Author: Allegra

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

chazerei

So I ate ESSSSEEDINGLY poorly yesterday but it was like a gap day and I’m back on the eating gooder wagon today. Chazerei is Yiddish. It is used for junk, stuff of little value but there’s a word for pig embedded in there so if you’re eating chazerei there’s a hint that it’s swinish badness.

I’m having a tough time remembering to drink enough if I’m not drinking tea, but my ureters start tugging their waistcoats and looking annoyed if I drink too much tea, so that’s a bit of an issue. I think I’ll make peppermint tea first and then take it from there. MUCH laundry today. I can well imagine Jeff saying why bother doing it if you can’t put it away, but one thing at a time dear lawd.

I was supposed to have a doc appointment but she never called me.

busy day

So after I went to the dentist (bill $60, bill that’s coming ~~three grand) to learn that I have two cracked molars in two separate parts of my mouth and need to see Dr. Lee the Endodontist as soon as may be –

I went to Lifelabs and got my every three months pee and bloodwork, and a followup ECG. I thought about picking up snacks and just couldn’t face another queue, so I walked home and more or less collapsed. There might have been a load of laundry in there too.

I just figured it was better to get it over now than later. The teeth I’ve been expecting, I had a vision that all my teeth would need work all at once and that it just wouldn’t stop, I knew it wouldn’t stop after the last crown.

Much hand wringing here, waiting for Alex’s computer with the porch pirates so active.

BP continues to drop a tiny bit.

BISCOTTI HAS OCCURRED

Today Jeff will help me move it to where it’s supposed to be, Peggy’s place, not my greedikum gullet.

Off to the dentist today to see if I need repairs for a molar chip.

Still puttering along on the fanfics. Submitted a poem for publication yesterday. I doubt it will be published but I had a lot of fun writing it and there’s some vivid language in it.

Omicron doubles in 2 days. Apparently the highest testing area in Canada is Vancouver Island right now and Keith’s off to the grands shortly to visit them so I hope he stays in his car for the ferry ride. He is currently employed, and I couldn’t be more pleased, although he sounded bagged the last time we spoke.

Christmas gathering this year will be a) takeout b) at Katie’s c) after Christmas Day and d) just immediate family.

Earthquake this morning off the coast, a leedle one. I woke up IMMEDIATELY after the posted time so it’s possible that’s what woke me, but I doubt it; Jeff knows I slept through when a raccoon dragged the plastic container full of cat food to the stairs and launched it gravity-wards so I probably did sleep throught it.

The only hospital left in Afghanistan that can treat covid just ran out of oxygen.

 

 

RIP bell hooks

Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as a means of escape. – bell hooks

“No black woman writer in this culture can write “too much”. Indeed, no woman writer can write “too much”…No woman has ever written enough.” – bell hooks

Endlessly quotable, humane, tough and loving, bell hooks has gone to her ancestors and the hall of remembrance knows her name.

The freedom to ride

On horseback was just about the only time my woman forebears experienced something a little like freedom; a break from thirty loaves of bread a week and a thousand other chores. I thank my grandparents for raising my mOm so that she got horses and the freedom that comes from study.

Roberta on Melody Maid, 1949. south end of barnyard; the circular water trough is downslope and right.

nuts!

My Nut Hut order arrived; pecans for snacks, chocolate wafers for snacks, almonds for biscotti and 5 pounds sunflower seeds for the tweety birds.

It’s snowing, immense flakes, banging on down.

Asked Buster this morning. Brush? Treats? Door? Door it was.

Schlep this morning. Biggest ticket item was triple A batteries. Jeff stays back because there’s no reason to both go in. Wore my KN95 masks, as I do all the time now. As much as I love the SUPER COMFY triple layer kitty cat mask Jan Maxwell made for me (her xmas card turned up today as well) the epidemiology is pretty clear, the 95’s are better at keeping other people’s pathogens off you. Checked everything I picked up for sodium and man did I put a lot of shit back.

Black holes can make the suns orbiting them go 31 MILLION KPH. nnnnneeeeeeoOOWWWWW

Made mac and two cheeses with fried onions and capers yesterday… Paul came through and had a big bowl of it; he was dropping off his computer, which is illing, and we hung out and watched/listened to Tripping by Nils Frahm which is  something mOm and pOp’d like it.

Alexander’s computer has been paid for and shipping confirmation received. So exciting! I’ll be rounding up the usual suspects looking for a contribution but I won’t be pressing anyone until my credit card bill comes in.

The Saveon hasn’t had pot barley in stock since August and literally does not know when more will come in. I am aghast. I finally found a soup everybody loves and got no ingredients!

