Author: Allegra

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

What news?

I learned last night that the closing date has been moved in two weeks; it’s now July 15th.

Sandra sent me pics of a fine looking woman sitting in her living room in Syria with two tame hyenas.  Brr. Those things are loony dangerous!  It would be like taming bears, no sane person would do it.  Anyway, I’d repost it but for some reason I could not copy the pic to post.

I am definitely NOT coming to Victoria this weekend, as I suspect I will be heaving crap out of the two sheds this weekend once I hear when is convenient so to do with Paul.

Sigh.  V. happy about Katie still, and why the hell not.

My telus webmail is down.  Normally I wouldn’t mention such a trifle, but I ran a personal ad.  And that’s where all the replies are going, and the Telus minion was both rude and uninformative as to when the webmail will be up again.   Gr.

Rereading Master and Commander as I don’t have any fresh Aubrey/Maturin books.

Today, the photo for my passport, and possibly some of the other paperwork dealt with.

Hey pOp

I read the first 21 pages of St Eve’s charge to the jury in the Black mail and wire fraud trial. What I read was really interesting, although being bird witted I ran out of steam and decided even if I hadn’t read the whole thing it was worth posting the link.

Scroll down until you hit the “Read the instructions to the jury” link.

Katie’s principal read out loud at the graduation that “Katie hopes that her grandparents are proud of her.” I’d say bursting with pride about covers it. Purpose sure is an amazing school.

I don’t have pics because Katie danced off with her camera and Paul drove her home. It was an exceedingly pleasant and low key event. All the speeches were terse, whether off the cuff or scripted, the mike got handed round the room, and of course, the piece de resistance was the two musical teachers singing a Grad Parody of Man of Constant Sorrow, as sung in O Brother Where Art Thou.

Meshugas after I got home – the front door exit lever was broken. You could open it from the outside with the pass card but not from the inside with the lever. This freaked the hell out of Katie, Paul and Suzanne; Paul’s comment was that it was a fire hazard and needed to be corrected immediately. I had already stuck the after hours emergency number in my cell phone… so I left a message and by the time the folks left the door had been fixed. I may have had nothing to do with it but it certainly argues that the building is being properly maintained.
Oh, also pOp you should be hearing from Katie shortly, something about the Spike Jones and the City Slickers tape being trashed and how much she would really appreciate another one. I found some on the internet and Katie got all gooey eyed about it.

Gosh, you should have seen her, a vision in Gothic Black. Dax looked sharp too. I would have killed to have worn the shoes Suzanne did; extra high topped black and white sneakers with gel insoles. yowza. The venue was STUNNING, the mood electrically happy but mellow, the food rocked and did I mention the speeches were short? All in all a truly successful evening. Then we came back here and some of us drank beer (that would be me and Paul) and some of us drank Baja Rosa (that would be Katie, who was showing signs of snogging the entire thing, and Suzanne and Dax). And we listened to Man of Constant Sorrow from the soundtrack, and Bob Dylan, and Mika, and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs ang Peggy Lee and Spike Jones and we watched the Triumph motorcycle ad. I mean, gather round the fire, folks.

Did I mention my bundle buggy spectacularly exploded as I was exiting the 135 bus at Hastings and Willingdon today? I got down on my hands and knees and grabbed all the washers and the spring, which had sproinged, as springs do, and then spent an unhappy five minutes crawling about on the sidewalk jamming it back together and wishing I had some lockwire. (Subsequent analysis by Paul caused him to exclaim that I should have asked for the fat stuff, not the skinny lockwire, and subsequent subsequent analysis caused him to say it really needed a cotter pin anyways.) We only had three feet of the skinny stuff, which isn’t enough for otherwise stabilizing it. I will have to get by without it for a while, I sure don’t want to go through that again although I did keep my head at the time and actually did a quick count on the other side to make sure I had all the washers. Do I sound absurdly proud of myself? Good.
I got a picture of Daxus wearing my fake snake coat. He’s standing under an exit sign. V. cute.

Sleep

I knew that Katie’s boyfriend’s court date was Monday, but apparently with the move (Katie and her mom in common-law are moving again) and the Grad and everything it slipped everybody’s mind, so nobody went to court.  To bring everybody up to date, Dax laid a beating on Katie for her birthday last year.  This is a matter of established fact and he already entered a guilty plea, so it’s not like I’m jumping the guilty until proven innocent gun.  The court date has now been set for the 3rd of July.  I am perhaps alone in the family in wishing this were over?

Grad tonight.  Weather right now is mixed wind and sun with your big fluffy clouds.

I slept about 12 hours yesterday; I suspect I’m trying to throw off a bug.  I bailed on Jericho – I just slept and slept.
Anybody who wants to see a very cute baby skunk, click here.

