Author: Allegra

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

Today I’d like to rant about….

Hypocrisy, but my spleen started gnawing on my left eyeball in protest, so I had to find another subject. For a minute I considered a rant about Paul’s driving, a subject that just never gets old, but I decided that is a) too easy and b) not respectful enough. Then I thought of writing about the 100 things I would do if I was the benevolent dictator of my work; and no, it doesn’t involve public humiliation, bondage and urine, although if I was the malevolent dictator of my work that would all be up for grabs, so to speak.

I reviewed the many, many things which can set me off, and as my pulse pounded and my blood pressure started to look like a gauge on a hydraulic actuator, I thought that maybe I should reconsider this whole ranting thing. Ranting is just loose lipped emotion stuffed into a nice subject matter casing and done to a good brown. How does it help a weary and degenerate world? Apart from being entertaining if it’s done right. I mean, my homilies are rants, but prettified, all the cuss words taken out.

Then I thought about… the crush. How can I fail? That, friends, was a rhetorical question. Maybe some other time.

Ooh. I thought about Revelation. You know, the book in the Christian Bible. Continue reading Today I’d like to rant about….

Well hang

The hang drum (pronounced hung) is a Swiss technological breakthrough in musical percussion.  Now, thanks to the beauty and glory of the internet, you can virtually play one.

This is not a musical instrument which is available in stores. You literally have to fly to Switzerland, prove yourself worthy, pay up front and wait six months for delivery.  Needless to say I covet one badly.

Thankful Thursday

One of the MANY LJ memes is Thankful Thursday.

You make a list of things to be thankful for.

In no particular order:

Lighting candles at Stef and David’s wedding.  Unitarians and fire, I tell ya.

Seeing Keith last night and Katie on the weekend.

Friends’ voices on the phone.

Jeff got cream for my coffee.

Jeff is doing my taxes (sing yip and likewise aroo!)

The bus driver who asked me what day it was.  (That was also funny).

I don’t have to work shifts.

Fresh bread.

Chris and Kyi and Zari (the kitchen staff at work, and they are NICE and they can COOK).

The sound of spoken Farsi (it is a very cool sounding language).

Finally getting the hang of the barbecue.

Eddie has forgiven me my role in pilling him every morning for five days.  Man, that was gross.

The rain is filling up the reservoir and making it less likely that this is the year we lose Stanley Park to a summer wildfire (because, unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time, friends.)

Mark Harmon’s smile.

Nid de guepes

Saw the movie on Jeff’s recommendation, with Keith and Jeff, and LOVed it.  Great great action film about an endlessly resourceful group of human beings.  Also fed the boys dinner, barbq pork chomps and corn and tater tots (man, if there’s a whiter meal it’s hard to imagine what it would be).  Also watched Jeff’s character in Assassin’s Creed assault a beggar woman by rhythmically hip checking her into a building alcove (the sound effects alone had the three of us practically in tears).  Also kicked around in discussion some story ideas Keith has been having.

pleasant evening….

How bigotry plays out in the courts

Transgender vs Library….

I had met one transgender person in my life before the welcoming congregation process at the U*U church.  Then I met two and it was quite startling.  There’s no one standard transgender person.  You can SAY all women are alike, but you know they’re not.  You can SAY all black people are alike, and that’s another damned lie.  I can understand the hiring authority being confused, but not staying confused…..

Anyway, it’s a good article and quite thought provoking.

Maybe I shouldn’t record Buy me a Beer after all!

This seems a painful way to encourage alcohol consumption.

I am still recovering from the cavalcade of cheese, but I’ll be in to work as normal this morning, or as close to normal as my inconstant weirdness ever gets.

However, I’m going to poke around and look for another venue, possibly the Heritage Grill, if they’ll let me.

Weeknight

All I’m gonna say about my evening at Patricia’s – I’m home now, it’s 11 pm – is that it was a cavalcade of cheese. Quite literally – some of the finest cheeses for sale in Vancouver were there.  Om nom nom.  To bed, alone, sigh.

Oh almost forgot Buy me a Beer must be reshot.  Now thinking caps of on-ish-ness are put.

Teaching the children to swear

Jeff says he likes it when I rant.  Not in person, of course, that’s yucky, but the written rants are okay.

Today I’d like to rant about teaching children to swear.

Now, in traditional child rearing, parents don’t swear and so…. children don’t swear.  If they do swear, they get paddled, or grounded, or whatever the traditional punishment method is.  Paul and I were not so much with the traditional child rearing, except those parts that are kinda apple pie, like getting them immunized and taking them to school and feeding, clothing and housing them adequately. But we did a lot of non traditional stuff, like nursing until they could talk and cosleeping.  And, not to put too fine a point on it, we both swear.  Paul is less pungent than I on most occasions, but he can certainly let out a beaut from time to time, and so, we had a dilemma.

The child rearing books frown most creasingly at hypocrisy on the part of parents.  We were essentially left with two options; scold the children for imitating us, or – and this was not an easy decision – TRAINING them how to swear.  On the face of it, this is nuts, but this is how it works.

About the time the kids start swearing – usually around four but you could probably profitably do it until the kid is about eight – you sit them down with all of the words, and you go through them all.  FIRST.  Do not assume that children know what the words mean.  Make sure they know.  This took almost an hour, because the kids got right into the swing of things, and also there were many side trips… kike, paki, chink and nigger took a long while to explain especially to kids who were in racially balanced daycare from the time they were tiny, and went to equally racially balanced schools.  SECOND.  Having defined the words, EXPLAIN WHY THEY HURT.  The blasphemy words hurt people who are religious, the bodily function words hurt people who are squeamish, the slurs hurt real people ‘Fag” being an example, even if partly recovered by Dan Savage – anyway, you get the idea.  You don’t tell kids that the words are bad, you tell them that they have varying effects on different people, and that some people would rather be slapped than listen to foul language.  THIRD.  You tell them – and this is really important – that there is not a single word on that list that they can’t say, in or out of context, at home.  You also give them a list of adults they may swear in front of.  In other words, you kinda sorta keep a secret – that there are people who know, and people who don’t know.  There are people on the inside, and people on the outside. There isn’t a four year old on the planet who isn’t familiar with this level of mild social hypocrisy but you’re also providing a safety valve in case the kids need to talk about something important with a family intimate – who isn’t you – thank you Jan and Soon and Catherine.  FOURTH  You give them the Canonical List of people NOT TO SWEAR IN FRONT OF.

