Author: Allegra

Last night I dreamed that somebody I wouldn’t want to live with showed up at my new house with a truckful of unpacked stuff and then started to complain to passersby that “I had changed” when I said No Way. “I’ll just move all my things into the attic”. Uh, no you won’t.

Sigh. I had to call Paul on the cel phone and let him deal with it. We call this practice “Hiding behind each other’s skirts” when we have a social situation that one of us can deal with and the other one can’t.

Very useful.

Kira is trying to kill an inanimate object. Maybe she should go outside and hunt something.

Katie’s conquest of technology continues apace. Paul said he didn’t want the MP3 player so I got it. Essentially that means Kate got it, because even though I loaded it up with my favourite playlist, she figured out how to get her own music on it, so I’m not taking it to work today. I just handed it back to her and said, uh, yeah, well I don’t want it back until I have a better playlist because I don’t want to listen to Sandstorm by Da Rude. Okay, maybe I do, but it’s one of those things you don’t talk about in public. As for the rest of the songs, wouldn’t you just cry to learn that she put MY tune, Crazymaking Boy, on the playa (You are… my hero from a fable, my supper on the table… etc) and played it for her swain and her swain’s mum last night. Said swain opined That’s Not Your Mom and Katie said, for true it is. Then he listened to it twice. The way to a mom’s heart, et.f.cet.

Keith is making coffee, like the young godling he is. My routine is now half assembled … the young Frankenstein of modern humour. Run…! Run for your very wits!

Pic is some random animal. John’s bike is being recalcitrant. Young love is being radiant. Goofy, but radiant. Bike and Spuffy are being pretty. My physical condition is being difficult. Paul is being wonderful.

Throw me… throw me a lifeline, throw me a lifeline, right now. x 2

My beauty and my ugliness they went for a ride

Beauty said to Ugly baby I gotta drive

Ugly said to Beauty well I don’t mind that

Hit Beauty in the head with a big ol’ baseball bat

Chorus

Operator operator do I really need you

Do I need you to put me through?

Do I need you to open up a line

Do I need you to show me a sign?

Show me, show me a lifeline, throw me a lifeline, right now X 2

You’re doing me a favour; now, when did you decide to keep your mouth shut and your arms out wide? You could be complaining but you just let it slide… you’re the reason I came back to life after I died.

Chorus & fade.

One of the things I’ve noticed about getting older is that I have to have my fun in smaller and smaller doses. I am still battling with a migraine but there’s no headache – just a host of other unpleasant symptoms.

When I got up to make my tea I realized that oobleck (I mean dense wet snow) is falling from the sky, and screamed. Paul immediately came to my rescue and comforted me by saying that it was not staying on the ground.

The picture is of a Colobus monkey delivered by C-section in a zoo incubator. She’s cuddling a stuffed animal. The next picture is a tiger playing in snow at a zoo.

Three things about Japanese Martial Arts tournaments:

Digital cameras;

Lots and lots and lots and lots of medals;

Pocky. Lots and lots and lots and lots of Pocky. “We survived on bottled water and Pocky.” So says Keith, and he brought three boxes home to prove it.

Keith was volunteering at the Sato Cup – scoreboards etc….

Kung Fu guys showed up and did Kung Fu Dancing to really loud Techno music.

I went home sick yesterday, collapsed for a couple of hours, got up, forced myself to eat something, and then lay awake all night listening to my insides creaking and muttering like a ship’s rigging. I think my stomach valve sealed itself shut again. I had to lie on my stomach for a couple of hours to try and encourage my innards to be a little more cooperative. I am going to be very cautious about what I eat today, I think. The tingling and the numbness have pretty much stopped, and the flashies, which is why I can post, but the whole “Life as We Know It has No Meaning and Why Don’t You Just Fling Yourself From the Iron Workers Memorial” feeling has not stopped. The fact that I know it’s an artefact of my brain chemistry (yet another migraine expressing itself) doesn’t help. The thing that scared me most yesterday was the dizzy spell, Paul thinks it’s flu. I dunno.

Bought Paul an MP3 player for Valentines. He can use it at work or run with it; I am hoping it will cheer him up.

I light a candle for all the people who are breaking up right now.

I had yet another snuggly dream last night. The person I dreamed about is about as snuggly as a moray eel so it was an odd sensation; even in the dream you’re thinking (Neo style) ‘Whoa!’

Showcase next Friday. Nobody has their sets together. Especially not me.

Strange tweezer teeth, the ability to eat prey in nano-seconds, and hoowee, check out that schnozz. Ladies and Gentlemen, the Star Nosed Mole.

I am very happy to report that the non boyfriend has been upgraded to boyfriend but that doesn’t mean what you think it does, and that Katie appears to have figured out how to walk independent of the force of gravity.

I am equally happy to report that Keith has a job interview today for a serious job making serious money, and even if he doesn’t get the job he could use the interview experience.

Paul’s on his way home from work …. I only just got up. So it’s blog, drag comb through hair, brush teeth and fly out the door. Class last night was great, other people’s sets are starting to gel nicely. As for me….I bought chocolate croissants, my response to anything like stress. I am so glad it’s Friday, this was a pretty emotional week at work. As in, just holding it in.

This line deleted, about a nice dream I had last night. I’ll take cuddles, even if they’re the product of my fitfully operating brain chemistry.

Brooke’s mater and pater made it into the Georgia Straight yesterday. Very nice haircut…. oh yeah and the article is cool too.

