Author: Allegra

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

La dia de los muertos

Celebration of the ritual goes back to prehistory in Mexico.  Today November 1st is the day of the innocents (children who died) and November 2nd the day of the dead; November 1st is a national holiday.

Today I mourn for a number of people.  Granny and Grandma; Grandad and Unca Dave; Cousin Michael and Cousin Deirdre; John and Kaitlin.  I mourn for lives cut short and the grief that spills over into the lives of those who miss them.

 

 

Didn’t get the job

Oh well, there’s always another one, right.

Keith got told yesterday they were going to be reducing his hours and 18 hours later had another job.  A more effective way of saying ‘FUCK YOU’ is difficult to imagine.   He was quite pleased with himself and got mom’s fusilli and slow cooked spaghetti sauce as a reward.

Also, the new Homeland, which was awesome, but I like any Homeland where Brody and Carrie have face time.

Carrie is getting MOTION SICKNESS from all the aftershocks in Masset.  I don’t think she wants to be living there any more.  Time to inspect the earthquake kits again.

 

 

The gift

Yesterday was a gift of small pleasures and brief beauty, enamelled and jewelled and assembled with unhurried care.

I awoke early and started my rushing around for a very busy day at church and promptly forgot the single most important thing.  As I stepped out of the house, a scene of surreal beauty met my gaze: in New Westminster all the tall buildings were outlined by the effulgent glow of the sun through a wall of cloud.  The effect was enough to stop me in my tracks and call for Jeff to come and see.

I then went to Thrifty’s to buy meat, bread and cheese for sandwiches for ‘afters’, and then went to the church where I tried to help with setup and then realized I’d forgotten all the Stewardship Drive materials.  D’oh! Back home to collect them and then back to church in time for everything to start.

I gave a several minute ex tempore speech on the subject of pledging and was congratulated by no fewer than three people afterwards.  I never seem to have an accurate sense of how I’m doing, I thought I sounded ill-prepared and merely attempted to connect emotionally and practically to my church siblings.

Please imagine that I was dressed as a steam punk vampire during these shenanigans, as I was.  Somebody else took a picture.

The minister preached a mighty sermon on giving, and used the potlatch as the central idea.  The notion that gracious giving and gracious receiving is part of our human heritage was posited; the emotional calculus of feeling shamed or lorded over when we receive gifts was examined in the light of our materialistic culture.  I must admit I teared up toward the end.  The minister called me on it, asking what happened as I started out smiling and started not exactly scowling but getting more and more serious and I said sheesh if I stop smiling maybe it’s because I’m very moved.

Short talk with Rob W about a specialty item of clothing he may feel inclined to sew up for me. Planning is.

The sandwiches went over (and down) very well.

Tom and Peggy invited me to supper.

The minister helped finish the washing up.  (one of us, one of us!)

I returned home at 1:30 (told you it was a hectic morning…) footsore and tired, and no sooner cleaned one pan and changed that Paul rang.  “Walkies?”

I looked out the window.  With his inerrant attention to the weather, he had picked the one portion of the day wherein we were likely to get direct sun.  Although my feet were already complaining, we did a circuit of Oakalla (aka Deer Lake Park), and saw:

A beautiful sky, filled with cirrus and nimbus and cumulus clouds

A VERY LARGE and unidentifiable raptor soaring in the same skyfield as a gent flying his glider at the model airplane field,

A chickadee chasing a moth (I had never seen such a thing) apparently for pure sport (the moth put on an incredible burst of speed)

Dragonflies catching the last of the sun

Many happy dogs who really should have been on leashes but were well behaved anyway

Sleeping kids in strollers.

Then home, where I relaxed with ER and SG1 until it was time to haul myself upstairs and make biscotti to take.  I made pumpkin spice biscotti out of my own head’s recipe; they were well received.

I supped with all of the local Lunder-males, grampa, boys and grandbean, and it was a delicious meal of inadvertently caramelized butternut squash, roast chicken breasts, taters, broccoli, home made cheese sauce and pumpkin pie.  It was all edible and choice.  Bean-pie is so adorable as he falls asleep it was most charming.

