Category: Burnaby

My dear kindred in Christ

It has been reported that 12 hours ago a bear was sighted at Cumberland and 10th. I scanned those words with horror – I pass through that intersection FREQUENTLY mostly as a driver, and this person recounted nearly striking it.

It’s walking distance from here. Just the other side of where the kids used to live by about ten minutes or less. It’s also more or less at the far end of the block Peggy (and her kids’ families) lives on. So ZOWEE urban bears aren’t just in PoCo anymore. Almost for sure bruin came in through R. Brunette, and its attendant ravines. It must have been scared witless; I can attest the traffic is fitful but continuous at that time on a Friday night. (10th Avenue at that point is also designated Highway 1A, and forms part of the border between Burnaby and New West, and receives a hefty portion of the transport trucks in these parts.)

Some guy making a living building a repair to a partly burned building is also banging banging banging and it’s a good thing goddamnit that my tinnitus is allllmost drowning him out.

cat tree

Buster’s current cat tree is very old and ratty; he’ll get a new one tonight (Suzanne is helping) and we’ll put the old one on the deck. Or maybe it will go straight into the trash, it needs to be completely reupholstered.

Upholstery comes from the Middle English upholder, a person who furnished cloth and mattresses for beds and other furniture. What a weird damned word. Now it’s only used with ‘of the law’ after it.

677 words yesterday on TB, way more than I expected given that I felt crushed when I awoke (air quality was like 250 !!! into the purple zone !! overnight). The air is much better today but still not in the green zone.

Repotted the five little peyotes. It was a lot harder getting five of them apart than two, believe me, but the biggun was pushing roots right out of the pot so it was time. I should water them again later today.

Coffee brings me life this morning. Time for another one lol.

Drew Barrymore is a scab. She crossed the picket line to film an advertisement in Vancouver. HEAVY SIGH.

which one of you incredibly quiet people wants a bsky invite code?

 

Alex, bless her, provides the illo

She forwarded a bunch of housefilk pics from The Dawn of Time, let us just say the best part of 15 years. That’s her, Tom L, not sure and Peggy on standup bass (probably sometime around 2007 but why let facts intrude.)

Emotionally the effect of seeing Paul every day for a week is difficult. However he was perfectly happy to be left at Peggy’s at 4 pm, which was my “I’ve been doing unpaid family related babysitting for two different generations for eight hours and I haven’t pull a full work shift since 2017 so I’m done” o’clock. Yes it was nice to see Alex yesterday (he showed off more pictures, and I loaned him the Kaossilator and Keith finally got home from his morning of difficult appointments) and I fed him and got fed on Keith’s tortellini stew (nice because Paul plated and warmed it for me) but I was ready to go home at one and I hadn’t even made it to Peggy’s yet. So he either walked home (1.9 k in perfect weather, well within his max cap) or Jeff C, being one of the good ones, gave him a lift.

When I got home Jeff had supper ready for me. I nearly burst into tears I was so relieved. Then we watched Farscape and Elementary and tried to watch Iké (a movie) but Jeff bailed.

It was delightful and sad to hear Jeff C. relate the circumstances around his father’s death and funeral (the sound system went berserk and yelled in God Voice BE NOT AFRAID while Jeff was at the lectern which is just typical Jeff; the world is an anecdote waiting to be recounted and his life is merely one strand of it.) He also talked about family history and it was very interesting. His father was abandoned by his mother to his grandmother when he was tiny. He had continuity of care but you never get over your mother going WELP DINNA CANNA. And he was organized enough to arrange to buy an anniversary card and sign it while he still could, so he was in the ground four months when his widow got the card…. very organized. Also kind of I don’t know what word to use, uncanny mebbe.

Jeri Lynn spun, using her extremely sophisticated modern spinning wheel (many bits to fall off, and they all tried to at some point), and I got to feel her skeins of unspun wool, including some baby alpaca MAN YOU WANT SOFT you will go into a swoon touching it. She was also previously baking, rolling out spice cookies with a complicated rolling pin when we arrived.

Cindy and Jas were there making Christmas cookies (the real point of the weekend) because Peggy causes someone to bring the spare stove upstairs and then they (the American Thanksgiving baking team) cook nonstop for a couple of days. I am subsidizing lunch today and it will be either ARGO or Big Star. I’m thinking Big Star and I’ll pick up a side salad. Jas was wearing a t-shirt that said ASK ME ABOUT MY HOST ORGANISM and I complimented him on it.

