Author: Allegra

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

Listen to the rain

I only had one thing besides church planned this weekend, and that’s on Sunday night.

I am listening to the rain overflow the gutters on the roof and drip onto the concrete next to the house.

I have a ton of paperwork to do, so while it’s all quiet and thoughtful, I’m going to do that.

Daughter Katie went on a date with a young man to see Alice in Wonderland.  She says nothing will come of it, but I suspect he’s a persistent young man.  I’ve never met him.

I am angry with Keith right now because I think he’s being irresponsible.  I think it’s fortunate that I can’t stay mad at him.

I’d like to thank Paul for being the only person I knew I could tell a disgusting story to.  It’s all very well to have friends, but not all of them can put up with me to the extent I like to be put up with.  Although, now I think of it, I could tell Patricia and she’d probably laugh too.

Against the enslavement of women – some links

BBC on modern slavery:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/world/slavery/default.stm

More about human trafficking around the world at UN Office on Drugs and Crime:
http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/human-trafficking/what-is-human-trafficking.html?ref=menuside

FBI’s work on human trafficking:
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cid/civilrights/slavery.htm

Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings:
http://conventions.coe.int/Treaty/Commun/QueVoulezVous.asp?NT=197&CM=1&CL=ENG

Today at work

Mike McG said, “And that will be when there’s a third iteration of a snowball fight in hell,” with respect to a request I made.  Okay, it was unreasonable, but did you have to come back with such a quotable quote?

The IT guys continue to rock.  I won’t say why, cause you know, but they do.

Ham scone for breakfast.  And to think I didn’t like ham, once upon a time.

The two things I had to do today are already done.

Back to work.

Denis’ Celebration

Things I learned.

Food first, talk second.  You would think this was obvious, but it bears repeating.

The Beacon food volunteers ought to be running the world as nobody does anything better with the budget they have.

Denis’ grandchildren rock.  Sean’s anecdote was perfectly tuned to the mood of the room.

Denis got his wish, and got a couple of scoldings from various people.  So no, he isn’t perfect.  The scoldings were also perfect….

If you ask a crowd of Beaconites for a drum roll, please, you WILL get one.

I really HATE it when I get people’s names wrong, and it happened twice.  I am not sure who besides the principals noticed, but oh how I go all squeaky chalk when that happens.

My refusal to have a set speech worked perfectly.  When people weren’t coming up, I vamped from his little book of reminiscences (I brought copies for the family and the Lay Chaplaincy Committee, under whose aegis the celebrations took place), and that worked really well.

Denis should have been miked for his poem but the darned cable didn’t go that far.  Grr.  Next time, guest of honour closer to Mike Rofone.

When everybody keeps their remarks brief, heartfelt and to the point, MC’s job is MUCH easier.

As you can see I’m much more able to talk about yesterday now I’ve had seven WHOLE hours of sleep.  As for my performance as the service coordinator yesterday, I would have imploded if Rev. Katie hadn’t helped me out so much.  *Note to self, get the music up to the podium, ya ditz.* Although I heard that my rendition of the children’s story was very good.  I said, “Never saw the story before today,” and folks were startled, so I guess all the weirdness and confusion going on in my brain were not communicated to the littles.  Phew.

Last thing I dreamed before I woke

I was having a dispute with a neighbour (I was living by myself again in a walkup apartment, like THAT would ever happen) and she chose to respond to it by drowning three kittens in my ornamental fountain, which was in the entranceway to the apartment.  They were still warm when I picked them up.  I guess bathing Margot so frequently (she had a poopy bum again so she got bathed this weekend) is making me used to the feel of wet cat fur, because I could feel their warm little bodies as I picked them up.  I thought, who could do such a thing? And then I remembered.  My subconscious could.  Thanks, subconscious, you suck.

Church was good, Denis’ Pre-Memorial was great.

I survived it!  It was all good!  Now all I can think about is sleep. I haven’t really recovered from Thursday night yet.

Tortillas for dinner, leftover porkchop in orange sauce for lunch.  The boys spent a good chunk of the day killing zombies; I actually got out of the house for a walk when Paul dropped by and encouraged me to stir my stumps.  I went down to Langley Farm Market with him and picked up fruit, veg and Pocky.  Happy sigh.  I loves me some Pocky.  This is a really weird article I found on Wikipedia after I looked up Pocky.

Jeff sent me a link

Unbelievable. You can run your own ad.  Margot will be our spokescat for when we have our own little business.

And in other news:

I have an exceedingly busy weekend planned.  I don’t want to talk about it, I’ll review it all when it’s over.

I saw UP last night.  Yes yes yes you MUST watch it; it’s the best animated movie ever made.  Okay, maybe not, but it’s definitely in the top ten.

I called Mike yesterday…. he and Rozo were at the beach.  Wreck Beach, that is, but he was wearing pants coz it wuz cold.

Just had a terrible / okay experience with Bell Mobility.  The guy who answered the phone originally was an idiot who told me stuff that wasn’t true, and the girl who answered in tech support actually helped me.  Yes I can delete applications off my phone but I need to download some software onto a PC and then hook my phone up to the PC.

Now to do some of the work I don’t want to do for later this weekend.  Heavy sigh.  I undercommit for so long that when I overcompensate and overcommit I’m full of irritation.  Must think happy thoughts full of jello and butterflies.

This chick, that chick, the other chick

This chick opened. She was AMAZING.  Stupendous, ethereal, gorgeous, lush and otherworldly.

This chick was not so good. Fluffed lines, muddy sound, stereotyped stage movements, and really uninspired guitar playing.

The other chick is the woman formerly known as Vilma.  She is Rozo now.  It’s a long story, and it makes perfect sense, and I am a very ardent believer in calling people what they want to be called, so she will be Rozo to me in future.  Candidly, I never liked her name as it always sounded like Boris and Natasha collided with the Flintstones.

We had a lovely time and talked our little faces off.  And, OF COURSE, somebody came up to her and drooled on her hair… it’s inevitable, as her hair is so incredible it stops traffic.

Worried mind

I don’t know why I worry so much about things I can’t control.  I just read a facebook post that somebody I went to Wreck Beach with last summer (Liz, a buddy of Kashka and Katie’s) was taken unconscious to hospital after some kind of event at a pub.

Yesterday was a good day, I was in training for the products I’m helping support and it was interesting and not exactly fun, cause I was paying attention very hard, but definitely worthwhile.

Jeff picked up Swiss Chalet on the way home, yay.

Margot is shedding so much it’s frankly scary.  She can be brushed ten times a day and the brush still fills up. She and Eddie spent a good part of the evening chasing each other.  It’s a good thing – she needs the exercise.  Gizmo campaigned so hard for chicken (Swiss Chalet is his paws down fave) Jeff broke down and gave him some.  He won’t eat anything else when he can smell the chicken.  I typed children… maybe my migraine is still hanging around.

Ah, Jeff is making coffee, the saint.

A Happy Culturally Legitimized Drunkfest to you!