Click here, scroll down until you see Eli

Then contemplate the dog’s face for a while.  All hail the beedogs!

Eli’s expression perfectly matches how I feel right now.

From the Be Careful What You Wish For Department, I had a tremendous urge to hear a Cars tune or two a couple of nights ago, and last night I got about an hour’s worth at Elly’s.  I now have the crunching opening guitar riff of Good Times Roll jammed in my head.

Also listened to Alice in Chains Jar of Flies.  It is an annoying, and yet somehow deeply satisfying album.  ALSO and this was the big win of the evening in terms of auralstim, the EP from around the same time called Sap.  Wonderful harmonies, tunes like a drunk tripping downstairs in terms of structure, and oh, the crunchy, crunchy guitars.  How I like the sound, even if the lyrics are uninspired.  Can’t have everything.  I mean, I write a mean tune, but can I sing it?  Which reminds me, time to pick the mando up again. A mandolin can’t tell you to shut up, unless, of course, somebody else is trying to beat your head in with it.

Wandering the West End

Went to Doug and Elly’s a bit early yesterday; they are currently making a documentary called a day in the life of Uncle Doug and Aunt Elly, and I wish they were making it for me because it sounds hilarious.  Essentially it’s an ADVERTISEMENT; they want some people to come and visit them so instead of bugging THEM about it, they are going to make their apartment seem so unbelievably attractive to the kids that they’ll come out to Vancouver just to get the kids to shut up.

Anyway the earlyness meant I had 90 minutes to stooge around so I got a pedicure; it wasn’t as nice as the last one and I now have a big hole in my foot where none ought to be, but it doesn’t hurt much and she did actually pay attention to me when I asked her NOT to trim my big toenails down as much as she was planning (or is that planing?)  to.  This is what is known as Too Much Information, or TMI.  But dammit, my feet are important, at least to me.  They are a big chunk of my operational effectiveness, I’ll have you know.

Doug made three cheese hot pepper salami pizza which was awesome, and crantinis (I only had one, as the first one hit like  an a-bomb.  My tolerance for alcohol has completely evaporated this summer…. getting old I guess.)

Patricia’s coming up the hill for lunch so I have about two hours to clean up after the kids…. errrr….. and thaw things and cook.  Damn, I’m lazy!  I only just got up!

Exciting things are happening in my life.  It’s wonderful.

Brilliant Starbucks review

Kyle Darbyson, who writes for vancouver.com, has this to say about Starbucks.  I post this in fond memory of Dr. Filk, who will undoubtedly concur with every word.

Howard Schultz has built his java empire on a foundation of warm interiors, canned music and surly service from condescending and over-pierced kids.  He forgot to include good coffee.  With a flavour best described as “burnt mop water”, the Starbuck blend is bland, harsh, tart, sour and tepid all at once.

The generic interior was a study in corporate focus-group cool, with muted hues of brown and beige matching perfectly with the day old spills and crumbs that covered most surfaces.  Mix in some James Blunt and the contstant din of coffee orders more complex than driving directions in Richmond and you’ve got one of the least enjoyable coffee drinking experiences possible.

With my apologies to those I know who actually work at Starbucks…..

Well, that was fast

Joined Crackbook yesterday around 4 o’clock and I have 17 friends already, all of whom I have met in real time BUT if you took out my coworkers I’d be friendless as a Grandview Highway squeegee kid.  I’m trying to get at least one virtual facebook person (hopefully the amazing dude in Belize) by the end of the week.  Collect them all.  I’m counting down to the first p!ss!ng match, personally, ah one, and ah two.
Keith is here, me happy.  Katie will come by to work on homework later on today.  Around 4 I’m going over to L.E.’s place to hang… SO looking forward to it, she has lots of lovely family news and will be doing her one woman show in Toronto (the Joseph Workman theatre…) in September, yahoo.  She’s my recovery Gurutrix.

Much alcohol

Poor Burnt and PhD had SOOOO much alcohol left over from their wedding that they threw a party to get rid of it.  I made myself one appletini, but mostly I stuck to the Rum Punch, which was superb.  I stopped drinking early in the evening, but I didn’t leave early enough – I got to Production Way half an hour after the last bus.

