Author: Allegra

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

Visit

Briefly visited with Dax and Katie yesterday, checking out his new rented room right next to the Metrotown station.  The building is owner occupied condos so the building is clean and Dax’s room is really nice.  Then I fed the kids sushi and came home.  Jeff went off and visited with his buddy Rob yesterday, and Keith was here most of the day.

Domestic news

Jeff and I have had to come to the painful conclusion that we are not suited to be long term roommates.  I wouldn’t hand this year back for any money, as I’ve mostly had a really good time and seen a pile of wonderful movies and learned a great deal, but we’re kind of headed in two different directions and there’s no denying that I am noisy and ebullient and sociable and scattered by comparison with my brother.  No end date is set yet for our joint household and there’s all kinds of tactical and logistical stuff to deal with, but please be assured that this is a civil situation and we are continuing to look out for each other’s interests as we get closer to moving day.  As neither of us can support this place alone we’ll both be moving out.  It’s a great apartment with fabulous neighbours – anybody who’s interested in it should let me know….

Off to the camp

I inspected the trailer that’s for sale at the camp in White Rock and found that it’s on a cul-de-sac and has a FABULOUS deck and a really nice feel to it.  As for the inside, who the hell knows.  Apparently it leaked but it has a new tin roof and it looks like it was built to withstand a thermonuclear attack.  Spent the night at my new friend’s because we’d all had some beers and it’s a freaking long way back to King George Skytrain station from there.  The water has been turned on and my new friend cooked me breakfast – a really nice omelette – and I had what felt like a gallon of really good coffee.  Then we listened to Little Charlie & the Nightcats’ Deluxe Edition, and my, my, my what a tasty, musically dense and lyrically excellent album that is!

I am not going to retype the paragraph I just lost so let’s just say I had a good time and I’m happy to be home with Miss Margot.

Friend news

Peter A. has gotten rid of his downstairs tenant.  He is very happy.  She fought with the neighbours.  He was just about to service the eviction notice… and she gave notice. 

Robof9 has learned to unicycle.

Chris S. is going to be dj-ing at the ANZA Club this week.

Tanya is still SERIOUSLY pregnant.  We are rapidly running out of tactful ways to describe her rotundity.

Cris is still a troublemaker. 

Christopher Lee (our chef was named after the horrormeister, doesn’t that rock?) made an amazing shrimp salad for lunch.  It was a masterpiece of yumminess.

Dax has found a place to live.

Carrie is coming to Vancouver in about a week.

Dr. Filk is making music and trouble in Ontario.

Paul’s off to a training course in Toronto on Sunday and will be visiting rellies while he’s there.

Jeff is covered in scratches on his legs from where Miss Margot has decided that if he’s upholstered he must be something she can climb.  Honestly, he looks like he’s gone a round with a bobcat.

Patricia will be going to Australia, I’m so excited for her!

Granny has a cracked rib.  The owie, the owie!

pOp says getting old is teh suck.

mOm denies that she is feeling poorly…. Robaxicet to the rescue!

Trevor is going to New Zealand today – with his wife and two kids under 5.  The horror, the horror!

Grampa’s stories

My grandfather’s stories are still holding my rapt attention.  I’m just finished the story of the irrigation system and how it was all washed away in a dreadful flood 8 years after he married my grandma.  His description of the first time he saw her is enough to keep any Harlequin Romance fan (I grew out of them, but I did love them once) happy.  And the horses!  There are so many descriptions of horses, and trick riding, and ranch riding, and working teams (four teams to move a house during the dirty Thirties) and on and on it goes.  His choice of words sometimes is uncannily apt, and his optimism, unshakeable faith in God and love for the land and his family is amazing to read about.  Happy sigh.

Work suckage was interrupted briefly yesterday by a much enjoyed buffet at the Himalayan Peak. Patricia and I had a very nice time.

How’s that again?

Last night when I got home from work there was the same picture I’d left on the screen from the morning – it’s from a series of pictures Cousin Gerald sent me.  It’s of the underside of a dock in the wintertime. Margot walked across the computer keyboard and – I’ve not the faintest notion how – suddenly there was a picture of a person holding up a sign saying “Most of the things you worry about never happen.”  Bizarre.  Then she stood on the brightness key until my screen disappeared, which is a much less entertaining and more cat like thing to do.  Took me ages to figure out what had happened. All of these miracles would not occur if I just closed the darned thing up.

I am reading my grampa’s stories.  I am now up to the point where his family could have taken the Titanic across the ocean but left a couple of days earlier that it did.  One of his near relatives was so famous as a bookseller and antiquarian in England that a letter from America with his name, occupation and country on it – and NO other details – was delivered to him. I find it entertaining that anybody who really wanted to find me could do it in two steps on the internet, but the Post Office would be scunnered if somebody sent me a letter with my name, occupation and country on it. Mind you there was delivery twice a day in England then, and a little more enterprise among the employees.

