Author: Allegra

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

It’s the most… overstuffed time…. of the year.

today, visiting Tammy at her mum’s downtown, then fly back here for a four-thirty dinner so I can get to church for six to open… DANCING DOGS for Christmas Eve service.  A some point a trip to Thrifty’s for a turkey and some other Christmas meal supplies, and then cooking the turkey tomorrow.  Yeah!  Keith and Rob will be over for dinner… it had just going to be the two of us but I decided not to.

Troubled….

I went to a gospel concert last night, and I rarely get a chance to have my face rubbed in my prejudices quite so roughly.

1.  Lead chorister / choirmaster was the very parody of a jump up to Jesus gospel singer.  He also sang flat until he warmed up.  FRICKIN AWESOME ON KEYS THOUGH. no SRSLY.

2.  For the love of GOD people, Jesus was NOT BORN IN A MANGER.  He was born in a stable and LAID IN A MANGER.  If I hear another person sing born in a manger as lyrics I’ma lose my mind.

3.  Gospel should have a live band or a keyboard player as accompanist OR NOTHING.  This group had a very sophisticated set of keys that did everything a band in a box could be expected to do, including sliding up half a tone, and providing ludicrous amounts of bass and percussion, but no soul whatever.  That was candidly the most disturbing part of it.

4. Excellent use of soloists, although I’m not a fan of the sliding up into Minnie Riperton high notes.

5. I’ve heard every Christmas song a lot over the course of half a century; you’d think I’d be happy to hear different arrangements. As well as they were sung, and the choir sang their faces off, believe me, the arrangements did unspeakable things for long dead bears.

6. My cognitive biases had me saying to myself, “And how much more I love my dear little Beacon choir, even if I’d rather hack my feet off and eat them than submit to our current choirmaster by joining.”  Don’t play well in the sandbox, me.

7.  I got to sit next to Tammy, win, and walk to and from the theatre, win.

8. And I wrote an air walking home.

 

Some phrases are so evocative

I am currently reading Joshua Foer’s Moonwalking with Einstein.  Which is, textual evidence to the contrary, about memory and memory palaces and the history of memory.

 

He has provided a phrase I find particularly memorable.  On the day of his bar mitzvah, he was a ‘parrot in a yarmulke’ which essentially means that I will not ever be able to think about a bar mitzvah ever again without this mental image.

 

I was writing cheques for church this morning over at Sue’s place (she also joined me for breakfast) and her cat punched a hole in a letter I have to send.  Most entertaining.

 

Wonderful Christmas film

 

 

Almost 100 years old! no work no more

Tammy is here for Christmas, yay! I’m going with her to Granville Island today.

If you’re near water and have a drum, beat it in solidarity with the Idle No More movement at 11 am today (PST).

Now, the laundry before I leave for downtown.  Tammy’s mum has already told me where to park for free at Granville Island… but I’ve lived in Vancouver 15 years and I already know.  Tee hee.

I get to see a gospel concert in the next couple of days.  I am a bit foggy on when and where, but I’m hoping I don’t have to drive too far.

It’s time for me to start practicing my Compost song for the sermon in January.

Duck Duck

 

A Christmas Duck not for eating.

Went to the job hut yesterday and I’ll see a career counselor today at 9.  I know how to write a resume and get interviews but since I’m not finding employment I’m obviously doing something wrong.  And when you’re doing something wrong, you have to stop doing it and get on the right track… you know, that stop digging advice.

O gosh the bean with bacon soup is amazing!  There is lots of yummy food in the fridge right now.

It is snowing very steadily and the wind has picked up.  V. glad I don’t have to cross a bridge today.

What would Jack Do and My Needle have gone off to the songbook compiler (Cindy!) for inclusion in the Conflikt 6 song book.  Hard to believe that John was still alive for the first Conflikt.  He sure brought the fun with him.  And I think he would have enjoyed SG1, and every time I write a new song I can see him rocking with laughter or listening intently (or going meh) as the song required.  I think also he would have approved of me finally practicing enough… speaking of which, another item on the to do list!

Paul gave me some coffee that he bought in Maui.  I made it really strong, but I haven’t had any yet so I think I will follow Jeff’s example (he said I made it like espresso).

Paul’s mum dislocated her hip.  Lois is with her now and Paul will be going later.  I hope she can stand the idea of assisted living; I know she’s still sharp and fiercely independent but sometimes the flesh does not cooperate with the spirit.

Watched the documentary about Boubakar Traore called I’ll sing for you.  Mali does not come across as a place I’d like to visit, although Dogon architecture kicks ass, and the guitar work (a Takamine!) is cherce. And too infrequent.  At one point, with no commentary, there are a group of pictures shown about the ‘grin’ (shebeen) movement and there’s a line of people, including a woman with a huge shiner, and I’m thinking, oh great.  I know, I can get downcast too easily.

The Dalai Lama’s book on interfaith dialogue is very interesting (Toward a True Kinship of Faiths).  He says that a global religion is both impossible and undesirable because of cultural and linguistic divisions, but interfaith dialogue is crucial because of the underlying human drive towards religion (or the numinous, or the feeling that we are all part of one big family).  Interfaith action enobles all religion.  (Yeah, as long as we’re not hating on queers…. and women…. don’t think I’m not seeing the lacunae, but I’m trying to elevate the tone here.) He talks about his relationships with other faith leaders, and what a naive little monk he was in 1956, when he first got exposed to other religious practices. He spends a lot of time on India as the model of interfaith dialogue, which is interesting, because they really have been doing it longer than everyone else.    He also talks about his understanding of the other major faith traditions and their similarities and differences… He also talks about how he wishes his English was better – he uses a translator for everything he writes in English.  Anyway, recommended.

an unusual discovery

Jeff was looking at the drives pOp gave him and there are slide shows.  Oh, yeah.  Here’s the best out of the lot.

