Author: Allegra

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

Happy

I’ve been working on comedy routines.  The current one is “what happens when my inner Buddha meets my inner Hitler”  (hint, Buddha doesn’t always keep his teeth) and the inner Gord.  I am having lots of fun, as Gord just said something entertaining which I need to write down.

I’m off to visit the Luddite tonight and have food with him.  I tried to get him to cook for me but he made grim pronouncements about burning things so I think we’re going for Chinese.  It’s certainly a treat to meet somebody more optimistic than I am.
There’s another goddamned foot of snow on the hill here.  I am sure the ski operators are peeing their snowpants with glee but I had to heave a bundle buggy full of crockpot and crockery and food through it both ways yesterday.  I had to stop about three times coming back up the hill and check my pulse to make sure I was in the right zone for my fitness level.

Right now I am very happy.  I know that what I am about to describe will sound like the third circle of hell to some people, but my girlfriend Tammy phoned last night and we spent TWO HOURS on the phone, role-playing ‘difficult conversations with people we love’.  Tammy’s got more training in this than I do, so I’d say, blah blah need to talk to you about something are you ready to hear it, and she’d say.  Yeah.

So I’d say my thing, and she’d say, “You’re not quite getting it.  You need to only talk about one thing.”

“It is only one thing.”

“No, it’s two.  This and this.”

And I’d pout, and try again.

“You’re still trying to talk about two things at once.”

“F)ck, no I’m not!!”

“Yes you are.  There’s this… and there’s this.  Two separate issues.  You have to respect the person you’re talking to by only dealing with one issue, that you’ve thought through, at one time.”

“AAAAAAAAAAARgh.”  (More briefing?  More briefing.)
She’s right of course. I almost had the hang of one corner of it by the time we signed off.  And this morning I’m happy, because as I prepare for a ‘difficult conversation with someone I love’ I’m a little closer to getting my half of it right.  Is it a particular person?  A particular conversation?  Nope.  It’s just life.  Be prepared – and if you can’t be prepared, be present.

Cooking

Here I am cooking lunch for I don’t know how many people.  I don’t know how many because the cafeteria is closed today but there will still be people at work.  I told all my lunch buddies that I’m cooking today, but I bet they all packed lunches because, well, they’re engineering staff and they’re like that.
Anyway it’s parsnips pan fried in butter, basmati rice, an abbreviated sort of salad, and crockpot chicken thighs with basil, pepper, kashmiri red pepper, celery salt, two cloves of garlic, a bay leaf, and about a quarter teaspoon of cardamom.  The smell in here is enough to turn your salivary glands into Niagara Falls.

Now I have to figure out how to get it down the freaking hill without breaking anything.  I am not stupid, I’ll come up with something.

Heading home

I will be heading home this morning.  The break was very restful and I’m feeling a little bit more optimistic than I was when I ventured over here on Saturday.  Work will be very busy, but I’m actually looking forward to it.

I’m hoping Kopper saved me some turducken, she said there was leftovers…

Three movies.

OMG I just say On Her Majesty’s Secret Service for the first time. I didn’t realize that George Lazenby stepped in when Sean Connery bailed after the second Bond. Basically, my review equals a thumbs up and I want to see it again eventually – Diana Rigg is radiant. George just looks (inner lawyer has s-canned that comment) uh, can’t say that either. How about he’s maler than Roger Moore and less male than Timothy Dalton. Nothing, of course, outmales Sean Connery. I trust this clears things up.

Also saw Director’s Cut of Blade Runner.

The soundtrack is like an animal at bay; the colours have been refreshed and cleansed, leaving the movie still dark but with dreamlike spots of brightness. They got rid of that cornball ending, the movie makes more narrative sense and the performances are still riveting. About half an hour into the movie you stop saying – and there’s another and another and another SF / anime trope. It’s like a waterfall of tropes. It’s a visually sumptuous brainstretcher of a film.
Also saw All The Real Girls.

Picture every undereducated duckwit you ever met. Colour him ‘asshole’. Watch him struggle – usually without success – to become a better person. Nobody dies and he smartens up about one quarter of one percent. Still, it’s progress, right?

