Author: Allegra

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

Shallow little me

so…. one of my most contemptible obsessions is celebrity gossip.  Except I like celebrity gossip about Jewel Staite and Liev Schreiber, not Prince George and Kim Kardashian.  So, in my normal way, I looked up Derek Jacobi when I started watching Cadfael    and learned to my delight and amusement that Ian McKellen had a tremendous crush on him back when they were pupkins coming up in the theater. So we’re talking around the time I was born.  NOW they are in an ITV program together about an aging gay couple; show’s called Vicious  which of course I am looking forward to now like a slavering fool.  Bring it on, Netflix, I can hardly wait for the moment when Ian gets his wish and plants one on Derek.  Happy sigh.

Shop is being shown again today for the second time to one set of buyers and I am still getting strong interest.

I got a reasonable night’s sleep.

Chipper blogs… Kid says something funny.

Speaking of Chipper, she made my day, my week, my month when, having learned that Paul and his girlfriend, and two married couples I know well, plus his mother, were all going to Red Deer for his b-day, she offered me the use of the spare bedroom during that time.  Much restored in spirit, I thanked her, but I suspect if Paul had wanted me to be there he would have invited me… snarf.

I have reinstalled Skype on the Mac if anybody wants to talk to me.  I am u_must_b_joking (same as LiveJournal).

Hope everybody has a lovely day!

Sad face – again

The new nova that showed up in Delphinius is alREADy losing luminosity, so we may not even get a chance to see it before it fades beyond binocular recall.

Andrew Brechin is dead.  He was active in the poly, SCA, pagan, lantern festival, fannish, filkish, trans & queer rights, union and clown band communities; he could pun without apparent effort, was a wonderful coparent to a number of children, not all of whom were biologically his, made me laugh harder than any of my other facebook friends, and he was younger than me.  He wore OUTRAGEOUS hats, and once showed up to Fetish Night dressed as Cthulhu (man, he musta sweated his balls off in that head to toe gear) with no fewer than 8 skimpily dressed women in attendance as his priestesses. (The pic is now going round the internet like a dose of salts).

He apparently died in his sleep, which is definitely the way to go except it should have been at minimum 30 years hence.  I only met him half a dozen times, if that, but he was the menschiest of men and had more friends – more real friends – than many people could claim.  The last time I saw him IRL he and Mike M. realized that they had sat next to each other in engineering school (and they both flunked out, mOm tell pOp that as I think he will find that mildly amusing).  And we ate. There’s a memorial dinner for him next week and unless I feel really bad I’m going, because I want to hear more stories about how awesome he was, and I think he had the coolest friends circle in town.  I will miss his wit, his humanity and his mighty heart for justice.  I had no idea Cindy knew him – her precis of her relationship with him on livejournal practically had me in tears.

The video camera aimed at the cat door has revealed that Miss Margot does not re-enter the house daintily.  Generally she rockets through the door at such a rate of speed that the effect is quite comical.  Hope to have video at some point.

Physiotherapist scolded the crap out of me. NO I MAY NOT DRIVE.  I may do the following three exercises.  I may not sleep on the injured shoulder.  MY POSTURE SUCKS (HOW HE FROWNED).  Here is how I should sleep.  I crept out of there in a very sad frame of mind, but I’ve been doing my exercises faithfully.

Showed the shop two days ago, showing it to a different set of customers tomorrow.  I am no longer worried about it…. it is what it is, I have a roof and food and friends and painkillers, so tra la la.  Also Cadfael on Netflix.  Man, I do heart Derek Jacobi.