Bean with bacon soup is simmering on the stove; I don’t have to cook any more today, yay, as there is lots in the fridge to eat and the soup will be ready by noon.

Snow has fallen – it was hailing earlier.

Jeff’s watching feetsball on the PVR and I’m trying to get my exciting song about bears recorded in some fashion.  I hear people scraping off cars.  I am amused.  I will salt the walkway now, it’s the fiendly thing to do.

 

AllegraJeffBalcony

Things ta do

I have already applied for two jobs and it’s just gone 6 am.

I will continue to look, however.  I’m supposed to hear back about the job in New West today.  Hope I do, it’s a fifteen minute bus ride.

Kitchen clean up.

STACKS of church paperwork, but I have been given an energy boost by positive interactions at church yesterday.

Laundry…. the continuing saga.

Trying to figure out a mandolin part for the keeping bears happy song.  Or a guitar part, but I hear mandolin.

Justin Timberlake clogs.  In a movie, not a drain. 

Margot was running around the house doing the crazy cat thing.  Since she’s never done this before, she’s now laid up in the cat hotel in the corner of the living room and breathing with an astonishing stertorousness.

I need to find out what those folks are doing with my tax returns.

New definition of fabulous

If we now construct the word fabulous to mean that ‘We did nothing, and enjoyed it immensely’ I had a fabulous visit to the parents’. My role as a grandchild deliverywoman is now complete.  Katie had a really good night of sleep, which is excellent because she hasn’t been sleeping too well.  I slept 8 hours continuously which must be a recent record.  I think one of the reasons I sleep so well there is because they keep the humidity set to “Human, rejoice!” as opposed to most gas heated homes, which in the winter time is “Human, all your mucous mebranes are belong to us!  Suffer!  Mwa ha ha!”

My blood sugar is 6.  My blood pressure is 136 over 88.  Not worrisome but it’s definitely time to take some weight off.  These are the kinds of things one learns when one visits parents!

I bought the What Colour is Your Parachute 2012 workbook, and it’s making me turn things over in my mind. I also bought yet another writing book.  I haven’t set a record, but I may yet.

Home made bean with bacon soup going to church with me today.  I extracted one bowlful for Jeff, as he said “Oo!” when he saw/smelled it.

Izzy is doing very well.  He’s eating every five days, and becoming quite hand tame.  He really likes Katie’s glasses.  He will be almost two metres long when he quits growing in a couple of years.

State Troopers of Connecticut have assigned a detail of Troopers to protect the families of the slain children and staff from unwanted attention.  This is in response to the crushing attention of the media, may they all experience the pangs of conscience, and the unindicted miscreants of the Westboro Baptist Church, who have promised to picket the funeral.  Given that the American public LOATHES the Westboro Baptist Church and is starting to get pissed off at the media, I think the response is fitting and an appropriate use of government resources.

Now I DEFINITELY need more coffee.  This is going to be a long day.  I am once again opening and closing at church and there is yet another interminable church discussion today.  If I get out of the meeting without offending anyone I’ll count it a plus.  HA HA KIDDING.  That’s half the fun.  NEED COFFEE.

Margot didn’t even respond when I came through the door last night (after a 6 hour journey, blech, thanks to the *ing weather in the Strait yesterday).

 

A row of candles

I light a row of candles for the parents, friends, coworkers and relatives of all those slain in CT yesterday.  Tragic news.  Here’s Ebert on the subject – almost 10 years before it happened.

Let me tell you a story. The day after Columbine, I was interviewed for the Tom Brokaw news program. The reporter had been assigned a theory and was seeking sound bites to support it. “Wouldn’t you say,” she asked, “that killings like this are influenced by violent movies?” No, I said, I wouldn’t say that. “But what about ‘Basketball Diaries’?” she asked. “Doesn’t that have a scene of a boy walking into a school with a machine gun?” The obscure 1995 Leonardo Di Caprio movie did indeed have a brief fantasy scene of that nature, I said, but the movie failed at the box office (it grossed only $2.5 million), and it’s unlikely the Columbine killers saw it.

The reporter looked disappointed, so I offered her my theory. “Events like this,” I said, “if they are influenced by anything, are influenced by news programs like your own. When an unbalanced kid walks into a school and starts shooting, it becomes a major media event. Cable news drops ordinary programming and goes around the clock with it. The story is assigned a logo and a theme song; these two kids were packaged as the Trench Coat Mafia. The message is clear to other disturbed kids around the country: If I shoot up my school, I can be famous. The TV will talk about nothing else but me. Experts will try to figure out what I was thinking. The kids and teachers at school will see they shouldn’t have messed with me. I’ll go out in a blaze of glory.”

In short, I said, events like Columbine are influenced far less by violent movies than by CNN, the NBC Nightly News and all the other news media, who glorify the killers in the guise of “explaining” them. I commended the policy at the Sun-Times, where our editor said the paper would no longer feature school killings on Page 1. The reporter thanked me and turned off the camera. Of course the interview was never used. They found plenty of talking heads to condemn violent movies, and everybody was happy.