Author: Allegra

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

Long quote from Kropotkin’s The Spirit of Revolt

The need for a new life becomes apparent. The code of established morality, that which governs the greater number of people in their daily life, no longer seems sufficient. What formerly seemed just is now felt to be a crying injustice. The morality of yesterday is today recognized as revolting immorality. The conflict between new ideas and old traditions flames up in every class of society, in every possible environment, in the very bosom of the family. The son struggles against his father, he finds revolting what his father has all his life found natural; the daughter rebels against the principles which her mother has handed down to her as the result of long experience. Daily, the popular conscience rises up against the scandals which breed amidst the privileged and the leisured, against the crimes committed in the name of the law of the stronger, or in order to maintain these privileges. Those who long for the triumph of justice, those who would put new ideas into practice, are soon forced to recognize that the realization of their generous, humanitarian and regenerating ideas cannot take place in a society thus constituted; they perceive the necessity of a revolutionary whirlwind which will sweep away all this rottenness, revive sluggish hearts with its breath, and bring to mankind that spirit of devotion, self-denial, and heroism, without which society sinks through degradation and vileness into complete disintegration.

In periods of frenzied haste toward wealth, of feverish speculation and of crisis, of the sudden downfall of great industries and the ephemeral expansion of other branches of production, of scandalous fortunes amassed in a few years and dissipated as quickly, it becomes evident that the economic institutions which control production and exchange are far from giving to society the prosperity which they are supposed to guarantee; they produce precisely the opposite result. Instead of order they bring forth chaos; instead of prosperity, poverty and insecurity; instead of reconciled interests, war; a perpetual war of the exploiter against the worker, of exploiters and of workers among themselves. Human society is seen to be splitting more and more into two hostile camps, and at the same time to be subdividing into thousands of small groups waging merciless war against each other. Weary of these wars, weary of the miseries which they cause, society rushes to seek a new organization; it clamors loudly for a complete remodeling of the system of property ownership, of production, of exchange and all economic relations which spring from it.

The machinery of government, entrusted with the maintenance of the existing order, continues to function, but at every turn of its deteriorated gears it slips and stops. Its working becomes more and more difficult, and the dissatisfaction caused by its defects grows continuously. Every day gives rise to a new demand. “Reform this,” “reform that,” is heard from all sides. “War, finance, taxes, courts. police, everything must be remodeled, reorganized, established on a new basis,” say the reformers. And yet all know that it is impossible to make things over, to remodel anything at all because everything is interrelated; everything would have to be remade at once; and how can society be remodeled when it is divided into two openly hostile camps? To satisfy the discontented would be only to create new malcontents.

Incapable of undertaking reforms, since this would mean paving the way for revolution, and at the same time too impotent to be frankly reactionary, the governing bodies apply themselves to halfmeasures which can satisfy nobody, and only cause new dissatisfaction. The mediocrities who, in such transition periods, undertake to steer the ship of State, think of but one thing: to enrich themselves against the coming débâcle. Attacked from all sides they defend themselves awkwardly, they evade, they commit blunder upon blunder, and they soon succeed in cutting the last rope of salvation; they drown the prestige of the government in ridicule, caused by their own incapacity.

Such periods demand revolution. It becomes a social necessity; the situation itself is revolutionary.

Cleaning and cooking and godlessness

Yesterday I ran the dishwasher, washed the kitchen rugs, policed up the cat litter around the downstairs tray, dejunked in the kitchen, rearranged some more boxes, paid some bills, and cooked something extremely yummy so that at whatever time Jeff shows up after his visit I will be able to feed him.  It’s a really nice stir fry, with thinly sliced chicken breast, mushrooms, bean sprouts, carrots, broccoli, green and white onions, garlic, soy sauce and turmeric.  Om Nom Nom.

I also started working on a song called “Stuff”, which is insane (me working on it, not the song).  Must…. stop and get cracking on the real work, not making more for myself.  Also had a long talk on the phone with mater, partly about the well nigh overwhelming anxiety of dealing with the rash of illness and debilitation of senior family members, and partly an interesting discussion about atheism…. you know, ‘that very present help in time of trouble’.

Yet strangely it feels like I did sod all yesterday.  The kitchen looks great though.  It won’t last…

Today I will make bread dough and write down some tunes…..

Like a complete unknown

Bob Dylan finds out that he should carry ID.

Last night we saw Sarah off, we being me and Paul, since we go very far back with those folks.

All I can say is that we had a hell of a good time and I didn’t hit the sack until 10:45 – which given I told Paul we’d be out of there by 8 pm is pretty funny.