I spent two days in bed after getting the booster shot (same day as the flu shot so yes both arms hurt like hell, nothing today except a tiny ache on the Pfizer side) and finally feel like a human being again this morning. My digestion was SO BAD – I actually sent an email to mOm to complain about it, and apologized …and I was hardly eating. Honestly, I felt worse than I’ve done when I was running a temperature, all my long bone joints ached like I’d been beaten. On the plus side, my BP was 133 over 87 this morning and that’s literally the best it’s been in more than a year.

Jeff has completed his repairs of the downstairs terlet. Rejoice, rejoice!

I am getting super sweet comments on my last fic posted, which is giving me life. Apparently I manifested something that one of the fans has been wishing for for a decade, so that’s some serious fan service. mOm said she enjoyed it. I’ve stopped writing the really porny stuff and now it’s just angsty domestic schmoop.

The three stories I’m working on right now (settings: Denver Airport during a blizzard, BC Highway 3 just after the middle of November, a tourist town in Maine) ARE NOT BEHAVING, so I’m having to retrace my steps a lot.

Sadness and memory

I last saw Ville, Susanna and Jarmo’s son, on August 2. I gave him a slider I’d just ordered at Subway as soon as I saw him; he looked like he could use it. He looked a little underslept but otherwise fine. We had a family meal with Jarmo and Susanna and Mike, at Earl’s on Lougheed. We were laughing and talking and almost giddy with being out of the house and SOCIALIZING.

He’s passed away.

He was about the same age as my kids. He was good-looking and kind and musically gifted and smart.

The tainted drugs on our streets are killing people.

I’m meltingly sad for his parents, who must be in a terrible state.

whoo hoo

First ever Monster Jam Truck front flip
byu/cenabollywood insports

I want to punch every manager that told those amazon workers in KY to be at work during a known tornado.

RIP Mel Lastman, I’ll never forget him having what looked like drug ramped hysterics about a snowfall in Toronto. We were out of Toronto by then thank goodness.

Drone footage of what’s left of Mayfield KY

still haven’t put my laundry away

the siding is squeaking like a horror movie soundtrack in the 80 kph gusts and I briefly heard the white plastic chair dancing around on the deck

I’ve seen lovely pictures of possibly new species of peacock jumping spiders from Australia — OMG did you know they spin pup tents in inclement weather, — defended the virtue of someone I follow on the internet (then changed tactics and deleted it) but in general all the news is fucking grim and Julian Assange being shipped to the US is kinda the rancid maraschino on a news cycle that includes Mike Nesmith dying.

I suppose if we’re going to have an ‘orgy of death’ culture, which seems to be happening right before our eyes without so much as a by your leave or a shut uppa you face, I should mention that if you google Henry Kissinger tontine you will experience exactly what is advertised, and all I could think when I saw it was how much John Caspell would have loved that, and likely thrown in a few shekels.

Whenever my pOp querulously remarks to mOm ‘what on earth is she on about now’ I have to remember that I too hope to get older and I should maybe slow down. So, I will. From now on, I’ll write eight grade sentences and punk chew ate properly.

aw who am I kiddiddning

It’s my business to maintain a playful relationship with the language.

The floor

In my room….is visible.

I still need to rehang all my clothes, wash the seventeen billion socks that were liberated from being silverfish food and clear off the desk and chairs but it’s absolutely delightful knowing that I’m not going to trip over my IKEA bag full of laundry on the way to the john at night.

More kudos this morning. Completely ignorable babbling about fanfic follows: I’m almost at 6k words for the BC weather event fanfic; 21K for “Snow under Starlight” in which I try a pandemic fic that is turning into an adult version of the kids’ story ‘and then the doorbell rang’, and I’ve got a 3K fic about being stuck in an airport during a three day blizzard,

Continue reading The floor

Cleaning specialist day

Today, my room. This is big and emotional and horrific as an ADD sufferer but you know what, Suzanne doesn’t judge. I also have a Christmas Prezzy for her. And the toilet is out of the downstairs bathroom so she doesn’t have to do that room today.

Jeff says if it improves my mental health he’s all in favour of paying Suzanne to help me with it, once again confirming that he is a Very Good Person.

I’m not a hundred percent sure if the grisly business amidships is Metformin induced or I have a gut bug, but I am not leaving the house today.

Quick break while I empty dishwasher and swap laundry over…

Brekky was an almost salt free affair: steamed asparagus smothered in scrambled eggs, with a side of golden kiwi fruit and a reduced-salt fresh baked home made whole wheat bun. The asparagus was kinda off-flavoured but still edible and I *nailed* the scrambled eggs, perfect really.

850 words on the BC flooding fanfic – it’s really coming together nicely, and I walked back a scene that wasn’t working, so go me. THEY’RE ALONE IN A CAMPER VAN and the trope continues AND THERE WAS ONLY ONE BED. Didn’t think this through, did ya fellas.

I put in all the family names as prompts for the AI art thing and look what it made…. I mean it should be an UPSUN cover or something it’s so magnifisumpin.