Paul and Keith got home okay from Seattle; Jeff got home from Victoria; Buster is going to the vet today.
Got a lovely comment on my most recent story last night. People like slow burn, it’s a thing.
Author: Allegra
Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.
Poor Buster
I think he has ear mites. His ear stinks godawful and of course he’s cuddling up to me to be friendly what with Jeff being gone and I don’t want to go near him, bleaugh.
I have put away every scrap of my clean laundry! Now I’m going to clean off the desk (Suzanne cleaned it off once already but paper cruft has crept back onto it.) Then I’m going to set up the speakers, and bring the chair back in here, and dejunk some books, and then tidy the kitchen a little.
This is Buster with Mike a couple of years back.
a lovely lazy day
Called friends and family, practiced music for the first time in ages, ran and dried a couple of loads of laundry.
Breakfast is leftovers. Red hot leftovers and tea.
Buster seems to have an injury to one ear. Jeff will look at it when he gets home. I cleaned it and he sat pretty for me while I did it. The stench was unconscionable.
Happy Valentine’s day for those who celebrate. I think I’ve commented enough on it in the past.
Remember the BATTLE OF BILLINGS BRIDGE!
Looks like another nice day
Jeff emailed me late yesterday with an update and advice to ‘let it rip’ as far as giving Buster his can o’ food. So I fed him about an hour ago. I think he ate the entire can in two goes, it was quite remarkable, his slurpy dedication, although he eyed me each time I passed. I made him sit pretty while I said, “What day is it <<<INTERROBANG>>> SUNDAY!” and put the cat dish down.
Wheat toast and a single slice of havarti and lashings of tea to break my fast. I need to do yet another load of laundry, haul the two clean loads upstairs and put them away. This makes me sad because my clean clothes have expanded like land office gits and now even though there are FEWER clothes in those drawers the clean clothes in the return hamper now need more room like Burnaby developers. I had enough room for my clothes and I did laundry with gaiety and pride when I had SAME FLOOR ENSUITE LAUNDRY. I fucking hate being considered lazy when the world isn’t made for me, and I’m whipped for it. But this situation is of my own making, so I don’t get to make that argument. Unless you want to actively think about ableism, which at the moment, I don’t. And then…
My INCONTINENCE UNDERWEAR arrived last night. I’ve been tracking its approach with disquiet, for Apple Delivery said they were going to get it to me by 9 pm Saturday. Some (statistically, most likely a) dude is not getting a Saturday night or very likely a union paycheque to bring me something that will bring positive peace of mind and negative trails of urine. But such watch? the timing?? I’ll have to get out of bed to get it? ooo I did in fact pull the plastic wrapped package off the porch in the dark, having checked less than an hour previously. (This was about 8:10 pm.) Almost a weeks’ worth of underodoureater – must say they are not exactly Wonder Woman like. I fancy I could break the internet, in some tiresome way, if I posted pictures. I quite like the colours and the style. There’s a misty twilight colour but of course I wore the black one first because I only buy beige and navy so I can claim not to wear black all the time (that’s a lie – my tshirts are hella colourful – but a point about my evasively inadequate couture is being made.) Confidential to mOm: (I chickened out and sent it to her directly – the internet’s forever)
This is a poem called the nap
The resonant horn blowing up from Sto:lo tells the city to rejoice in the sun
There’s fog downslope, lain across the last few metres of ground, and tugs avoiding
Each other.
The river is still high. You can sense the irritation of the animals set to breed.
All stark the colours and straight the lines, urgent business.
You want to get out of the woods.
Crows are nesting already. They trim the dogwood, their accustomed favourite
For all its benefits. How it, springing new under their depredations seems to
Visibly laugh as it blooms, and blooms, and most years blooms again,
To mock the crows, even as it roosts them,
an excellent host this morning against a muted sky.
For once the neighbours across the alley aren’t building things. Their silence
Unnerving and unexpected. I myself have been wailing. I fancy myself
Quite expert on the kazoo. If I flatter myself, I’m not asking anyone else to.