I have the tester cpap machine.  A new one is going to cost 2400 dollars, but it’s the ResMed, and it has all of the features I want.  The tech said the Respironics machines break like clockwork just out of the warranty period, and he’s sold 300 of the ResMeds and only one ever came back and that was because the dumbass customer left the water in when he put it in his car and of course fried the circuitboards.  I haven’t started using it because CANDIDLY I am feeling just that little bit overwhelmed at all of the changes I’ve had to deal with in the last six months.  Getting into and out of the restaurant, Audrey and Andrew and Bareld dying, breaking my shoulder, deaths and breakups in my circle of close friends, Kira dying, estrangement from one of my children, not being able to drive…. and there’s more but listing it all seems a mug’s game.  And of course if I don’t mention how my church family has rallied round me I’d be a true mug.

Jeff and I are heading out to Home Depot.  Type atcha later.

 

Truck or bus?

I don’t know which one hit me. I did about three hours of light housekeeping yesterday and I am sore all over, not just my shoulder.  I think I need to take it easy and stay in the sling today.

Hey everybody, Chipper is blogging at least couple of times a week at the Red Deer site (link on the right).  It’s lovely to be reminded of all the awesome things going on in the wilds of Madawaska. Mushrooms!  Aurorae!

Orange is the New Black continues to be much fun.  We’ve started watching The Good Wife, which is a great show.  We are also caught up on Ray Donovan and the Newsroom.  Liev Schrieber is so yummy it drives me nuts.  LTGW called the other day (just to say hi! awwww) and I told him that in silhouette Liev is a dead ringer for him cause MAN that dude fills a doorway in the omnomminest way (LTGW knows I’ve been crushing on him since the day I met him, he just rolls his eyes).  Then we talked about what I’m going to do if the fork in the road ahead goes back to paid employment.  He had a lot of encouraging things to say about my network and how I’m not working it properly, and man, I needed to hear encouraging words from a cute guy (okay, my idea of cute).  And I’m still thinking about keeping the shop.  There’s just a lot of rearranging I need to do, financially and emotionally and otherwise, and right now I’m very busted up and blue – a long way from the take the world on attitude I had in March.  Ah, how life plays tricks on one!  But I’m also feeling somewhat more cheerful now that I know I am not likely to have surgery.  Which reminds me, I really have to book some physio.  And pick up a CPAP.  Sigh.  Not being able to drive FUCKING SUCKS.  There I said it.

Of course Jeff has been the soul of courtesy regarding taxiing me around but he’s got a life and he’s super busy with his own work these days (which makes me happy… he’s always learning things). And we still find time to bond over tv and movies.  We rewatched Jack the Giant Killer, it’s a lovely film, almost perfect for the genre.

Yesterday I realized I will have to do some math to figure out what the surface area of my alien’s hair would have to be to have him sail off into the sky like a spiderling.  It’s a hilarious image, I can see him calling OW OW OW into the wind as his semi-sentient hair freaks out and uncoils to full length, hauling him backwards down the beach and then UP UP AND AWAY like a particularly bizarre version of the Flying Nun. Leaving Kima alone with HOOMANS OH NOEZ what will happen?  Probably nothing, she’ll just crawl over to the water and jet.  BAD HAIR!  baaaaaad hair!

Yesterday I made chicken/rice/steamed veg for dinner and then carefully prepackaged the leftovers and labelled them with dates.  Today I MUST clean out the fridge, it’s a horror show.  I don’t want to, but I really otter.

Okay, time to set the timer to do 20 minutes of housework.  (then I take a break).  I learned that at the UFYH site, and it really works.

I quit drinking again.  Very strange.  There hasn’t been beer in the house for almost a month. I don’t think Jeff’s had a beer since the last time we ate dinner with Mike.

Jerome dropped by a couple of days ago!  He showed the most HIlarious video of Lucas dropping off to sleep in his high chair, and every time he drooped his elder brother Brayden would jostle him and he’d jerk awake again.

Margot is spending a lot of time in the cardboard box Jeff labelled Queen Margot I for her.  She’s about the same colour as the box so I keep thinking “What’s the rustling noise!?”

 

 

 

 

Diluted and deluded.