In a couple of places, this movie made me so mad, that I had to chase down the source of this unreasonable burst of biliousness. After a brief cogitation, I figured out what made me so irritable and calmed down. I’m not married any more, I’m not married any more. I never have to be mad again if I choose not to be. I’m sure I will be, especially when I’m driving, or back seat driving, but really, I don’t have to experience all the wackiness of hormones and digestion that goes with being mad. It was quite a thought provoking movie. It made me think a lot about female stupidity and male abuse.

Merry Christmas movie reviews

It’s 4 in the morning…. I napped so much yesterday that I can no longer sleep. So now I’m up, and while I’m here I might as well review Black Snake Moan.

Movie about redemption where nobody gets killed?  Yes there is some violence.   Sign me up.  Christina Ricci gives a performance somewhere between possessed and mesmeric (and she don’t wear too much clothes)  and Samuel L Jackson is great, and they do their own singing, and how can I as a Unitardarian not like a movie in which Christina Ricci sings a hymn “This Little Light of Mine”? (which is in Singing the Living Tradition, the UU hymnal).  The soundtrack is uniformly excellent.
Jeff and Andrew I also watched two fifths of Spike Lee’s She Hate Me but he turned it off when I got up and walked out the room.  Lee, in my view, doesn’t leaven his bitterness with enough humour, and when he does use humour it’s not much fun.  He keeps making peep peep noises about not hating women and being misinterpreted but I don’t f2cking buy it. The hell of it is I love Spike’s visual style and economy and pacing and music – but I can’t swallow the bile.  The best part of the movie was watching the credits and seeing SO many talented actors on the playbill – and getting hopeful.  Great opening credit sequence too.  I just can’t buy the rich gorgeous lesbians paying for sex to have a baby thing.  Any group of women that smart should be able to come up with a plan for finding babydaddies that doesn’t involve spending money.  Hell, I’m not that smart and I could do it.  If you’re going to do a movie about how the good guy always gets screwed, try not to make the motifs quite so obvious.

Merry Christmas!  May the transcendent wonder of a new life infuse your being.  And if you’re not a transcendent wonder kind of person, have a good day filled with friends, food and family.

Sundry and various

Check out the Robot Chicken video about how they make their characters…. it’s cool! The rest of the site has some, uh, good parts too.

OMG exploding pies. Well, not so much.

I don’t feel competent to explain WHY I don’t like this story, but I sure don’t.

All of the movie “Who Killed the Electric Car.”

Growing the finks of tomorrow, today.

$14 for a cup of coffee?

Yecch.

Merry Christmas everybody. 

Sun Room

It is so beautiful in the sun room here. There are birds hopping around and the gas fireplace pouring heat out onto my feet.  And pOp said, look, a network connection.

There’s a piece of customized stained glass my parents had made to symbolize their love.  Their initials are intertwined (makes me think of that piece of jewellery in Game of Kings – but EVerything reminds me of Dunnett) and the things they think are important are symbolized in the openings between the Celtic knot.  There’s a Tree and a Mortarboard and a pair of Hummingbirds and a Tesseract.

There are juncoes and flickers.

O it’s a beautiful room.

Gotta run, I have to get Keith to the ferry with mOm.

Victoria II

I am currently reading the Happiness Hypothesis by Jonathan Haidt.

It’s an excellent book, and it makes me very happy to be a Unitarian.  Not because the author is, but because the ideas expressed in it are so amazingly and repeatedly Unitarian that the whole bloody book comes off as nothing so much as a strikingly amazing Unitarian sermon or group of sermons. 

Also, LTGW at work keeps saying, “You have to read Cialdini‘s Influence, you have to read Cialdini’s Influence” and now that I’m reading the Happiness Hypothesis I guess I’ll have to because Haidt cites it constantly.

The metahypothesis is that science and emotion don’t have to conflict.  This is actually the big scrap between Faith and Reason right now, or as seen by the religious types, Big Satanic Soulless Violent Freedom Hating Science and Poor Put-upon Faith, or by atheists, Rationality vs. Whiny Ass Crybaby Hyperemotional GodWalloping.

Anyway, I’m havin’ a lovely time laying about reading and hanging with the folks.  Jeff just turned up… I’m going to see if I can get him to run me out to the mall.