Also, I talked to a former coworker and mentioned I’d be looking for work in 8 months or so and he told me to look him up then… I suspect looking for work will be interesting, but not difficult.

I’m going to try out the panniers today…. in about ten minutes I’m going to hop on the bike and go shlepping.  And taking back movies, etc., to the library.

Jeff’s off in Courtenay and I miss him… cats are unsettled and the house seems just that tad too quiet.

Unca Dave and others

Unca Dave is in town this week for cancer treatment, and Paul and I went to see him at the Lodge downtown.  It’s a really nice place although he says the one in Kelowna is nicer.

What can be said?  It’s all management; of energy, of medications, of treatments, of emotions.  He is as cheerful and forthright as ever, and it was great to see the names of his other visitors in the guest sheet.  We had a cup of coffee and visited for a couple of hours.  Paul will be taking him back to the airport today.

After the visit, we poked our heads into MEC, where I got two of these in black.  (Always ask if they have some in the back… I had checked inventory and there were lots of black ones, but not on display.)  Paul had loaned me a carrier and I fell madly in love with them and got two of my own.  They are only fifteen liters but I got four bags of groceries into one on Wednesday… I had to get some.  Also I got a map, because I like maps.  They don’t have topos of the city any more, pity.  Paul got raingear for his trip with Tish and Terry. After that we went to Pho Hong and I had one of these. Then we went to Rona and recut the keys that didn’t work.

pOp got himself hauled off to the emerg in Victoria in a most discomfiting fashion recently.  He’s back at home looking forward (not) to further tests to find out which end of the malingering/mad-with-worry pole he should be attached to.  And of course there are two other members of my family experiencing health problems that we know of – I light virtual candles for all them not because it will do a bit of good, but so I can turn my attention elsewhere.  Really, hard core atheists don’t know what they’re missing out on with church.  It’s just so comforting.

Fed the cats the free food that you get as a sample from the pet store for breakfast this morning.  Margot makes the most astonishing assortment of grunts and duck calls when she eats – she literally quacks when she’s excited or disturbed.  I put her on the Star Trek pinball but it’s too noisy for her, even though she did chase the ball a couple of times.

Sundry and various

Laundry all done.  Much practicing on mando yesterday, at least 90 minutes and my fingers are all callous-y again.

Family barbecue with lamb, chicken and steak (mmmm) and garlic bread and pan fried enoki mushrooms and couscous and greek salad and beer and green tea ice cream.

Katie got her documentation from the Hair Design School – she passed all exams with flying colours and got her certificate.  Yeah!  Should make job hunting a bit easier. We celebrated her success but she skated out right after True Blood to go keep an eye on a friend of hers (long story, likely tinged with fiction).  But it was great to have the fambly including Mike to dins.

MANY WASPS…. the funniest incident was when I was done with my steak and an extremely determined wasp tried to fly off with a hunk of meat still attached to the steak by a tiny thread of connective tissue.  He kept trying to lift off and then whizzed around like a tiny tethered helicopter, setting down, trying to chew through….. I finally took pity and took the knife to the meat and he took off, flying low but triumphant.  Keith had an interview yesterday, it didn’t go as well as the previous one but he is still looking and still hopeful.

Margot was batting at Gizmo’s tail the other day.  He just lay there, looking long suffering.  Gizmo and Eddie are both, very suddenly, much more affectionate with me.  Eddie has gotten up into my lap a couple of times (he’s not a lap cat).  Margot sticks to Giz like glue when they are outside at night.  Hopefully he will teach her not to be an idiot around cars.  She already runs away if you come up to her outside, always a good sign.

Swithering turns into action.

Yesterday I decided I’d had quite enough of lying around feeling sorry for myself, especially after I realized that my last week of angsty angstiness was hormonally triggered.  So I got up and reorganized the hell hole that is the plastic container cupboard, cleaned the kitchen, washed the dishes, ran two loads of laundry and tidied my room.

Paul called around noon and said he would come over to sing and play for a while and then take me to Jericho.  This was an extremely welcome idea – he turned up around 4.   Paul put some very tasty ornamentation and frills of the guitar variety overtop Home on Derange and Lifeline on John’s old six string Guild; then he made a face and said, “These strings are dead!”  Yes, I made the natural joke, in exceeding bad taste, that follows on to this.  We examined our cases for replacement strings (my mando sounded like shite) and had a socially mandated “Not only do we tune because we care, we occasionally change the strings, too!” session.  Zow.  My mando, never quiet, now sounds quite brassy.  I am about to inspect it for how well it stayed in tune.  Funny side note…. I tried tightening the strings without putting the bridge back.  Bwa ha ha.  Fortunately Paul didn’t laugh; just advised me to loosen a bit and then see if I could slide the bridge in, which didn’t take too much effort.  I may have to adjust it a trifle as I never seem to get the octave to line back up when I change the strings.  The colour difference between the old and the new strings made me laugh.  Paul said, Recycle them, and I said, nope, they aren’t recyclable.  The chart on the fridge settled the argument, and he said, quite reasonably, that if the metal recyclers take them it’s odd that the city doesn’t.  So they went in the trash, but we tried.