I’m thinking, erm, doesn’t look good, but I’ve memorized the Bonny’s Taxi number and honest to Murgatroyd, the taxi came around the corner just as I came up from Lougheed to stand where I could be easily seen. I called for a taxi at 1 on the nose and was in the door at 1:13; I was somewhat perturbed to see that the taxi driver had ditched another call to pick me up.  I suspect my tipping habits have stood me in good stead with the drivers.  I’ve only failed to tip once in ten years, and he deserved a tip alright, the tip of my boot.
Sigh.  Wish I’d taken my makeup off before I crashed; fortunately the massage oil worked great at sluicing it off this morning.  I did wear the flight suit and Scary Clown immediately asked if I was jumping out of an airplane tonight as soon as I showed up.  Wise ass.  All was forgiven later as we (me, one of LTGW’s nephews and Shorn) drifted over to Scary’s apartment to admire his artwork and for him to check if his site was down (I told him it had been earlier, but it wasn’t, it was just really freaking slow).  I was waiting for the reaction shots of the guys who hadn’t been there before and was not disappointed….Shorn looked around and said, “How many computers do you HAVE?” plaintively.

I had one of those party experiences where virtually wherever I was standing or sitting, I was in someone’s way.  Finally I tried to sit as far away from everybody as I could and just kibitzed…  it was fun in a low key way.  Myself and a coworker traded sad stories about having teenagers, and it was all very pleasant.
Today I think I’m finally caught up on laundry, so I’m going to lie back down with Lucky Jack Aubrey, who’s just been sprung from a French pokey by his best friend’s squeeze (also his cousin in law), and take up the 7th book, Ionian Mission.  At least Stephen and Diana are finally married now.  I mean, he’s chased her across the ends of the earth at this point.

Later, off to see my Livejournal pal….It’s bucketing rain, think I’ll break down and take my brolly.

wandering around town….

Poked my head into the New West library to pick up the next two books in the Aubrey/Maturin photo-15.jpgseries; purchased soy sauce (how is it I haven’t purchased it earlier???) and other comestibles including items which will make the young’uns happy, also beer, also picked up a Georgia Straight and a very satisfactory haircut both in terms of the gossip quotient and the results; also satisfactory in that the first words out of Shelene’s mouth were “Girl, you’ve lost a ton of weight,” which of course made me crack up.  I’m thinking I should cruise down to the office and weigh myself, I can’t trust the scale I’ve got here….  Now all I have to do is piles of laundry and wait for 7 o’clock to roll around so I can get dressed for a party.   Part of me wants to get entirely dolled up (plucked eyebrows….MASCARA!) but the sober portion of my personality has said, “They are engineers – if they do notice it would only be to make fun of you for taking the trouble.”  Sad, but I think true.  So I won’t wear the outfit I bought for Katie’s grad, but I will wear something comfy.  Maybe that flight suit?
I had amazing bus luck today.  I never had to wait more than 5 minutes.  On the way back I had a ‘brrrrr’ experience; the lad sitting across from me on the 145 was a DEAD RINGER FOR STEPHEN HARPER, right down to the icy blue eyes and man boobs.  The poor kid.

I can’t stop smiling.  I don’t know what’s wrong with me…. or what’s right with me.  Subjects were removed on the house; looks like the deal is a go.  Something may go wrong between now and the end of July but I’m good with everything.  I will roll with whatever comes my way.

Zeek! has been to the vet, courtesy of Paul, and he has a lesion on his chin which Paul got cream for and which seems to be working.  Zeek! and Kira appear to be otherwise happy and healthy and adjusting to the new place okay.

I light a candle for all my friends, who have stood by me in a lot of ways, not all of them readily apparent, while I’m going through the transition.  I feel so blessed, so borne up by the good wishes of those who love me, that it’s getting increasingly easy to feel positive, stay positive, and not be so easily moved to anger and irritation all the time.  My current emotional state reminds me of how I felt when I was expecting the kids; occasionally worried, but mostly, thanks to the hormones, feeling almost imperturbably happy and expectant.  The world’s an awesome place.

And I’m practicing mando at least an hour a day.  My guitar is bitching me out from its corner…. pick me up YOU!

I’m going to see a gal from a recreational group I was a member of for a brief while a couple of years back.  She and I are on Livejournal together and her relationship of 27 years busted up under much the same circumstances as mine.  We will get together tomorrow and compare notes, hopefully with buckets of tea and much self-deprecating laughter.  I am SO looking forward to it.  One of my requirements of myself is to quit hanging around with male engineering types who are fifteen years my junior and start hanging out more with sympatico women my own age.  My  visit with Gail made me realize that I am hungering for circumstances under which my childbearing and my middleagedness and my life experiences will be grist for the mill, not something to be shrugged off.  I want to own my life, not have to make excuses for it all the f(cking time.  Although I can’t make excuses for being happy.  Because I am.  I can walk around naked in my apartment!  Who couldn’t be happy about that!?  (Okay, there are three of my regular blog readers who just threw their hands in front of their eyes, but there are also two at least who are thinking other, possibly less critical thotz…)… Oh, and I saw Anne McLeod, one of the revered church elders, in the Safeway in New West today.  It was good to see her!