Author: Allegra

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

A turtle that does tricks?

I saw the video on CNN.com.  It rolls over, plays dead and shakes a claw. A behavioural psychologist spent ten years training the reptile.
When I was a kid we had a tortoise named Torpid.  He did two memorable things.  He shat all over my Mary Poppins Pop-up Book,  and he ran away.  Yes, we put him outside to stretch his legs and he was a bit better at it than we thought.

Big big big shout out to Mike

He picked up the massage table for me…. Me happy!!!!!!  Kopper gets to get pummelled/try it out first, unless somebody sweet talks me into letting them cut ahead in line.

Life is sweet and gorgeous.  I was SINGING TONIGHT.  The teacher (Ms. Taylor, and a sweet little gal she is, too) ACTUALLY TAUGHT ME TO BREATHE better than anybody else who has ever instructed me.  Either that or I actually have something like an attention span and some motivation for a change.  Kopper says she has no rhythm but she was the only one in our section who could bring the last part of this Brazilian Samba Round in on time.  Life is indeed sweet and gorgeous.

What is with the WIND?  It is like blowing a berloody gale up here and the wind is so biting it’s alive.

Outing

I must admit it’s strange to be dating somebody who has zero tea, coffee or alcohol in his house.  If I want to drink something it’s pretty much water, with fizz and without.  As always a date with the Luddite is an adventure in a variety of ways.  This date included two delicious meals and a snack, a poetry recitation (the dog grr el of Les Barker, the Brit Shel Silverstein), one full length movie (Mae West’s delirious She Done Him Wrong); a number of Youtube videos to do with the tramways of Lodz, Poland, including one that’s extremely funny, and others that make Lodz look like the ugliest, oldest and most dirty snow-covered portions of 1970’s Toronto; much in the way of music, mostly contradance bands including Seattle’s KGB (highly recommended) and the US band Notorious, which is so supremely awesome, I’m going to have to buy two copies of it because one is going to go to Dr. Filk, and also an entire best of Grieg album; and me tricking the Luddite into watching the first 20 minutes of the most recent Pride and Prejudice because I promised him it had English country dancing in it; and we almost watched a Joe E Brown movie but it was getting late.

At 1:38 this morning (when I was snoring, quite likely) Katie texted me with the cryptic “I am sacred for myself.”  (read, scared) which of course I didn’t pick up until 11 this morning when I promptly panicked, burst into tears and called Paul.  After about 90 minutes of agony I got hold of her live and calmed down.

Yesterday I spent an arseload of money at Metrotown, as I am SICK OF MY SHOES.  Do you hear me?  SICK OF THEM.  I don’t usually care, but I wanted comfortable flats so I bought two pairs.  Also I didn’t think I had any shoes suitable for contradancing, and I’m going (may Goddess give me strength) on Friday.

Now I’ve rented the Can car and I’m back home and I’m off to put stuff back in my fridge to go bad for Katie to clear out about the time I move out.  Later….

Candle of memory

The Dorothy Dunnett Readers Association (of which I am a semi active sort of chapter member) is frequently hosted by my friend Janet. It is my sorrowful duty to report that her mother Millie, with whom I have had a number of entertaining chats, succumbed to heart failure during breast cancer treatment.  She was an awesome old lady and will be much missed by her large family and circle of friends.  I was talking to her not two months ago.

Love each other while you can.

Dreams

Last night I dreamed that I, my cousin and an unknown accomplice used a passkey to get into a stylish penthouse where we stole …shoes….  why shoes? What about jewellery and money?  I am a lousy thief even in my dreams.  Then she came home and was…. suspicious of these chattering women on her private stairs and like a moron I said, “We were up on the roof garden” and I ditched my bag of incriminating evidence – at the very last minute I had decided to huck some Capezios into my bag – and promptly locked myself in an extremely cold, dank, dark and disgusting room.  The end.

Tonight I’m off to get fed by the Luddite, tomorrow, Tom and Peggy will be feeding me, what bliss.  I like it when the major meal for the next two days is looked after.

You would never be able to tell Katie cleaned my apartment on Monday.  I am a bad, bad puppy. So until I’m off for dinner, it’s cleanin’ time.

Meditations on the bringing of a drug to market

In the marvellous Dorothy Dunnett novel King Hereafter there are a number of set pieces during which our heroine, the radiant, ravishing, self-willed Groa (Ingebjorg) is given an opportunity to participate in the councils of the great.  The men will sit around after supper talking, and drinking, but in moderation and in consideration of their dignity, and will say unbelievably cryptic things and then pause and look at each other like something out of a fricking Ingmar Berman movie.  Our heroine will learn that it behooves one to only have the best information to share with the menfolks or stay silent.

At one point, one of the menfolks says something, and there’s a pause, and somebody else says, “Is that a good thing?” and the response of the king is to say “It’s an interesting thing,” and then there’s another one of these massive, borborygmic pauses.

Such is my emotion on learning that there’s this thing on the internet (from University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (2008, January 9)). Reversal Of Alzheimer’s Symptoms Within Minutes In Human Study. about immediate amelioration of Alzheimer symptoms – on one person!  One person?  Is it a good thing?  Possibly.  It’s an interesting thing, and that’s because we all imagine our deaths, and spending 10 or 15 years cuckoo and non-participatory and wacky-tacka aforehand is not how most of us want to go, however often and with however much fear we may foresee it.  Supposing this stuff works?  They jam some stuff in your cerebrospinal fluid, and it either hoovers up the bad crap that is preventing your brain from working properly and actually spits it out in a format that your body’s clean up crew can deal with, or it kicks it out of where it’s binding to, or does something else I can’t imagine or describe.  Further suppose they figure out a way of getting it into you that doesn’t involve making holes in your spine, always a task fraught with hazard.  Interestingly enough it’s an offlabel use of an existing drug, etanercept.  Man, there are so many offlabel uses for so many drugs.  Some of them are downright criminal and ought to be dealt with summarily, but others should receive placid encouragement.  Is this application of etanercept such a case, or is it just another bunch of goddamned carnies with a stake in the outcome beating on the side of a barrel?  Time will tell.
Oh, and I watched the first 2/3rds of Hot Fuzz tonight.  I couldn’t stand to watch all of it, as the first part of the movie was delightful, and the last third of carnage was not…. at least to my view.  I’m dreffle tired of 25 minute shootouts, although I really liked the shootout in 3:10 to Yuma.