I was having such a good time singing and playing I wanted to drag my feet and not go to Jericho; Paul was firm.  “After 4 days in the hangar I want to be out doing something” – so we went.

AS ALWAYS I was glad we went; there were (just in the opening acts): miniature bagpipe.  Banjo. Steel drum; tight three part a capella harmony; penny whistle; lovely folksongs, newly minted and strictly trad.  Although, how you do Barbara Allen on the steel drum might be one of those things ya can’t picture until you see it.  (Answer, very well, thanks, it was very well done.)  For once I didn’t play myself – didn’t feel the need.

Crashed at Planet Bachelor; woke in the morning to the sounds of Keith puttering and the divine scent of coffee.  Got up – no Keith; from the back door being unlocked and the dearth of cream I assumed he’d gone off to fetch breakfasty stuff.  He came back and was just so irrepressibly cheerful and productive as he made himself a yummy brekky (I had cherry strudel and coffee with floods of cream for brekky, bad me – Keith had eggs).

He has an interview Thursday.  I have a good feeling about it.  He’s off to Ted’s optical joint to volunteer and keep his customer skills up while he looks for work.

Sometime in the next few minutes birthingway should show up and drop off the clipping bag for the lawn mower, and if she forgets again, I will just smile and expect her next week instead.  I don’t feel unplugged from time – that’s hard to do when I talked to Unca Dave on the phone this morning – but I don’t feel the whirling urgent torrent of it the way I did when the kids were smaller and there was always something emergent.

While I was at Jericho last night LTGW called.  Things aren’t great at the old stomping grounds, but he has his parachute packed.  It was great to hear his voice; I don’t miss work at all but I sure miss the smiling faces of the folks, as was brought serenely home to me at Brian’s birthday bash.

Today, I jump on the cycle and do a shop, and then a family feast on the q, the whole fam damily plus Mike, and a huge couple of salads, and something sweet and cold for dessert.  And I should likely get more beer.  Later, Katie will come over.  And then True Blood again, cause that just never gets old.

Oh, and I got a Lone Wolf and Cub movie out of the library – maybe we’ll watch it, Mike and Keith are ENORMOUS fans of the series.  Mike even gave Keith his Lone Wolf and Cub t-shirt, which he prizes.

So I’m feeling better, but singing and playing with people always does that for me.

Crabby at the craigslist again

Everything in italics is quoted from Anonymous Dude’s ad.  This is what I wanted to email him but I decided to mock him on my blog instead.  He is in search of A Muse.

I am absolutely astounded by your craigslist advertisement.

Good day. I am a writer in need of a woman who would like to assist me in typing and editing several works of prose and poetry. I am a fun loving and easy going man with a great deal of interests.

Uh, that would be a great many interests, or a large number of interests.

I could be described as accentric,

No, you couldn’t, because that isn’t a word.

but I will except that as an artists perogitive.

And perogitive isn’t a word either.  Except should be accept. Artists should read artist’s.

I am also a true romantic and adventurer who is world savy and passionate.

You mean savvy, which looks less and less likely.

If you would like to be involved in the creative process send me a reply and I will send you a link to the stories I am working on presently.

You don’t need a muse, you need spell-check.  Good luck with your search.  If you were trying to be funny with all the typos and problems with usage, it didn’t work; a woman with any sensitivity or smarts regarding the English language would be as taken aback as I was.  If, on the other hand, English isn’t your native language, congratulations; you have achieved success in appearing to be a native speaker with a learning disability.

I had insomnia

Now I feel rather spooky and fragile.

Katie is coming over today regarding job hunt.

I finished “Redden the water”.

I uploaded a few more things onto the Portfolio portion of my site.

Jeff and I did a small shop; he made a Value Village run and we made a couple of stops at various computer stores.

Visit from Jenise

Jenise from church came by yesterday and I fed her dinner and she brought the china I got for Katie’s trousseau.  Yeah, I know I am insane, but I’d never seen Royal Doulton with a platinum pattern before and Katie likes silver and dislikes gold.  Jenise pronounced my split pea soup with ham good to eat.  I am so happy she came by.

Then Keith came by and we watched True Blood.  Woo hoo!  It was a good one… the Eric centric episodes normally are.