Author: Allegra

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

Productive day

Jeff and I emptied out the last storage locker (saving $1200 a year) and did a bit of a shop.  The Commercial Drive Can Car truck rattled and squeaked like what it is, the highest mileage car in the fleet, and when I got to our place the s.o.b. wouldn’t start again; sounds like the starter motor is going.  The third time I fired up I got lucky and while it was running I called the office and gave them my sad tale.  Then I scooted back to drop it off and then Jeff got me and we went to Main St, where both of us realized that we’d forgotten John’s Jukes is closed on Mondays so no rubber bumpers for us.  As a consolation prize I went to Kam’s and got egg tarts and red bean pastries (best I have ever eaten).  Managed to get within eyeshot of Pulp Fiction without buying anything.

So now of course, after finding a home for all our furniture, books, etc we have to squeeze down again.  I’m considering buying shelving to put in the guest room, it being the last place I can think of in the house that has anything resembling room.

Keith came over yesterday and we had another Homicide fest.  I LOVE that show, there has been one lame episode in five seasons so far and even the lamest episode has something to recommend it.  Also, it’s funny seeing Michelle Forbes (who plays the massively loathesome Marianne in True Blood) before she got her teeth redone and playing an intelligent and likeable (albeit buggo) character.  She has one of the best voices in TV.

I also worked away on “Wish it was Mine” which is one of my fave songs of mine, just because it’s so passionate about the ways in which men and women are always misunderstanding each other, and yet is so very short.  Brevity is one of the things I like best in my own work; even if you hate it, it will be over soon.

Katie is coming over or I’m going down to New West at some point today.

Apocalypto without subtitles

Jeff, sensing that with Keith and ScaryClown present he could fire up this movie, did so.

We watched without subtitles.

I thought it was an amazing movie.  All I ask of a film is : Take me to a place I haven’t been before.

Mel Gibson is like the Ezra Pound of filmmaking.  He’s an anti-Semite with some babbleworthy ideas, but by Beelzebub’s britches can that man make a film (or in Ezra’s case, write poetry for the ages).

Two minds

I am of two minds about this article.

Part of me says, Oh this is great it’s really helping people.

The other part says, “What she is doing is still easier than lobbying for better public transportation in the land of the Great God Car.”

I applied for a job yesterday.  I am already having second thoughts about a year off.  I may forget how to work for others entirely if I don’t get going.

I have world class heartburn

People over 50 who eat hot wings after 8 pm deserve world class heartburn.  I ask for no sympathy and it’s a good thing I expect none.

It is with flaming heart, therefore, that I announce the following horrific news.  I decided to clean off the memo portion of my cell phone as I recollected just now that I had sung a number of tunes into it.  Well, a number turns out to be seven, all but one without lyrics and me with no clue what key they are in or what to call any of them.  Thank you o great muse for your immense bounty, but I JUST SAID on my blog that I had 39 percent of them written down, so I’m down to 36 percent instantaneously.  Now, this is a fine, a stupendous problem to have, and I’d be six kinds of fool to even hint at wishing for a shutoff valve, but I refuse to do anything but acknowledge the fact that I have yet more work, as sleep beckons.

I got to meet Mike’s new inamorata Vilma.  (While Keith played Rock Band non stop).  She can sit on her hair.  I know personal remarks is rude, but her hair is stupendous, and comes entirely unregulated or mishandled by professionals in cascading rippling waves of honey blonde that terminate just above the backs of her knees.  The full effect is enhanced by her petiteness, and of course if she wasn’t a lovely, smart and good-natured woman the personal remarks would be even ruder.  Mike has horseshoes clanking around in his sitz platz.

Oh, and me and Mike and Keith played darts.  Mike won with a dazzling “come through in the choke” maneuvre.

56 out of 144 songs are now written out

That’s 39 percent.  I may actually get this project DONE by the end of my year off!

Of course it would help if I quit writing songs, but not a chance of that.  When I sit down to noodle these days I cut to the chase pretty fast.  Then, boom, another song to write down.  What can I say, it is so much fun to be me these days I can scarcely credit it.

I am going to head off to the Royal City Farmer’s Market this afternoon.  Time I did some bike shopping, and I have a hankering for some organic piggy hacks.

More tunes…

Walls of my heart is written down (forgive the title, I was oozing a neurasthenic and self-absorbed romanticism at the time I wrote it).

Aiee!  I am back in the swing of things with church, what with the potential move and the satellite service, so I invited myself to the growth committee meeting.    Actually, I hosted it last night.  Keith made himself known to everybody (feeling safe to come out if Peggy and I are in the room) and I (scandalously, for a Unitarian) didn’t feed snacks afterwards because one of our number is fasting for a genuine health reason and I figured we could all get by on clear fluids rather than force her to watch us eat.  That is the first time I ever had a committee or small group ministry meeting at my house without food – and my Mennonite foremothers are rotating like cylinder records in their graves at the very thought.

In the old days, visitors would be fed ‘faspa’ which is the Mennonite equivalent of tiffin, and consists of something lighter than a meal and heavier than a snack, if you know what I mean.  It’s so much part of the culture that it’s a major faux pas not to provide it.  Even though I had a sound reason, I still felt guilty.  Ah, it’s so good to be back in church!

Why the hell does an atheist do church?

Continue reading More tunes…