Author: Allegra

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

Sundry and various

Mars landing today.  It will either be an expensive failure or a spectacular success.

I think I’ll head off to Costco once it opens and pick up some serplies.  I definitely want to do it before the sun is up too high.

I have fallen in love with fresh chard salad.  Chop bunch of chard.  Nuke until soft.  Add butter and lemon. Refrigerate.  Nom.  It doesn’t get much simpler than that and my body provides very happy feedback when I ingest it.  (Oh, iron… b vitamins…. you love me, you really love me!)

2020 says THIS SHIT IS TURRIBLE FER YER KIDNEYS

I really wish it wasn’t so hot.  When it’s this hot at 8 in the morning it’s hard to get enthusiastic about any kind of physical labour.

Cleaned up the guest room, which used to be Katie’s dumping ground for all of her clothes (she refused to sleep on the guest room bed, always sleeping on the downstairs sofa).  I have removed the last of the Katie debris, cold medication, her assessment from the fitness club, half an earring set and suchlike, and now I’m contemplating dragging the vacuum cleaner downstairs.

I just want to stay curled up in bed with a Dorothy Dunnett novel, except it’s too hot to even do that.

Shredding

Is done.

Tried to watch Supernatural.  Lousy script, lousy acting, no charisma.  I know the show’s been running for a decade so it obviously has die hard fans, but Jeff and I, thinking of Stargate and ER and the Wire and Deadwood and Breaking Bad and Huff – think that someething has gotta be good before we want to commit.

2020 SAYS JEFF NEVER WATCHED IT BUT I SURE DID. IN 2017 I STARTED WRITING DESTIEL FANFIC AND IF YOU ASK ME NICE I’LL TELL YOU WHERE TO FIND IT 

So instead we’re onto S4 of ER, which is definitely a drama worth watching.  SO many nice touches, the best nice touch being how the writers and actors make silence effective.  The loudest noise is silence.

Jerome told me about a kitchen for rent so I contacted them.  They haven’t written me back.  I have also been applying for jobs, but I am not surprised or hurt that there’s been no response so far.

 

Shredding

Much shredding yesterday.  Jeff said I had centuries old stuff, but nothing I shredded was older than 2009 when we moved in here, so neener to that.  More shredding today.  Then all clothes either sent off to Goodwill or put away, finding a home for the papers that didn’t get shredded, vacuuming again because more shmutz got released, and then off to the accountant.

Last night The Band That Shall Not Be Named had a rehearsal.  Now we have to get canonical exemplars of each of the songs.  And start working on “How do we start it?” and “How do we Stop it?”

I have given up on having somebody in my life volunteer to give me a half hour massage, and started paying for it.  I feel better midback and up but my lower back is telling me to leap off a bridge.

Happy days!!!!

A mad wor(l)d my masters

Snoop Dogg went to JaMAIca and came back a Rasta.  He now goes by Snoop Lion and his next album will be entirely reggae.  Tis fabulous news!  Hope he covers at least one Sublime tune…

OMG  I just spent two hours reading RADFem and Transfem blogs and the hate and bigotry are so tiresome and frightening that I went to a Men’s Rights blog for a while to help me get my bearings.

Unclear on the concept – private company tries to trademark Anonymous.

Paul’s back from Ontario, brown as a walnut and sporting a rather luxurious multicolored beard.  He poked his head in briefly last night and it was good to see him in such good spirits!  Then he had to go to work….

Eddie haz a sad.  He hates it when Jeff is gone for any length of time.

Had brekky with the lovely and everblooming Sue, and how good it was to spend some time with her.

Now, back to work.  I have learned that when you’re writing trombone lines, you need lots of places for players to take breaths, as they need more air than any other brass instrument.

 

 

Up early

… like, really early.  Finally around 5 am Jeff was up too and we did our shopping.  Then I made buckwheat pancakes for breakfast and boiled up a bunch of spuds so I’ve got home fries ready to go from the freezer at a moment’s notice.

I realized I’d double parked some of my songs – same song, different names – AND had some song names in there where I Knew I wrote a Song but didn’t actually memorize it or anything useful like that.  Since I’m never going to write it down, off it comes – list is now at 180 songs.  I have started cleanup so I have a match for each tune – the lyrics, the notation – and I’m trying to delete all the multiple versions of various things, including lyrics, and notations.  It’s really fussy and I’m hating it.

Spoke to Katie, she’s doing fine.  Mike’s bday partay didn’t happen, all hell and then some broke loose in his personal life.

Back to the grind….

Sundry and various

DARWIN’S BEARD!!! Have any of you seen the sheet music for Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody?

A.  It whipsaws back and forth between 4/4 and 5/4 time. Cazart!

B.  It uses guitar chords so hard to play that only somebody with a left hand like the Incredible Hulk and the speed of the Flash could even attempt them, let alone play ’em in close order drill like that. Cue me swearing like a dockside bawd.

C.  Crawling away now with my various inadequacies breaking trail.

Phew, Imagine is much easier, played slower, and still interesting musically.

If anybody’s wondering I’m working my way through MTV’s 100 best pop songs looking to challenge myself with new chord progressions and possibly ‘Songs I may attempt to learn at some point.’

Oh, thank the Zimmermans for Dylan, the worst chord for Tangled Up In Blue is F#m, which is a bar chord so simple even I can play it.

Mike’s 45th bday today at Garry Point Park.  Jeff and I plan to go for a couple of hours.