All of that’s a relief. I keep trying to attend to things but I see myself
Eating and sleeping a lot, and maybe that’s okay. If I stay awake I’ll be
Angry at the world or angry at myself, and those choices seem so bleak
Asleep is what I’ll be. It will be another beautiful day,
And I’ll sleep through it.
——-
er… this poem is a mood, it’s not real, I have plans for today and I’ve already run the dishes… I have strange ideas in my head again, I want to go back to a previously energized project. I have to fight this sloth – it’s a very big, very claw-y Ground Sloth, and the fact it’s extinct does not appear to be impairing its efforts to impede me! Have at you sir! Ow! I can’t continue to pretend I’m blogging, if that indeed is the best description of this onanistic activity, when I’m being assailed by a Ground Sloth the size of a mini bus and fucksticks did I mention his claws already because that really should be close to the top of the in box if you know what I mean, okay, bailing now, hope this fucker doesn’t show up in your reality because he went through a custom door frame like it was fucking balsa wood and fucker left two wheelbarrows of shit wish I was kidding in the house already. Being in confined spaces makes him shit, okay great I feel like Chuck Darwin now.
er… I’m not actually floridly psychotic now I was just riffing on how easy it is for a person with ADD to be seduced by another project. Why, what did you think I was doing?
feetsball
pOp and brO are going to watch the pinnacle of sportsball this weekend, yup Jeff is going to Victoria this am and will be back Mondayish. Just a reminder that most sports fans are still reeling that the Beagles, Bugles, Bungles and Bangles (as the Cincinnati Bengals are variously and humourously called) were never expected to get this far…
One little kudo this morning. I’ve been plugging away on stories a couple hundred words at a time. Very close to being finished Mary’s letter, hope to mail it today.
this dress, which I bought about ten years ago is now so full of holes and so washed out that I can only wear it as a housedress, is still one of my favourites. I do like cotton knit as a something to make garments from.
I would like to read a newspaper headline through your breast
Said the mammogram technician. Anyway, I have booked one for May, and it’s relatively local, so all is good.
Yesterday I did two loads of laundry, and thanks to Suzanne the bathrooms are shiny again. She’s settling into her new apartment at Kingsway and Gilley (SOOOO CLOSE) and is probably going to get Alex for an overnight soon, when her apartment’s all shoved back into corners. Katie helped her assemble all her computer-y stuff like a boss.
Slept FANTASTIC. Went to sleep just after 8, woke up around 4. I may not nap tidday, boys!!!
Jeff bought me a burger and shake from Wet Spot, and it was fantastic.
I am very close to being finished writing Mary’s letter but I think it should be at least another couple of pages longer.
No kudos this morning… what a sap I am. One must be motivated from the inside.
Recent uproars on the internet:
person 1 – I ain’t taking my shoes off in your skanky ass house cause your floors are heinous and I don’t give a shit about your cultural constructs appears magically on line. THERE ARE OPINIONS
(this is all part of the editors in NA on line venues looking for ways to shit on Asian people during the Olympics, how rude)
person 2 – I ain’t putting up with your skanky ass shoes in my house because you fucking people walk through broken glass and dogshit and then march all over my new laminate floors and you laugh when I point out the scratches
person 3 – (allegra) I brought orthotic slippers to help me keep my feet warm and keep my balance, if you prevent me from wearing my indoor slippers you’re an ableist fuck and I ain’t enterin’ your skanky ass house (I didn’t actually say this, I never found a venue, so here it is on my own site) and if your floors actually are dirty I won’t fucking care but if there is a shrine in the house of course I’ll take my fucking slippers off do you think I’m a clod, deaf to the songs of the gods?
Vocabulary review: skanky – cheap, dirty, slutty, low-rent, low-class; – ass – added for emphasis.
Got a comment hijacked by a comment bot on Reddit this morning. Didn’t even notice until someone picked it out of the crap pile for me. It’s one of the funniest lines I ever wrote so of course some witless algorithm steals it.
