Author: Allegra

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

The good and the bad

Three homilies in the making

The manifold path – the various things people have done to experience the numinous.  I had extensive notes at one point and lost them, so reconstructing it is a bear.

I had a comrade – coping with loss of friends

This Chalice – the symbol of our faith.

Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful homily by Sandy Burpee yesterday at church.  Sandy has been active in social justice issues since forever, and he is a force to be reckoned with; his accomplishments include getting Beacon involved with the food bank in Coquitlam and getting more social housing into the Tri-Cities.  The homily was in the form of a description of what a day is like at the food bank and I was moved to tears.  We are SO fortunate to have people like the Burpees (Cathy is awesome too!) at our church.

Wore my bardic hat to church.  I love the reference in The Wire to ‘the Sunday crown’ so that’s how I referred to it.  Lovely long chat with Rob W after church.  He likes me because he can be politically incorrect around me.  C’mon, he’s ex-military – gotta cut the man slack somewheres.  I told him about me new project, which is A COMPLETE LIST OF GENDERED SLURS, more on that in another post.

Saw Keith briefly yesterday, we had a nice long chat.

FINALLY heard back from the rellie regarding the piece of furniture I have to go pick up.  He said he might bring it down but he wasn’t enthusiastic, and a drive to Pemberton is no prob.  Thinking of hiring Katie’s dood to assist, and he’s got rellies up there himself so it might all work out.  More on that when we finally get it.

It’s Pledge drive time at church!  If you want to support children so that they may go to a Sunday school where (age appropriate) they can learn about sexuality, critical thinking skills and why being civil is better than being a jerk without getting pounded in the ear about God, please send a cheque in any amount to Beacon Unitarian Church, #414 – 552A Clarke Road,  Coquitlam, BC V3J 0A3. Thank you, no salesthingy will call.  I got Keith to pledge, which pleased me NO END.

I have a LOT OF STUFF to do and of course am swithering about doing it.

Eddie is calling and running up and down the stairs.  Sometimes 10 pounds of cat can sound like heffalumps.

Made stirfried chicken and veg/rice, plus bonus rice pudding, for dinner last night.

Woke up about two hours ago missing John, which started this all off again.  It would have been his birthday this past week, which is probably why I have been thinking about him so very much.

Letters from friends

Something wonderful…. my mOm’s newest project. She has collected all her letters to her two female best friends (Sue and Elizabeth), along with all the letters she kept that they sent her, into yet another enormous book, and I am ‘not exactly proofreading it’. What I am discovering is that the kids and our extended family and I are CHARACTERS in this opus, and I am wandering through the early days of childrearing and the blasting back and forth to Montreal and Toronto and the early days of the move here with wide eyed interest. One third of the time: I have no recollection of that event. One third: Yes, that’s exactly how it happened. One third: W T Fffff?. Occasionally my mother makes censorious comments about some stupidity I have committed and makes nervous comments about stuff she finds scary (all in a tone which would make Jane Austen proud) but when it comes to the adoration g’mas have for the grandbabies she takes a back seat to NO WOMAN.  Keith and Kate are beautiful, obedient, intelligent, kind, observant, loving and adorable in every way.  As Keith remarked at lunch the other day, “What happened?”  Nothing dear, you are still all of those things.

Kittle cattle

This is an expression I was exposed to in reading Lucy Maud Montgomery.  I only got through the Anne books once, and not attentively; most of my Montgomery reading was the same two books, over and over again, because that’s what I did, when I was a kid, was to read books over and over again, like the Mary Poppins books and the Hobbit and the Narnia books, and then Lord of the Rings and then Dunnett, ah, Dunnett.  I obsessively re-read Blue Castle and A Tangled Web.  Like, a lot, and repeatedly, to the point I memorized great chunks of dialogue.

When I’m trying to be warm and funny and chumpathetic with human foibles and vices, it’s to Montgomery I look for the blessed tone.  She gave me characters of occasional dignity and variable worth; all more or less attempting to be good while surrounded with the potential for thunderous criticism inherent in a small Prince Edward Island town early in the 20th century.  Where people really cared about what their neighbours did, having no tv poor things, rather than strangers living in Babylon several thousand leagues away and anything you saw them doing happened three months ago, which is good because it keeps you in perspective.

In this environment kittle cattle means – easily spooked or set awry.  The descriptor from the text is “so intense”. To me it’s a combination of being easily startled and self-willed, ‘difficult to manage’.  Not fun to be married to, as I construe it.  A troubling person, perhaps with genuine mental health difficulty.  Liable to stomp off.