Jeff and I did the lawn yesterday which improved the appearance of the place markedly.  I had a horrible experience getting the gas for the lawnmower earlier this week but I’m not going to complain about it as I have calmed down somewhat.  Life is full of sad realizations.  Including the sad realization that whoever owns the place across the alley has now spent thousands of dollars on renovations to that house, only to once again rent it to what appears to be the same ilk of person who trashed the place the last time.  IE smokers with big dogs and a relaxed attitude toward garbage in the yard.

Can’t get hold of Katie, she keeps leaving her phone at home.

I should really get back to backing stuff up before my 5 year old hard drive quits.  Jeff has been quite diligent about reminding me and I’ve been a slug.

Jeff came up with a really interesting mapping idea this morning.  I will be messaging Coz Gerald to find out just how hard it would be to for cartographic newbies.

Google and Jeff’s cellular provider have finally fixed their handshaking problems regarding the calendar in Google.  This was a real issue as the push notifications to the phone were broken for like a month, and it’s hard to run a business when your appointments keep disappearing.  The two of us are considering getting new phones, but I’m kind of inclined to keep the Blackberry until the keyboard softsides up.

Dead Can Dance concert in August, so looking forward to it.

Okay, back to work….

 

Don’t you love cute pictures?

I know I do.  So, let us share!

Kitty shows babbies to friend Goggie.

Wombat!

Uncute anecdote break.  Watched Keith kill two NPC’s so they would respawn in the right place.  That was weird, kinda “We had to destroy it to save it” in the cognitive dissonance department.

Keith has already managed to get an interview, I think he has another job.

Katie’s camping.

Moar cyute!

Lady Gaga done Disney style.

Fast food restaurants weigh in on gay marriage.

Porcépic vs watermellum.

Cute man, hijjus bike AKA Clooners gotta cloon.

 

 

 

The little list

I made a list of things that make me happy about 5 years ago (probably before I blew out my back), and it’s really interesting to see how things changed.

Foreign films.  Still true.

Wreck Beach.  Still true; but I don’t go as much.

Roller skating.  I haven’t done that in ages, and given that my balance is not good, I think that’s done.  I still have ice skates but gosh, I’ve put on enough weight to make them a bad fit.

Writing songs.  Now folks, what do YOU think?  SVQ.  Still my favourite activity by far.  And so cheap! And so close! And so filled with inertnesting surprises!

Baking pies.  I don’t think I’ve made more than one pie since I started living with Jeff.  That, I hasten to add, is not his problem/fault/responsibility.  Mmmm, pie. Too hot to bake right now.

Going to a spa.  Oh, yeah.  In fact, I think I may book something soon.

Cooking a large meal for a houseful of friends.  Still true.

Throwing a party.  Still true.

Walking.  enh, not so much.  I have to get going on this and just make a walk part of my morning routine, rain or shine.

Watching bugs.  I can still do this for hours.  I prefer that they not be silverfish under my bed though.  I just cleaned under my bed, laid down some silverfish poison, and found twenty bucks.  Even my fucking room is expressing an opinion on the subject of how stytastic it is.

Listening to live music.  And you would guess….?

Home-making presents.  Still doing that.

Watching fireworks.  Well, the Vancouver crowds suck unholy mops, but yes.

Walking downtown on a Saturday night.  I love people watching.  Early in the evening, before the drunks get violent.

Getting a massage.  Sadly, I have to pay for these now.  I can winkle a few minutes out of the kids, but sigh.

Driving through terrain.  I love highway driving in BC.

Seeing unusual animals – pets, IRL, zoos, TV shows – I loves me weird critters.  Current favourite is velvet worms.

Travelling alone.  I hate it; I prefer to do it alone.  And sometimes being by myself at 30000 feet is okay; that’s the part of the trip that doesn’t freak me out.

Eating lobster.  Yes.  This.

Having sex.  Haw, haw, haw.  I’m celibate now – have been for a year – and I can cross this safely off my list of things to enjoy.  This aphorism deleted.  And nobody wants to hear details either way so, bully for me.

Going to the ballet.  Haven’t done that in ages.  The last opera was ruined by the perfume (Fuck Entitled White Women and their TRAIL OF TEAR GAS).  But I could definitely handle some dancing soon.

What wasn’t on the list – drinking beer. Surfing the internet or watching ER for 6 hours at a time.  Hugging my kids.  Hearing a friend’s voice on the phone.  Going to church.

Letter to the Globe and Mail published January 5 1991.

John Allemang’s recent comments on the subject notwithstanding, women who choose to breastfeed do so from the conviction that they are doing what is best for the child.  I was pregnant and/or nursing for almost five years, and I certainly got bored with it, but I never felt trapped, because it was something I chose to do, voluntarily, despite the witlessness and smug, value-laden commentaries of people like Mr. Allemang.

I never flashed my breasts in public because I failed to see how I could advance the cause of nursing by so doing.  Take a poll of real live women who nurse their children, and ask them how they feel, rather than telling us how you think they should feel.  We already know that a lot of men like looking at women’s breasts.  Please tell me something new – that we are perhaps now living in a world where a woman can discharge her responsibilities as a caring parent without getting flak for it.

His last comment about bottles bringing happiness into the world was egregious.  Tell that to a Third World mother who has lost child after child to formula mixed with contaminated water, or the mother whose child has become kendy or brain damaged due to lead-contaminated formula.