I am going to get help with my new current problem, which is that all the food in the walk in has spoiled thanks to the compressor quitting because I forgot to turn the fan back on when i showed the place.  It’s all my fault, and on my pocket be it.  In the meantime, it has to get cleaned out, and then I have to find a place to put the really disgusting garbage that will arise, and then wash the equally disgusting service dishes, for which I am also soliciting help.  Cannot seem to catch a break, apart from the fact that things are actually more or less okay, I just need to be thankful.

Pacific Rim was a really good giant monsters vs. robots movie.  The script almost went into eyeroll territory a couple of times but solid performances (not excellent, ok) and fight scenes where you could tell what was happening helped.  I loved Ron Perlman’s guest shot, HATED the stupid scientists, who both needed tasing, in my view, and I enjoyed the special effects greatly.  Plot didn’t bear close examination, but oh well.  There are now Kaiju filk songs, yay.

No surgery for me, yay.  Doc says I am healing properly.  I need to give the nerve damage many more months to heal, but I can go get physio now.

 

Back to writing.  George is a bag surrounding computational colloid.  Weird, hunh?

 

Sad day

Kira died yesterday.  She had quit eating and drinking and suffered convulsions.  She is now resting with Bounce and Gizmo and Zeek! her adoptive brother in the back yard.

I have new glasses. They look great.  I’ll be getting another pair next week.

Jeff and I are about to take off to see Pacific Rim.  A full report later.

 

My car is finally being worked on.

I am feeling very low in spirits – my shoulder hurts a lot and I think it isn’t healing right, although I won’t know until tomorrow.

 

I am still working on Midnite Moving though.

LOL JK

So the folks came by to see the shop yesterday and asked me if I’d finance.  I was very polite, but you can just imagine what I was saying on the inside. What I did say:  “Gosh,” I said, “If you can’t come up with 20K you’re going to have cash flow problems right out of the gate.  “And, seeing as how I don’t really know if I’m ever going to be able to hold down a job ever again seeing as how I may have surgery and rehab and who the hell knows, I was kinda hoping to cash out.” The hell of it is they told me their business model and it would be perfect for that location… but I think they’ll buy in North Burnaby.  Oh well.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND the documentary The Flat.  If you are into family history, it’s a must.  Seriously.  It has so many twists and turns it’s like a particularly unbelievable novel.  mOm you’ve been warned, and it comes with subtitles.

I am so lucky to have family that loves me.  I am crabby, in pain, worried out of my mind because I’m not healing well, and Jeff just banged on the door and offered to take me to breakfast.  Coffee and cream here I come! Also, the cats are adorable; Margot has been particularly cute of late, and she’s being very biddable when I have to decruft her.  Hard to believe she’s five, watching her skitter all over the kitchen to chase a kitty treat.

Assange...etc. I love the spit that Sterling gets on things once he starts ranting….

Nibbles and kibble

Got a couple of nibbles on the shop, we shall see.

My shoulder is not healing as well as the bone doc would like, the bit of the tuberosity that broke off isn’t staying lined up properly because I keep overdoing it.  This week my job is to keep that sucker immobilized and laze about.  This is not a hard sell and by next Friday I’ll know whether I’m good to start physio or not.  Otherwise, alas, it’s surgery, and a whole nother set of months recuperating.  I know, sucks to be me, but I can’t say I’m unhappy to be living where this kind of stuff gets looked after.

 

Anyway, positively no housework that can’t be done one handed, and I’m staying locked up in the sling.

 

My cloak works great in circumstances where I have a sling and it’s raining.

 

Damned grass is growing now and I can’t cut the lawn with one wing.

sundried and variolas

Foxination!

I am healing but slowly and I have another six weeks in the sling.  I am not allowed to do anything with my right arm, which is impossible, but I certainly got a lecture about how it will screw up my tendons and ligaments and rotator cuff if I don’t keep it in the sling.  The discharge instructions should have included  :How to wash your oxters: and didn’t, but I now know how.

Just found out that a friend is being assaulted on a regular basis by one of her children.  Well, that’s one thing I don’t have to worry about.