Jeff and I are continuing to enjoy Peacemaker (it is rude, it is funny, it is freaky, it is scary) and Leverage (well written, clips along, very very formulaic and light hearted, which compared to the grimdark we watch most of the rest of the time is GOOD).
Have some Ice from Iceland to go along with today’s fog. It was 5 degrees and rain blowing horizontal, if you wonder why it’s so dull, almost four years ago, May 2018.
Spoke to Peggy
She is doing about as well as expected. The sons can’t help her clean out the house as much as they like because they are householders with children themselves and it’s a lot.
However she’s lined up someone to do the clearout if they can’t, and she’s moved out one tenant (with sadness) and is moving in her son and daughter–in-common-law and their kids (with happiness but it won’t be for a few months) and a different other tenant instead (her house is beeg) so she’s moving downstairs (less stairs, better for her knee (and of course there’s a full bathroom downstairs so no problems there). I approve of all these shifts and changes. I can’t imagine rattling around a house that size without other people.
I sent this to my mother when she said she’ll just be staring at me the next time I visit.
I changed my bedding!
I restuffed my bolster after washing the cover and tied off the ends and now I am very comfy in bed; the weighted blanket is folded at the end of the bed so I can use it to raise my feet.
Suzanne came late due to my communication error but is here now beating bathrooms into shape.
My next assault on adulting consists of booking a mammogram. Ai Yi. Next doctor appointment February 23.
Suzanne is here today
I missed her. I’m continuing the clearout / reorg of my room. I have a nice long list of things to do today and after my absolutely wonderful night of sleep I think I’ll start with washing my bedding… Nope I’m going to make myself some brekky, eggs I think. Also reheated the fries from the fish and chips the other day. SO GOOD.
3 kudos in my mailbox this morning, all for the most recent story. It really landed well, the kudo to hit ratio is like 1 in 6, which is amazing (it usually ends up being 1 in 10 or 1 in 15). I’m tucked up in bed working through chapter subjects for the next story. I can already tell this new story is going to be book length, I have too many ideas. I want to finish the ‘tree man’ story, the story about the single dad with PTSD from being a respiratory technician during a pandemic, the story about the flooding in November, the alternate universe decameron style story, the massage therapist story, and I think there are three other incomplete ones but I can’t remember the hook.
Poetry is slowly stirring inside me. I’m either going to keep working on the Dark Book or write about allergies.
The siege of Ottawa continues. The siege of Coutts continues. The Ambassador Bridge Siege continues. Fuck ’em all, all those flag flying fools.
thrilled to report
bp was 109/83 just now.
I was told it would make me dizzy and possibly make my legs swell, but nothing so far but lower blood pressure.
I can stop low key panicking 24/7
I put all my laundry away
Yes, you read that correctly – except the socks. The socks are going to need their own hour of effort and I will throw away the extras this time…. I have not actually put all my laundry away in several years so I want bunting dammit. I mean HUNG UP and IN DRAWERS.
Found a new restaurant, the Fraser Park Restaurant down on Byrne, which serves breakfast all day. Chris Campbell of the Burnaby Now mentioned it. The meals are MASSIVE; I’m impressed. It also opens super early and isn’t jam packed, and one can always take a walk afterward in the park. Just ate my second breakfast from that meal.
I have to pick up yet another medication today but hey hopefully I’ll stop blowing holes in my eyes, kidneys and brain thereby. I’m off the diuretic, it didn’t help. God, I hope this works.
how does he plan to pull the pin
this is the picture of a man who threatened to blow up a casino with a grenade he had previously secreted up his ass…. The face of a man who conned a policeman into giving him a free prostate exam…
Brian Gower, 46, faces one count of making threats of conveying false information concerning an act of terrorism after the incident Friday morning.
According to police, Gower was arrested at The Strat Hotel and Casino after threatening to “blow the building up,” officers wrote in an arrest report.
by: David CharnsPosted: Feb 7, 2022 / 05:54 PM PST / Updated: Feb 7, 2022 / 11:21 PM PST
Got the absolute longest, sweetest and most detailed message about one of my fics this am… great way to start the day. Still no letter for Mary.