 

Unsuccessful cheesemaking

Is unsuccessful. Sigh. I have a big clean up in front of me.  On the plus side, I just pulled some more home made chocolate chip cookies out of the oven.

Had a salmon dinner with my new extended family last night.  Since the Katie’s pinnacle of DO NOT WANT  exboyfriend may read this I am not going to provide kidlet names, but it was awesome, even if I got tired really fast.  I got to drive them home. They are EXTREMELY CUTE and reasonably well behaved.   NEVER underestimate the power of a large and robust cardboard box to maintain the interest and imaginations of four and five year olds.

Keith, lunch, Homeland, laundry

I love Showtime’s Homeland so so so much. Just watched S2E2 and all three of us yelled “Holy s@@t!” as the credits rolled. Keith said, “I did NOT see that coming” and is just now catching up on the most recent Castle. Time to close the laptop and go back to folding lawwwwnnnndray.

Keith took me to lunch at Hi Dozo, the dear one.  My prescription has IMPROVED.  That’s crazy, but that’s middle age.  My eyeballs are healthy.  I will post a picture….

I’ve got rants in my pants

I called somebody out on using a gendered slur recently and he paused & adjusted his speech. Sometimes it’s that easy.  Now if I could just stop using my own slurs and replace them with something better.  I am in search of a few good words, to replace a few slur-ry ones.  I’m looking at YOU r-tarded and p-nsy, two words which shouldn’t even be coming into my mind, let alone leaving my mouth.  If the action is stupid, I’ll use ‘ill-considered’, and if the person is stupid to the point of being a threat to life, limb and body politic, ‘witless’.  P-nsy is more problematic.  I am thinking ‘mollescent’ or ‘mollusc’ or ‘spineless’, although if I use mollusc I am afraid the Old Ones will cotch me.  I’m working on replacing “Thank G-d” with “Thankfulness!” and I’m already well into replacing the exclamations “C—-t!” and “J—s!” with “Darwin’s Beard!”

 

Excellent news

I have a job test on Monday at noon which I am very pleased about.

Also I actually TYPED the minutes and sent a draft to Sue already; the board meeting was last night.

Also Sue and I ground our way through the Stewardship Drive work (she did most of the work but I will be instrumental in getting it all printed for the pledge package).

Furnace on for the first time this year.  House smells like a dusty cat.

 

Worth stealing wholesale from boingboing.net

A letter from Sydney Smith to Lady Georgiana Morpeth (right), Feb. 16, 1820:

Dear Lady Georgiana, — Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done — so I feel for you.

1st. Live as well as you dare.

2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75° or 80°.

3rd. Amusing books.

4th. Short views of human life — not further than dinner or tea.

5th. Be as busy as you can.

6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you.

7th. And of those acquaintances who amuse you.

8th. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely – they are always worse for dignified concealment.

9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you.

10th. Compare your lot with that of other people.

11th. Don’t expect too much from human life — a sorry business at the best.

12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy, sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion, not ending in active benevolence.

13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree.

14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue.

15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant.

16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness.

17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice.

18th. Keep good blazing fires.

19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.

20th. Believe me, dear Lady Georgiana,

Very truly yours,

Sydney Smith

Brain hurts

It’s like a slap in the face to get up and realize there’s NO MORE SUN.  But hell, it’s October.  And October is SOME OTHER PLANET Month. (Obligatory Joe Hall reference).

I’m off to put gas in Ziva, maybe even for the last time as the plates expire at the end of the month and I’m not renewing them.  I will collect Katie and bring her back here for laundry and other mischief, and then churchy type stuff in preparation for the Board meeting tomorrow.

I am working on three new songs simultaneously.  One of them is because I downloaded a free app which allows me to strum chords I couldn’t play tanked up on painkillers, meth and ketamine, one of them is vibrating rapidly back and forth between being George’s theme (Lady of the Deep Waves) in my imaginary show and being something sad from the Game of Thrones universe, and the other is a Celtic style “Go forth and be happy” kinda tune.  I must be driving Jeff nuts, I’m practicing for hours every day and unfortunately it’s rather hard for me to write songs without actually, you know, like, singing.

I am contemplating the list of things I’ve put off with misery.  I’d like to trade that in for some feisty action and a dirk to slit the gizzard of my procrastination but the friendly NPC at the counter is NOT helping.

I’m enjoying having a phone that allows me to post pix directly to my blog though, I think it instantly made it more fun and interesting.