I am having a lot of trouble with motivation, and I have one memorial service behind me and another in front of me, so at least I’ve keeping busy.  And the one thing about being dead is that your amount of motivation doesn’t really matter.  I’d prefer to be lacklustre than dead, fer sure.

 

I watched the video of me falling.  It was unpleasant, but at least I know now that despite the incredible pain I was in, I didn’t go far wrong in guessing how long it was before the ambulance came.  And while I was waiting, and sweating like a horse, and crying, and cursing, and yelling, and moaning, I thought about the post apocalypse, which would have involved me walking until I found help.

Yes, I’m sure lucky.

 

 

 

 

sore

I am obviously healing, but this is gonna be slow and unpleasant, I can tell.  No point going to physio until I have heard from the doc.

I am probably going to lose weight… I feel not at all like eating most of the time.

Keith visited last night.

Paul is going to take me for a walk later.

Bareld’s memorial service is tomorrow.

I wish I could rewind the tape sometimes.

the winding down

Jeff is going to edit the security camera footage into a short movie called Allegra’s Epic Trip. I am lucky I’m not more seriously injured – if I’d gone temple first into the pizza oven I’d be dead or in a coma.  There’s a pleasant thought.  I am very grateful, and rather humbled.

Anyway, today I am going to make a list of what I have to do to back my way out of the shop, because this is obviously not going to work if I can’t even raise my arm enough to put a tray in the oven.

People are being so kind. Jeff is being wonderful. Tom brought supper last night.

 

sh#tshow

after the morning, which was emotionally exhausting and frankly a new recent low point, I went into the shop to bake and wash dishes, and within minutes I was lying on the floor wondering what the fuck just happened.

I skidded on a piece of plastic on the floor, collided with the pizza oven, and then the sweet sweet floor rose up to meet me.  I never hit my head or lost consciousness, so I was able to immediately diagnose that I’d dislocated my right shoulder.  I got up from the floor walking like a zombie and shot through with pain, called Jeff, and he couldn’t come get me because he was having mobility issues of his own.  I called 911 and waited.  And waited.  And waited.  I was coping with levels of pain and disorientation that are right up there with giving birth unattended.  I couldn’t control my breathing and I was sweating so hard I couldn’t see.

The boys from #2 firehouse came and attempted to administer oxygen, and tried to put my arm in a sling but I was screaming and crying a little too enthusiastically for that. The firemen were very kind.  I did a lot of moaning and crying waiting for the ambulance.   After a very very long wait for the ambulance (yesterday was a record day for the Emerg because of a lot of MVA’s roof falls tree falls and other crush injuries (the announcements for cleanup help in emerg got squawkier and squawkier while I was in MTU)) I finally dipped my beak in some blessed, blessed nitrous, which doesn’t kill pain as much as it prevents you from screaming about it.

After the eternity of a twenty minute ambo ride I was shoved against the wall in triage and Dr. Lim came within 5 minutes and said, “I don’t think it’s dislocated.” And I said, then why does it hurt like a mofo and I’m walking like a zombie??? He checked again and faster than it takes to describe it, the ball went back in the socket.

Then many hours of waiting for xrays and results, and then I was released with a referral to a bone doc, 6 T3s, movement instructions and a sling, since it turns out the shoulder is broken as well as formerly dislocated.  Right shoulder OF COURSE.

I slept about as well as could be expected and am now attempting to come to terms with what is going to be a longish and interesting recovery. The shop will have to be sold, I can’t do nothing for 6 weeks or however long this takes.  I’ll know more on the 26th when I see the bone doc. I did advise that I have extensive numbness down that arm and that my two outside fingers are very tingly and weak; whether this presages really bad news for that nerve or is just my response to swelling who knows; Jeff advised me to be optimistic but not to lighten up about knowing what’s going on which I think is fine advice.