Got to feel chickadees landing on my hand yesterday. I am not supposed to feed wild birds in parks but I was feeding them ORGANIC Styrian raw unsalted sunflower seeds at 20 bucks a bag so NO COMPLAINTS AND THEN Paul and I got to watch seven mountain jays appear screeching out of the trees … in their breeding plumage AND THEN we got to see one of the local red-winged blackbirds from two meters away and the sun was on it as it grabbed millet from a stump and it too was it its breeding plumage, and the world is better than it was yesterday.
Came up with another fic idea, this one about a part time driving instructor and his socially awkward adult student. I think this one may be 25 -40 k… I have lots of ideas.
Speaking of lots of ideas Jarmo has tons of them now for businesses and products, now that he’s retired. Some of them sound massively wacky, but one in particular? THAT ONE I want to bankroll, because it’s an accessibility idea for computers…
two loads of laundry yesterday and fed Paul lunch of lentil soup and cole slaw. Got fish and chips delivered for supper.
Jeff and I are thinking of actually going out for breakfast, which is insane, but we got told about a new breakfast place by Chris Campbell at the Burnaby Now. I want him to stop being an editor and merely do restaurant reviews. If you go to r/Burnaby people hate on him so fucking much, but I love him because he has an honest and distinctive human voice and BELIEVE ME not all local journos do.
look at my STRUGGLE
IMAGINE having three out of five letters correct three times in a row, I thought I was gonna run amok.
Doctor appointment on zoom equivalent today. They send me four reminder notices, I guess somebody finally noticed I have ADD.
The shit on twitter about Ottawa is melting my mind. There are so many cops on the ground right now, from all over Ontario. The antivaxxers LOCKED THE DOORS ON A BUILDING AND SET FIRE TO IT.
Not much writing. Not much of anything. I was so exhausted and braindead yesterday I slept for most of it. Today I’ll do a couple of loads of laundry and finish that letter to auntie Mary, it’s been months.
In our desperate attempt to find a lighthearted show to watch (everything is SO FARKING GRIMDARK DESE DAYS) I prompted Jeff to find Leverage; it’s the same folks who did the Librarians (John Rogers, whom I followed on twitter for a while as He Is Funny but also a little too centrist for my taste LOL like I can expect a showrunner to be an anarchist). Anyway, it is a light hearted show and it’s like Mission Impossible crashed Burn Notice’s party while scraping content from White Collar. The characters are all likeable and the writing is sharp without being brittle, and Timothy Hutton is way better in it than I was expecting (subtle, reactive, sweet, it’s ver’ nice). Christian Kane continues to be every fangirl’s second favourite bi icon….
Convoy observation
Keith and I didn’t protest, because there wasn’t a fixed point for the convoy to protest at.
So here, not orderly, is what happened.
The convoy #IvermectinInsurrection gathered in Langley and then drove along Terminal to Main, where it met a crowd of very conspicuous bicyclists around 10:30, 11 am. For an hour the convoy was stalled as everyone milled around and there wasn’t anywhere for the convoy to peel off to. Then the fucking cops busted it up and let the convoy spread out all over downtown – this happened around noon, and at that point all of downtown Vancouver was crisscrossed with maskless white people in trucks with massive Canadian flags honking and driving up and down.
Around 2 pm about 400 of them were gathered at Burrard close to the VAG, where rhetorically challenged people tried to whip the crowd up. THAT WAS WHEN I GOT SCARED. I knew they meant me harm, and it was a foul feeling. I am so glad I went with Keith.
Keith and I went first to Terminal and Main and then to Granville Station to observe and report.
It was fucking sad, and I’m not in a good place today. We had lunch at Earl’s. Apparently I got 4000 steps in (so Keith tells me.)
He had an interview yesterday, hope he gets the job if he still wants it.