Forgot to mention, mOm sent me a movie file of a penguin apparently dancing to techno. God, Kira, I know you’re hungry but jamming your bewhiskered phyz into my ear and screeching is not appropriate right now. Anyway, my mother is getting much more sophisticated about sending me stuff. It’s almost always stuff I haven’t seen and almost 100 percent stuff I want to see. Thanks mOm! I’d post or link it if I knew how or where to find it….

If you know about Hammy Hamster, I don’t have to ‘splain anything. If you don’t, ‘splanations would be pointless, maybe even actively painful. Sigh.

For Immediate Release

Infectious Tapioca has been identified as an immediate hazard to navigation in Vancouver and the GVRD. Symptoms include perseverative humming, mild cursing, inability to concentrate, unconvincing threats of self harm and severe thrumps.Appetite may increase to the point where non food items are ingested; keep your hands and feet away from the face of anyone so afflicted.

If you come in contact with someone with the eruptive stage of Infectious Tapioca, after you stop laughing and pointing, you should back away slowly and avoid the use of microwave ovens, and probably radar installations just to be on the safe side.

Role playing games and Bing Crosby are strongly contraindicated as palliative measures; Mahler and Cribbage seem to assist in some cases.

Do not listen to anything that a person afflicted with Infectious Tapioca may say and try to prevent them from playing with their food, although this may be difficult seeing as how you will not want to get too close to the business end.

May the Goddess have mercy on us all.

My Tapioca song is now so firmly lodged in Brooke that her normal thought processes, a concept fit to frighten us all, are being interfered with. So I thought I would riff on the notion a little.

Baby bears : Two little polar bears born at the zoo in Rostock, northern Germany, are presented to the public. (AFP/DDP/Danny Gohlke)

Big shout out to Glen, who has the Buddha nature

and Katie, who is trying to finish her English course and is having a bit of a hard time

and Robin and Cari, who used to threaten to kill Katie but have since decided to go to Katie’s school and are apparently straightening out their lives, which I have to assume is true since I have actually seen them and invited them into my house to clean their shoes off and they appear to not be threatening and at least one of them has put on weight, which is a good sign in some circumstances

and my Dad, for holding up his corner of the edifice of society, sometimes at extreme personal cost

and my Mom, whose dental surgery stitches come out on Wednesday

and my boss, for frequently acting like the only sane adult within earshot

and Keith, for being consistently entertaining and for COFFEE

and Paul, who is being extra snuggly

and Tori for her amazing art

and Mike, for being Mike (I don’t have the vocabulary to list all the reasons)

and Brother James for the phone which is working great, thanks

and John for his reading from Neal Stephenson’s doorstopper last night (the scene from the carriage ride in the snow, if anybody cares)

and Tom and Peggy of COURSE

and Brooke for offering the loan of sundry DVD’s

and our across the alley neighbours for being such a delight

and the rosemary bush out front, which is turning into a household god; what else blooms in January? And the blooms are such a pretty colour.

In a reverie between bouts of sleep Londo and Sarah Michelle Gellar meet on Babylon 5 and Londo congratulates her as if she’s Buffy, and she leans forward very annoyed and says “My name is Sarah Michelle Gellar” and Londo says, “Yes, and you’re married to Freddie Prinze Jr; I’ll be polite and not mention the divorce. My dear lady, we are all actors. Right now, you’re a human being offended at being mistaken for an actor. Believe me, it could be worse…”

Then I said I can hardly wait for bike and spuffy to do the wild thing, and realized I’m probably still too tired to talk.

I looked all over the inertnet for this and couldn’t find it, so I’m posting it (as I remember it). I think this is really cute.

The Jig of the One Celled Organizms

A paranoid paramecium
Went out one day for a stroll
And saw his friend amoeba
Contracting his vacuole
He said, now friend Amoeba –
Just what is eating you?
“It’s a mean old ‘moeba eater!
So tell me what to do!”

You just flick out your flagellum
and pump your plasma gel
stomp your pseudopodium as
You kick him all to hell
Your organelles work overtime
Your ectoplasm too
Just start binary fission
and he’ll just

get

half

of

you!

Debuted the Tapioca song last night; very much enjoyed doing that. Wrote another song “Lifeline”. When I emerge from the grip of my hormones I’ll blog some more.

2019 says I recorded Lifeline, here it is.

Our DVD player is having a Buffyverse induced Near Death Experience. Must Get Cleaner.

I’ll keep this short as I am working on a migraine and the screen is yelling at me to go away. Yet more Buffy; we watched “Crush” and the five of us (John had just got back from “Night and Gay” with the VLGC) delighted in the dialogue, which is pretty funny. James Marsters is not much of an actor, but that doesn’t prevent you from staring at him.

Paul and Keith and I vacuumed and carpet cleaned yesterday because the living room carpet was disGUSTing. Then the boys rearranged the furniture. As we have now given up on the notion that we are pretending we don’t watch TV (and we still don’t have cable) the chairs in the room now look at the TV, which is sitting in the fireplace (which doesn’t work because we’d have to spend an awful lot of money to get it to code). I like the image of a tv sitting in a fireplace. Suits me, somehow.

One of the benefits of the furniture rearrangement is that the living room now has enough space for Keith to do kata in, which he is doing; Kira just skulked off in disgust as he is bounding about punching the air and Kira is not at all convinced this is safe.

Off to Kinko’s or somesuch today to photocopy the Glorious Nosebleed.

Paul’s off to work.

I should find some other domestic project to do before I take off; the living room is making me feel all cheerful.

Rob and LJ over for supper last night. Everybody is in really good shape and we had a fine time.