Brooke was in a corner doing a 100 pattern blackwork circle sampler (in multiple colours of course) and swapping Pokémons with Jeri Lynn, Greg was there ingesting hot chocolate and computer games (much as Alex would do were he there).

Finally put gas in the Echo Paul loaned me. I’m considering taking it to someplace to get the fluids checked. I won’t do it and I don’t know when Paul last did.

We didn’t bring instruments. It was my judgement that a) there are enough quality guitars in the house LOL and we haven’t seen Jeff and Jeri Lynn in yonks so let’s visit and do the music the next day (they leave today but later).

I’ll be picking Paul up around 11:30 and then we’ll drive over and I’ll order lunch for the folks. I’ll also pick up a bunch of side salads so we get our veggies.

I feel beat and I just woke up. It will be another long day; enjoyable, but it’s hard.

from theconcealedweapon on tumblr:

What an autistic person says: “How long is it going to take?”

What they mean: “I want to know whether to activate my short term waiting mode where I just wait and do nothing else, or activate my long term waiting mode where I occupy my mind with something else. I fully understand that both are possibilities, and I have no problem whatsoever with either one, but I want more information so I can best adapt to the situation.”

What neurotypical people hear: “I am impatient and demand that everything I want happen right now. Please scold me and publicly humiliate me for it.”

I’ll be talking to the fam about how much I can do with Paul and how many hours in one day/week I can manage, because if this keeps up I’ll get sick. These days I spend so much time every day crying I feel like I’m sick already.

pot8um on twitter:

So many things are out of kids’ control— uncomfy clothes, loud noises, icky food, confusing rules… As an adult, I make my own choices. I wear, eat, and do what I like, because if I don’t, I get overloaded. That’s why I don’t remind you of your 8-year-old autistic nephew.

Omnibus of suck Part the nth

Pierre Poilievre is the leader of the conservatives in Canada. Proud supporter and handshaker of Nazis, when asked what he’d do about COVID-19 he said he’d lower taxes. He’s sucked on the teat of the taxpayer since he was 24 years old and worshipped Stephen Harper.

I hope he experiences all the electoral success he deserves.

Article from Ed Yong about ‘brain fog’. Interestingly it mentions the Montreal test. Please read this – and remember that all three of my immediate family have had COVID already. I don’t have any proof I got it in March 2020 but I’ve had to deal with what felt like brain fog, and cognitive crashing, for years now. My apparent intelligence does not match my functional intelligence. And the fall of my writing output is no surprise. I do what I can on a daily basis, but even the small array of techniques I had for managing my output doesn’t seem to work any more.

I am starting to read for pleasure again but I have to not do it for more than about 15 minutes at a time. I am also rereading books, not reading them for the first time.

I am starting to understand why the internet suits my cognitive deficits right now. I feel like the mom, Hazel Bergeron, in Harrison Bergeron, that story by Kurt Vonnegut.

The amount I sleep has abruptly gone up by 1.5 – 2 hours a day, and I’m doing my best not to nap any more during the day. So really I’m sleeping the same amount but doing it all at night.

Jeff and I looked at each other around 6 pm last night and realized that the worst of the ground smoke had lifted, and it was such a relief. We didn’t even run the a/c yesterday so the house is kind of sticky this morning. It didn’t help that there was a recycling centre on fire in Vancouver for most of the weekend. On the way back from Bowen we crested one of the many hills coming into the city from Horseshoe Bay and at one point we could smell burning plastic all the way down to our navels, it was just a horrible sensation. AS IN we should be driving away, not toward.

Buster trained HARD but briefly this morning. He did the headbutt on my left leg thing repeatedly to indicate that he was HERE TO TRAIN. He doesn’t normally do pawclaps ‘backwards’ ie with his back to me, but he did it twice this morning, then did some run and chase, and then VWIP out the door (Jeff left the back door open for the cool morning air.)

3979 words. I think I’ll have some to send mOm in the next couple of days.

Brief visit

Fridge is still busted at Katie’s place – landlord swears he’ll buy and have delivered a new one (old one taken away I expect) since Paul and Keith refuse to move a fridge and it’s the landlord’s job to replace it. Paul is mildly pissed since he spent half a day lining up a good used fridge.

Keith dropped by to return a container which was now full of YUMMY YUMMY lentil stew. Absolutely superlative. That man can cook now.

Enjoying this season of Archer.

3895 words I wanted to see how many bombshells I could deal with in 800 words and Brad has managed to talk Omar into two impossible things before their tea is cold.

The pink dawn faced off the yellow moon and sent it away.

We’re getting smoke from fires in town today – Bowen will be worse if the maps are anything to go by.

