Author: Allegra

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

Cryptic

Chipper sent a cryptic – and exciting – email about a very special event which will be happening in her part of the world.  Absolutely no details now but as soon as the official announcement comes through I will be posting it.

It feels very odd to be in the house alone with the cats.  Jeff and Katie are in Victoria.

More banging, screaming, crying and thumping from downstairs last night.  The folks were gone for most of the evening and the first I knew they were back their daughter was crying.  Fortunately, I know the difference between what a four year old girl sounds like when she’s crying with tiredness and annoyance (she was) and when she’s crying from pain or fear. Anyway, the crying seemed to trigger another domestic imbroglio.

Got my hair cut at Azzi’s.  It’s always the same goddamned thing.  I tell them what to do because I don’t DO anything to my hair, and they go “Insufficient challenge” and then they do something tricky to my hair.  And my hair looks like crap until it grows out.  Never, never do I learn.  Never do I grab chickiepoo by the hair and say.  Do  It  My  Way.  Thanks.  So I’m really unhappy with my hair this morning, and I wasn’t yesterday morning, and I had $35 yesterday that I don’t today.  I think she was trying to go all Terry Moore on me, but I got Phyllis Diller instead.

Got totally nuked by a fellow employee yesterday.  Fanboy Joe and I were discussing BSG and Gaeta’s song, which has the interwebs all hopping and antsy, and one of the business analysts came over, eyes a-popping, and said, STOP STOP STOP STOP STOP.  I don’t mind spoilers – they seem to devastate other people – but Joe and I desisted in the face of his obvious distress.

I will NOT be wearing my earphones on the way into work this morning, just in case brother bear is there.  They don’t usually hang around more than a day, but ya never know.

Bears!

There was an adolescent black bear up in the parking lot this morning.  Scared the bejabbers out of the receptionist.  I think maybe I’ll stop walking through the campus with my headphones on for a while…

Keith was here

Oh, yes, there will be gaming.  The menfolks spent a happy couple of hours blasting away at whateverthehell kinda critters there are in Condemned II: Bloodshot and there was also Halo 3.  Keith produced four chocolate croissants, the mac and cheese was reduced in volume, and then we watched The Mummy – which was great fun, there are a couple of really funny scenes in it and the effects were pretty damned good.

It’s thundering and lightning here, which is quite unusual.  What is more unusual is that it is continuining.  Normally we get one big clap and then nothing, but it has been grumbling for about three quarters of an hour now.  Over to the east it’s quite grim and dark.

Whoa!  A huge flash, but it took 18 seconds for the sound to get here, so that was a fair piece away.  I love this kitchen.  I think when I own my own home again, I’m going to have a breakfast nook….

False Creek & home again.

I now know how to get to False Creek by bus.  The “Spit” yesterday (Spits being gatherings of Dunnett fans) was at Monk McQueens on False Creek,  a restaurant I’ve never been too. The service was sort of the standard Vancouver crabby – but the food was good and the view and company very pleasant.  The husbands don’t usually come along – most middle aged men will take a quick one in the ear before spending the afternoon with a bunch of strong willed middle aged women – but one did and he definitely was no wallflower.  AND I got a free button (Gelis is my heroine) which is pretty funny…. but it would only be funny and make sense for you if any of you had read the books. I ate oysters and drank draft Russell’s while the sun moved.  (Yes, technically everything is moving, and the earth is rotating around the sun).

Got a lift home, thank you Ingrid, and then finished Band of Brothers and watched the most recent episode of BSG.  Once again, operating on the theory that you just can’t have enough sleep, I went to bed early.

Waffles with strawberries and sausage for breakfast; barbecued pork chops, new potatoes with chives and sour cream, and fresh asparagus for dinner last night.

We expect to see Keith turn up some time today; apparently he went canoeing yesterday.