I am very glad I don’t live alone.  I am super grateful to my church family, who have been souls of kindness. I am grateful I sleep on the bottom of a bunkbed as I can use the slats above to haul myself into and out of bed.  I am grateful I was sent home with painkillers.  I can get by without because oddly enough it doesn’t hurt unless I move it.  I can type; I can’t drive, lift with both hands, play an instrument, wash dishes, pick up a phone, raise my hand higher than my breastbone or extend it outwards, and I almost wish somebody had filmed me getting into and out of my clothing today because it was undoubtedly quite comical.  I did force myself to bathe and brush my teeth this morning as I do not want to get into the moldy and uncared for stage of recovery, it’s not like I’m helpless, just as slow as a tortoise and about as graceful.

I am very proud I got up after that fall and dealt with it.  I didn’t maintain my dignity or composure but I took care of myself and I didn’t try to fix it myself and let the experts do their thing.  Above all I’m grateful to be living somewhere where sirens mean that one of my fellow citizens has asked for help, and it’s coming,  because there are a lot of places on this earth where I would have been lucky to get any care at all, let alone some painkillers.  Today is a day to practice gratitude… even if yesterday WAS a sh#tshow.

Departures

After ten years of ignoring my blog (except using it to track back shit an ex did to her for a court case), Katie this morning declared that everything I’ve ever said about her on the blog is unacceptable, a gross violation of her privacy and that my blog is the reason she never wants to talk to me again. Katie is very angry with me.  She also says she’s never going to do anything in food service again, as she is done with that too.

Katie packed a satchel, handed me back the house keys, and left for parts unknown.  So endeth my happy delusions, and so commenceth my unimpeded impact with reality.

Katie has friends and relatives who would gladly take her in, so although I am very sad about this I know she’ll be okay.  She’s a survivor.

And this is my response…. After today I won’t be mentioning her.  If she ever tells me what it is I’m supposed to remove, I’ll gladly do it, but I’m at a loss.  It’s the worst thing I ever did to her and she doesn’t care if I change it.  How to process that?

 

 

2020 says lol

 

 

disgust!!! ew!!!

Today the lung specialist/sleep specialist ran a fibreoptic scope up me schnozz to determine my diagnosis re apnea.  (TLDR got a scrip for a CPAP machine).  Yes, he zapped me with lidocaine first, and a truly disgusting taste is now mine free gratis.

OH YUCK.  See Allegra’s nares up close and OH MY GOD there is a FOREST of hairy trees in her nose.  Honestly, stomach flopped a bit. Then the sort of grayish pink of my nasal cavities (right side was too small to admit the scope, so OH GREAT I GET TO SEE THE FOREST ON THE OTHER SIDE OF MT SEPTUM).  Then on to the moist and furrowed canyon of my gullet including my weenie lil tonsils, my damned big uvula and my grossly normal vocal chords, which is not otherwise a soubriquet one applies to my pipes.

And I have mild apnea, a CPAP should take care of it, and he refused to give me a copy of the film, the rat. Cause I SO would have posted it, yo.

Oh well

It takes an adult to admit a mistake, and okay, I made one.  I said something without thinking to a customer that wasn’t the customer’s business, and Katie let me know how angry she is.  And still is.  Katie and I after much discussion are going to sell the cafe.  Wish us luck in selling it!

I am obviously quite miserable.  I’ve spent so much time and money getting the place up to snuff, and one would think that it’s foolish to bail without giving it a chance, but Katie has indicated that she’s no longer interested and I know in my heart I cannot work six days a week for the next six months until I can give myself a break at Christmas.  Maybe Chipper can work that hard for a season, but I know I can’t.

Miserable or not, I have to face facts, and they are plain and unequivocal.  I’ll be meeting a potential buyer this afternoon. I googled the buyer and they already ran a bakery on the Sunshine Coast, so they won’t be starting from scratch like we did.

I had a lot of hope.  Now I just have a lot of paperwork and a very heavy heart. When it’s done, and all wound up, I’ll start phase II of the ‘reinventing myself’ plan.