It was 20 years ago today
when Buzz Aldrin punched him in the face
And I really really want to say
that he had to be put in his place
So let us all assert for you
Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and said it was a BEAUTIFUL VIEEEEEEEW

intersectionality is a cognitive aid, a tool, glasses so you can see what is happening

it’s not meant to be gamified by white guys who think that because they live at the corner of Lonesome and Hardup they get an option to score points without flak from the racialised commentariat

boot to the head! (wah, wah)

  1. today’s blog post title is a call back to a famous Frantics album from 1987
  2. Because today I administered a social media boot to the head to the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services. You may or may not be aware that the GAWDAM Canadian Blood Services ended the mandate for mask wearing while you donate.
  3. yup you heard me
  4. give blood and catch covid
  5. what a draw, what a pull, what a crowd pleaser!
  6. anyway I told them until they restored the mask mandate they can do without my blood.
  7. because they said burnaby needs 300 donors now and I’m like IF YOU COME TO MY HOUSE THAT WILL WORK FINE TOO. DEY VANT MY BLUT DEY CAN COME GET IT
  8. still stalled on story – all stories.
  9. baseball sized hail fell in southern AB August 1, I watched video of people pulled over and screaming inside their cars, it was scary af
  10. my schadenfreude over Alex Jones’ troubles at his defamation trial is great. Finding out yesterday that his ‘defence’ lawyer sent TWO YEARS OF TEXTS on accident TO THE PLAINTIFFS’ LAWYERS made Jeff and I smile quite rudely
  11. Russia keeps almost hitting Ukrainian grain shipments. Putin Khuylo! (usually translated as Putin is a Dickhead!!)
  12. heat map of the US and southern Canada on July 31 2022 shows solid red and you wonder why I’m all apocalyptic  darkest is highest temperature - us heat map 31 july 22
  13. Jeff and I remain very very happy that there’s a functioning air conditioner in this house.
  14. I have too much laundry both dirty and to put away.
  15. words cannot describe how happy I am that my mOm reads my blog posts to her sister almost every day …. and so sometimes I put stuff in that I think will make Mary laugh

Otto is home

  1. The floating bridge was only out a sixteenth of an inch. TIGHT TOLERANCES YO.
  2. very nice folks at PlayMusic and efficient too
  3. Jeff very kindly assisted by driving. There are SO MANY BARBEQUE joints along that chunk of Kingsway! Plus the Captain’s Boil.
  4. I’m going to sketch the position of it in with magic marker, I don’t want to go through this again.
  5. Hard to move grain through a port in UK when the Russians keep bombing it. Starvation will stalk the world this winter.
  6. A crow dropped a plastic bag of monopoly houses on Gaston Park yesterday morning AND THAT’S A LITTLE ON THE NOSE FOR POLITICAL COMMENTARY FROM BOIDS, YO
  7. Ate some peanut butter, started sneezing immediately and I am now so itchy me wan die.
  8. 539 words.
  9. I think mebbe I’ve got ‘lurgy from peanuts?
  10. I made paneer from the milk that was going bad. It’s absolutely lovely and I’m looking forward to making spinach paneer with it.
  11. Woke up just after one this am after going to bed rather early (I was tired).
  12. Got up and made coffee and drank it since now that it’s three am it’s obvious I’m not going back to sleep.
  13. Messaged Keith for his opinion on which Don Bluth animated film is best (there was an article). Land Before Time is one of my fave animated kids movies and parts of it are flat out terrifying. I loathed Rockadoodle and All Dogs Go to Heaven; I think An American Tail is one of the funniest and saddest animated films ever. I’ve never seen Anastasia and Secret of NIMH but I hear they’re amazing.
  14. MPX (Monkeypox) is about to be declared a global public health threat by WHO. Should have happened when the global count got to a thousand, and just watch, the response will be even worse than COVID. THANKS NOW I NEED A NEW TOPIC. Marburg is back too but the Ghanaian health authorities have a good team in place and they aren’t sitting on their hands; I have more faith in them and the foreign assistance than the goddamned American and Canadian public health authorities at this point.
  15. Apparently Alzheimers research has been fabricated FOR ALMOST TWO DECADES
  16. When people talk about hating big pharma, reasons like that would apply.
  17. A junior polar bear with a can stuck to her tongue approached humans for help. Russian vets flew 2000 km to help her. Putin’s still bombing UKRAINE tho
  18. SO ITCHY. so itchy.
  19. Jeff’s about to go on ‘rat patrol’ with Buster in the alley. There were two rats yesterday.

fried eggs on sauteed veggies

That was lunch yesterday and candidly it was quite tasty. It was leftover veg from the camping trip, hooray for it not melting into compost in the fridge.