He mentions another person from his childhood who noticed that the Greenwich Mean Time was off by two seconds one day and reported it by telegram.  He was right, and they said so.

My grampa worked in the Cadbury chocolate factory when he was a boy.

Eddie is eating and going outside again, so he has recovered somewhat from the cold Jeff gave him.  Mistress Margot is showing signs of wanting to go out.  Sigh.

To quote Margot

288888888277777777777888888888!!! Those ****ing *******s in the Facilities at SFU should be keelhauled, hung and *****d on, and have red hot lock wire shoved in their eyes.

 

It is SNOWING again and the hills here are so greasy the walk to work was like a marathon.  Die in a fire!

 

Okay, I don’t mean it, but I am sure glad I decided to wear boots with a good tread today, because it was NOT snowing when I left the house.

Boring, interesting, boring, interesting, boring, interesting.

Spam is appearing in the comments again.

How are you holding up from conficker?

I had a good night’s sleep.

My new friend says there’s a trailer for sale in the campground… I will investigate later. Continue reading Boring, interesting, boring, interesting, boring, interesting.

Kitty (and people)

Every morning she climbs up on me and ritually sneezes in my face.  This is, according to the lad I got her from, pretty normal.

She is struggling less and less when I brush her; when she’s about as relaxed as I can expect, I’ll bathe her. Jeff has made me swear a mighty oath that I won’t do it unless he can film the entire thing.  I’m thinking we should film it AND get stills.  It’s gonna be an event.  Now kitty is stalking the power cord for the MacBook.  Now she’s chasing Gizmo off his food dish…. bad plan.

To be able to wake up at 2 am, with her just out of my sleepthrashing range on the bed, instantly purring when I reach out to touch her ludicrously soft fur, is the most beautiful thing in my life right now.  I know I kinda ‘bought a friend’ but there was no guarantee she would even like me, and but she’s showing every sign of liking me a lot, rushing up to me when I come home from work.  She likes Jeff fine, but I’m the one who cleans her and brushes her, so she knows who mom is.

She’s got the boys completely whipped, and it hasn’t even been two weeks.

When Katie was here for dinner two Sundays ago Margot jumped onto the blue exercise ball in the living room.  Jeff reports that she has now jumped onto the ball and stood on it for a second and then jumped off.  I wish I had somebody who could circus train her, she’s got native talent.  The man who runs the cat circus (and while looking for him I found the Charles Mingus Cat Toilet Training Program, apparently written by the bassist himself) says that by watching a cat carefully you can tell if they have a certain bent and then you very slowly and patiently shape the behaviour until they are pushing strollers full of other cats, walking on high wires, walking on their front paws, and doing complicated dance routines with other cats, among the many other bizarre things he’s trained cats to do.

Hm.  Well, I’ve been remiss in reporting the social news.  Dr. Filk paid us a flying visit on Friday, and mightily glad was I to see him, and he found la belle Margot entertaining.

Paul and the kids were by for Sunday dinner and we watched Jurassic Park.  Paul brought the best pork roast, and we had onions and carrots and taters and corn, so it was a real Sunday dinner.

No date with my new friend this past weekend, I’ve been feeling a bit off colour and my foot is still hurting like a b9st9rd so anything involving more than about ten blocks of walking finishes me off.  Yes, I should see a doctor, but for what?  To get told it’s sprained ligaments and I should get orthotics?  I am so tired of going to the doctor and finding out I’m a jeezly hypochondriac.  Given that I’m fifty I’m sure I’ll get bad news eventually but every health scare I’ve had except for my back – which is the same as always, thanks – has turned out to be figmentary.  Actually, I took Robaxicet last night and I had an AWESOME night’s sleep.

Just fixed poached eggs and toast for brekkie, and I am now contemplating a second cup of coffee.  Oh Margot, quit chewing on the cable…..  If you get electrocuted, nobody will be able to tell.

The landpeers have rearranged the way they park their vehicles so I can use the walkway.  Jeff and I are responding by ensuring they have the rent cheques in hand in about fifteen minutes.  It’s actually kinda handy having the landpeers that close.

I handed out biscotti at work yesterday.  Man, I love doing that.

I wish I could blog about work.  But continued employment beckons encouragingly, so I will defer to my more sensible, grownup, beaten down by capitalizm self, and keep my icecream siphon closed.

Speaking of ice cream.  I brought some home last night.  Then I said to Jeff, “Screw this noise… Dessert, it’s what’s for supper.”  Thus my atonement with a nourishing and sensible brekkie today.