret… it’s quite entertaining.

Today, Mt. Washmore.

 

The damnedest things

Physio was AWESOME.  No needles, this time, just manipulation and exercises.  I don’t see the bone doc until NEXT Friday, so my next physio is the Monday after that.  I am driving again; I am playing mandolin again, but only short hops for driving and only 15 minutes  for practicing.  Physio says I can add a song a day as I get stronger.  I am making 100 percent progress for some kinds of mobility, and less than is good for others… so pretty much a standard recovery for a fat middle aged woman.

I have learned to my startlement and wonder that the US’s only TDCS clinic is 20 MILES from the GAFilk hotel.  I am going to try to book an appointment, as it is one of the few treatments for mental thrumps and emotional hollow heels.  Okay, Read This Article and see why I like the idea.

I have finished Thomas King’s the Inconvenient Indian.  I have a much clearer idea of what a settlers have gotta do if they want to be allies to REAL INDIANS as opposed to Dead or Legal ones (he makes a distinction, a very interesting one, in his book). I am going to follow his lead.  Native people are Indians if you’re using the “what nation/tribe/linguistic grouping/band they are hardly matters, they all got shafted by the settlers and this is now the uneasy general term white and First Nations people use” line of reasoning.  But they are Thomas King (Cherokee) and Buffy Saint Marie (Cree) and Elijah Harper (Red Sucker Lake First Nation) and Tantoo Cardinal (Métis) if you are referring to individuals; for they belong to a lifestream that is rooted in a way of life on this land, their land, that goes back ten millennia, even if the middens and the weirs only go back five millennia.  I am a settler.  Well, I’ve hated ‘white’ as a term for light coloured people for 20 years at least now.  I want to call us the pink people, cause we are.  White is such a bullshit term.  But settler, that I can deal with.  I am three generations removed from it.  It’s part of who I am.  Even so, there’s a picture from my family history that always makes me smile when I think about it. Back in the day, there would be rodeos, and Indians would be invited, because cowboys without Indians are not very exciting. (I know, right?)  There’s a pic of my mother’s father squatting, in a line, with a bunch of other white ranchers.  Behind them, arrayed in panoply, are Indians on horseback.  Makes for a nice change, in terms of optics.  I know it made no difference in daily life.  But it happened.