Mammogram was fine, and swift; when complete I caught the 119 at the building where the clinic is and then walked home from Highgate, after taking a cab to get there. I seem to be having more trouble than usual walking, but some kind soul put a park bench exactly halfway home (Kingsway and Stride or thereabouts) and since I’d been thinking I’d end up sitting on the wet grass just to give my legs a rest it was most welcome! That’s 1.2 km on concrete. I was quite out of puff when I got home since I was trying to walk, not amble.

Wonderful phone call with mOm; I love offering her advice on family history projects because it continually forces me to think about what family history is FOR. It’s for us, so we don’t lose our memories; it’s for our ancestors so we honour them, (even the jerks) and it’s for our kids so that they know where they are 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.

Why isn't there a more comfortable mammogram procedure? - Harvard Health

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.

Multum in parvo

(much in little)

Wordle got bought by the NY Times, so I’m not doing it anymore.

Still no letter for Auntie Mary. She’s owed one since October but I’m a bum.

Still processing the four of us getting together on Sunday. It was a lot of feels and it felt almost like group therapy, or more accurately, like the group meditations that we used to do through Beacon. I feel seen, and I listened with intent. I’ve said many times how amazing Jarmo is (he just is, okay, trust me) but Susanna is absolutely amazing and so kind, given her trials.

Thandiwe Newton reported as referring to Sean Penn as a jibbering fool made my morning (he was decrying the ‘feminization of men’ poor sod).  Sean Penn being a freehold scumbag is pretty much a given but her shade was a touch of perfection.

Rehearsed a tiny bit yesterday. Music has pretty much died inside me. I’m listening to music on line, but there’s no music inside me, and I read incoming emails about on line filking with no emotion at all and just delete them.

Pandemic brain is real. Jeff and I went out for food pickup yesterday and WE HAVE NEVER SEEN IN 35 MINUTES OF DRIVING SUCH AN ASSORTMENT OF CLUELESS AND ACTIVELY FUCKED UP DRIVERS. Broad flipping daylight, zero problems with traction and visibility, and drivers were all the words you use when you don’t want to say they’re mentally ill, chemically altered or just dgaf.

The DaVinci Drone

Straight outta Compton ruined by white people

Perdikomata

Above noted is a song by the Greek band Villagers of Ioannina City, a shoegaze/indie/folk band. The lyrics are a dreamy love song to ‘my partridge eyed one’.

 

 

Bang bang rrrr

So there were SO MANY EXPLOSIONS in my neighbourhood last night. Buster basically ASKED to be locked in the house (ask Jeff if you don’t believe me) and he was hiding in various places yesterday, since the bear scares started around 11 am and are STILL GOING off in the distance.

This was interspersed by ratrunners zooming at godless speeds and ludicrous RPMs up and down Kingsway. I thank my heritage that I can sleep through damned near anything once I’m asleep but I kept waking up and thinking you bastards.

Cockney Kings Fish and Chips yesterday. They fucked up the order, but not the delivery and more or less said gee that’s too bad when I complained via phone, so no cole slaw with the order.

First world problems, right?

Started transferring musical instruments around in a bid to get all the instruments I actually play or want to play in the same place so it’s more fun for Alex when he has sleepovers. I’ll bring the two instruments I’m not playing upstairs and take the keyboard downstairs.

Jeff and I have an errand to run today, I’m hoping it’s nice enough to walk over there since it’s very close by.

I haven’t been talking much about writing. I’ve been working on fanfic (the current ones about a bad restaurant review (lots of social justicey side comments regarding restaurant workers and COVID) and a do it yourself spa day for two men, (which is very funny IMO) (pretty skinny structural supports for stories but ah well), but I may actually try to do something for November Novel Writing Month, also called NanoWrimo, in which case I’ll talk about it next month when I’m finished.

Left a message for Mike. I’m hoping he’s okay, but I’m not really in shape to be socializing, so.

Time for some more tea.

Buster has never been so clear about wanting me to keep the cat door locked. He peed in the cat litter tray right in front of me; normally if the weather’s decent he likes to commune with nature while he’s draining the main. So I locked the door again. He can’t stand the noise outside, and he feels protected from it if the door is locked. He’s been hiding all over the house; in the towels in the bathroom, under the stairs, under my chair downstairs, on the top deck of the bunkbeds. Poor lamb. He’s also compulsively licking himself so he may be working on an anxiety disorder.