  1. Grandparents, font of all prezzies.  Why?  Because when little kids swear, it’s not their fault, it’s the parents’ fault, and you don’t want the grands to think we’re bad parents, right?  I know you aren’t going to believe this, but this is precisely the kind of reasoning you can use on a child that age.  Then you casually mention the prezzies again.  Kids aren’t stupid.  Also, we mentioned older folks, as having a higher standard of behaviour than the rest of us.
  2. Babysitters and babysitters’ children.  Why?  Because babysitters can hire and fire us, and if we make life difficult for them or are ‘bad influences’ on their kids, out the door we will go.  Kids got that one in a real hurry.
  3. Schoolteachers and schoolmates.  Why?  It’s not worth the hassle.
  4. Anything in a uniform.  It can be a busdriver or an escalator repair mechanic, but if you get out of the habit of swearing in front of uniformed individuals, you will be in good shape later.

At the end of our dialogue – imagine keeping the attention of a four year old girl and a six year old boy for two hours, which we did, and many times Paul and I were blown away by the observational skills and emotional savvy both kids demonstrated that day  – the kids had a working knowledge of swearing and they didn’t break training until Katie was 11. After that I didn’t really care – nobody was expecting me & Paul to have ‘control’ over their behaviour at that point anyway.

YMMV. Blessed be!

Beach, Beach, Beach

I got a little crispified around the edges – enough to make me powerfully sleepy – but otherwise it was a great beach day.  I slept until 11 yesterday, and was relieved to find Jeff hadn’t made himself breakfast yet, so it was waffles and bacon, and then we watched a little Nascar and NCIS, and then Mike came and got me, and then we beached for about four hours.  The stairs going back up this time were much easier and much faster.  I only stopped three times and then just to catch my breath, standing, not to have full bore collapses like the last time where I had to sit down and pant for about ten minutes each time.  Despite the heat, and Cheez Whiz, was it hot yesterday, it was a lot easier to manage. I have to climb three flights of stairs every morning when I go to work – usually faster than I want to if I’m going to catch the train – and I think that’s made stairs somewhat easier overall.  I think my assessment of the horrors of climbing the stairs last time was correct – I tried climbing the stairs during a hot flash and thought I was dying as a result.  When you’re already overheated it’s hard to tell the difference!

Jeff came and got me at around 5 and we drove cross town to Tom and Peggy’s where we had Walnut Smoked Salmon.  It was DAMN GOOD but still, IMO, not as good as cherrywood charcoal salmon. Paul definitely found a keeper with that recipe…. The rest of dinner, as always, was entirely yummy; the peaches and cream corn was amazing and perfectly cooked, and the new potatoes were the classic salute to summer.

I should have gone straight to bed but it was just one more NCIS (actually we were finishing one) and then another one; Jeff indulges me shamelessly as I am sure there are other things he’d rather be watching.

Must retrieve laundry and get going on the day.

I didn’t see Keith this weekend.  I missed him.

Wedding and videography successful

At least I have my priorities straight.  The wedding was absolutely gorgeous, and took place in Stef and David’s back yard.  I sat with the dykes and a way fun teen named Jacob (we had each other in fits within minutes); the twenty-something hipsters had made me want to cry when they asked me if I salsa, so I got up and went where I immediately felt much more comfortable.  Long about 9:30 I sang “The Housewife’s Lament” and David said afterwards, “Normally when amateurs start singing I cringe, but that was great.”  I smirked and said, “I get that a lot.”  I will never be famous, childer, but I will always have a reputation.

The videography was fun, and I tried to sleaze one more video out of Tamara, whose patience with me should be legendary at this point.  However, the notion of recording “The Weekend’s Over” where I recorded it proved too much for me…. I only wished I’d done it inside, but I doubt the security guard would have been happy about that.  That’s one that will never make it onto Youtube, snicker.  That’s going to go onto a memory stick and stay there.

The NCIS blowout continues apace.  Mark Harmon moves so gracefully – I mean, he’s the yummiest middle aged man on television, although Olmos comes close – and I’m finally not hating Michael Weatherly.  Any guy who was disowned by his rich father for going into acting can’t be all bad.  Sasha Alexander’s laugh could be used as a marital aid.  All right, all right, I’m a fan, but I won’t be insane on the subject until I do filk or write slash, m’kay?

I await a call from Mike, and then, the beach.  But only until 5 pm because at that point Jeff’s going to come get me and take me to Tom and Peggy’s for supper!  Must remember to take mandolin.

Crap, crap, crap.  I have to do laundry today!  Unhappy sigh.
And the stairs at Wreck, twice.  Getting to the beach is always easier than leaving.

Many hundreds of dollars poorer, I emerged

But it’s no surprise, really – I was shopping for an outfit to wear to a wedding. And a cheese grater, an interview outfit for Katie, more pants for me, shoes for me, that special laundry soap I use which I’ve only ever found at the Bay.  I bought sharp objects for the bride and groom, and now I have finished wrapping them in paper I have been carrying around for twenty years…. oh, and now I have to go to a wedding AND go see the videographer for some more guerilla video.