Then home, to sleep; woke at 1:30, forced myself back to sleep and up again at 7.  A windy nasty day, but I have coffee and biscotti and the world can go hang until I watch Treme.

Today  – renew car insurance (I folded – I feel like I can’t live without a car as long as church is so time consuming and then there’s the issue of job hunting), church business have to leave the house for, more church business, another bit of church business, contact the folks in Pemberton to arrange transport of the furniture, and, if the fates are kind, some practicing and writing.

I light a candle for all those in Hurricane Sandy’s way.

I light a candle for the folks at Pennzoil who topped up my brake fluid without charging me.

 

 

wandering across the internet

kid says boo to famous horror heavies.

Cyclone Sandy is going to smash into the east coast and screw up the American election.  All the forecasters say it’s going to be worse than Irene, which made a mess of large swathes of the east coast and actually closed the NY Subway.  It’s supposed to be a century storm.  I’m really glad I wasn’t vacationing in the Dominican Republic this year.

The only time the forecasters have been this hopped up on anxiety was just prior to Katrina.

Butter chicken and rice pudding for dinner last night, but Jeff went to bed before I could put rice pudding in front of him.  Unfortunately it isn’t as pudding-y as the last one, which he very much enjoyed.

HG Wells

I am very cross with all of you.  Why did no one tell me that HG Wells is FUNNY?

From the very first page of “The War in the Air”, comes this gem.

He lived in a world of obstinate and incessant change, and in parts where its operations were unsparingly conspicuous.

From the third page, after a likely young lad has purchased his first motorbike:

The hire-purchase system bridged a financial gap, and one bright and memorable Sunday morning he wheeled his new possession through the shop and onto the road, got on to it with the advice and assistance of Grubb, and teuf-teuffed off into the haze of the traffic tortured high road, to add himself as one more voluntary public danger to the amenities of the South of England.

I can hear John reading that aloud and guffawing with laughter.

 

 

Gendered slurs

Crikey, it’s not like I needed another project.  So here is what you might call a ‘substantially complete’ list of gendered slurs.  I don’t want these words coming out of my mouth, so I’m trying to find replacements.

Ballbreaker – woman

Ballbuster – woman

Bimbo – starlet

Bint – woman

Bitch – crank, meanie

Bitchy – cranky, spiteful, malicious, mean, nasty, cruel, unkind, snide

Bleeder – woman

Boob – jerk

Breeder – woman

Broad  – woman

Chica – woman

Chick – young woman

Cocktease – sexually unavailable woman

Cow – crank, jerk

Crow – crone

Cunt – cloaca

Dick – jerk

Dickwad – jerk

Dickweed – cloaca

Dog – not to my taste

Douche – jerk

Douchebag – cloaca

Dyke – lesbian

Feminazi – woman

Fish – woman

Frail – woman

Gigolo – sex worker

Girl – This one is troublesome.  If for a female under 14, yes.  For a female between 14 and 18 I prefer young woman or teen.  Over 18 – woman.

Himbo – attractive young man

Ho – sex worker

Honey – woman

Kitten – woman

Mangina – feminist

Minger – woman

Munter – woman

Pussy – schlemiel (in the sense of being ineffectual) coward (in the sense of being easily frightened or timid)

Putz – jerk

Real girl – as opposed to what, but prefer woman

Rentboy – sex worker

Scrote – timewaster

Scrotey – trivial

Sexkitten – woman

Shemale – trans woman

Skanky – unhygienic, dirty, unpleasant

Skirt – woman

Slag – not to my taste

Slut – enthusiast

Streetwalker – sex worker

Sweetie – woman

Teaser – woman

Tit – woman

Tosser – idler

Tranny – trans woman

Twat – jerk

Wanker – incompetent

Weiner – jerk

Whore – sex worker

Witch – woman

 

I left homo, queer and faggot off the list as those words appear to be in a state of flux regarding usage.  I do use queerfolk as an inclusive term.