I’ve moved the strawberry plants the Luddite gave me to the front stairs, where they will get more light. Although he’s from south London originally, when he’s larding it on thick he goes pure Yorkshire and says things like Look-sure-ee, lass! which never fails to crack me up.  I think it’s a Look-sure-ee that I’ve got strawberry plants on my front stairs.

Today, puttering and laundry and at least one song stuck in Songwriter.  I’ve got some short ones… at this point anything would do.  Of course, the most recent one is Willie P’s Lament.  It’s only a minute long, in its current configuration; I’m quite fond of it. I just wish I could play it and simultaneously get the fretboard fingering, the picking, and the intonation solid.  I’m definitely working on the ‘best two out of three’ theory but I suppose I shouldn’t be too hard on myself, I only wrote it a couple of weeks ago and I haven’t been practicing much.  It was fun practicing it on Wreck Beach earlier – all I can say is my next instrument will be even lighter than a mandolin.

hot hot hot

By noon yesterday it was so hot in the house that I started thinking that it’s gonna be a very hot summer, and time to get a small window fan. By about two, I was sitting with Mike in the Mustang – top down, of course – heading over to Wreck Beach, which was full but not packed, if you know what I mean. Mike brought a UV blocking cabana (made for Spalding, it weighs less than a pound and keeps the sun off ver’ nicely) and then it was homemade music, surf, kids laughing, startlingly vast gusts of fattie smoke, a nice breeze which died around 4 pm, and the goddamned RCMP creeping up and down the beach several times, forcing me to hide my beer, the bastards. Yes, I know, what am I doing drinking on the beach? Well, it’s all part of the ambience. I even went in the water. Twice. The first time I thought that somebody was stabbing me in the feet with icy knives; the second time, basically just to make sure that I hadn’t had a physical hallucination, the icy knives were stabbing in all directions up to my navel. Don’t think I would have done well in Bastogne. Mike and I conversed about a number of things, but it was not a day for heavy conversation.

Left the beach to hook up with the kids to watch Narnia II, but (oh look, Gizmo is sniffing the barbecue in a hopeful way) unfortunately the 7:20 was sold out, so I bought them a snack and Keith headed out to my place with one of my parcels and I hung out with Katie briefly and then headed home.

Left the beach – I laugh to see that effort compressed into three words. I have been climbing a lot of stairs lately because I changed my route to work a bit, so I’m actually in good shape to climb stairs. I just couldn’t because of how hot I was. I stopped five times on the way up those 375 stairs (normally I stop once); but there were people skinnier and younger than me doing the same, so I didn’t feel bad. One middle aged guy (I must have been VERY red) asked me if I was okay and I just nodded. I didn’t push; I just climbed when I could. Got a shuttle bus almost instantly, then made the Big Mistake of the day and got on the 41 instead of the 25. The bus, which was driven by a woman in the first grip of a manic episode (I wish I was exaggerating) went mechanical (speedometer, a no go item), so I get tossed off my nice comfy seat and forced to stand in the blasting heat for twenty minutes until the replacement bus came, which was not a replacement bus, but just the next bus, which already had standees. That’s when things seriously fell apart. It took ten minutes of haranguing on the part of the bus driver (another female, this one justifiably testy but quite sane) to get everybody onto the bus – I lost sight of my bags – and every goddamned stop was accompanied by yelling to allow people on and off the bus. When I hit Joyce Station I learned that the movie was sold out (I was late anyway) and that’s when I met up with the kids (they appeared just as I pushed the door open at the mall, a wonderful feeling) and fed them a snack.

The sun (yes, the sun, I only had two beers) having had a wicked effect on me, I collapsed. Really, I should have had a shower first, but the way things have been going I figured the only way to make sure I actually wash my sheets today is by bringing the beach home with me. Out of courtesy to the other people who use the laundry machines I’m going to shake them out off the back deck first.

My back feels great. I like the sun. I even like moderate amounts of exercise. But the best part is coming home and thinking that I’ve lost a dress size off my butt from the exfoliation. I really love the beach.