Yes, there was an election. No, it isn’t settled. Even if the worst happens, the world survived before, and it will keep surviving. My story isn’t done, neither is yours.
This is a long boring text-heavy oversharing post, ya been told.
Yes, there was an election. No, it isn’t settled. Even if the worst happens, the world survived before, and it will keep surviving. My story isn’t done, neither is yours.
This is a long boring text-heavy oversharing post, ya been told.
A ratrunner is someone who drives around too fast late at night. Because of the orientation of my bedroom window – faces west – I’m listening to the ratrunners on Kingsway. Sometimes it’s a Kawasaki or similar, blasting down the hill at what sounds, from the wound up noise, like they’re doing about a ton and a bit. There are lots of crosswalks and the roadway isn’t straight, and it’s just a terrible idea.
Anyway, they were out last night, and they are usually worse on weekends.
Despite it all, I practiced good sleep hygiene. Instead of playing on my computer or brO’s phone, I did my evening routine and then slept. Woke up at 3 on the nose, so that’s 7 hours of sleep, and I only woke up to roll over and curse the ratrunners.
@see_starling on twitter made this over four years:
Looks like a sixer’s favourite blankee!
Another fic came into my mind almost as soon as the last one was done. This one will be about the quarantine, and snow.
And, from Cory Doctorow, and who knows where besides, Kate Bush as a bat in 1978:
and isn’t the costume the sweetest hoot I looked for 20 minutes on the internet for a photo credit and gave up, fuck you uncaring universe, I try to give credit but the internet has eaten the attribution just as surely as names wear off headstones
Well, not much. Walk in Lougheed Mall and picked up some veg with Paul. I was feeling so exhausted but there was chicken to cook in the fridge so I made asparagus and mini potatoes and corn and breaded chicken breasts for an early supper and then pretty much collapsed after that. I did a little tidying but the air is so oppressive I felt like crap.
AQI currently 139, went up and down all night.
Currently putting together a list of the birds seen and heard in Deer Lake Park. I think it’s marvellous that when I went to the list there was no American Coot! But American Coots come to Deer Lake all the freaking time, so immediately I was one up on the list.
The list is the names of the birds and their habitats and songs, since Paul and I are tired of always hearing the birds and never seeing them. I already know that we’ve repeatedly heard both ospreys and merlins, which blows me away. Their chittering calls are very distinctive. Getting the info here.
Insomnia. Woke at 10:30, up til 3, back down again and up at 8.
Le Mans weekend.
Fic 14,966
The president of Belarus shut off the internet in his country to prevent the spread of a viral video in which a large audience of workers started shouting at him to resign. (apparently he said the only way you’re getting rid of me is killing me and he got the response he oh so richly warranted.) The tankies are sad for him. What is a tankie? It’s a fascist who wants statist communists with brutal regimes to be perfect and powerful. They defend governments like North Korea. No, I’m not joking, I wish I was.
I have re-achieved emotional equilibrium. I wrote another 700 words after I finished the last edit to my blog yesterday. Jeff took me to breakfast. I wear a mask at IHOP whenever I’m not at my own table. I know it’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing. My current fave mask is the one I got from Vancouver Aquarium. Next fave is the first one I made, the white one. It’s very comfortable and the most adjustable. Next fave is a standard medical mask. I ordered a bunch more cloth masks from an Indigenous supplier; one of them is a brilliant blue with Coastal art hummingbirds all over it so I bet I know where that one will end up. The other ones I think have stylized orcas, I might be wrong. Kima would be pissed.
There is fresh tea. I make a couple of pots a day and transfer most of it into the iced tea container, once it’s cooled off.
Operation Pee Constantly is still going well. The last lingering wackiness amidships from the kidney stones and the mild infection afterwards is done, thank glob. I’m still getting used to exactly how MUCH more water I have to drink every day to keep this happy state of affairs going, but hopefully I will retrain my body to properly experience thirst.
I am still drinking black tea, but it’s not recommended for a kidney diet, so I’m trying to have at most two cups a day.
Katie recommended bocconcini pearls for cheese and no sodium cheese is a wonderful damned thing, let me assure you. I’m also drinking the low sodium V-8, which tastes weird, which makes me want to put Worcestershire sauce in it, which vitiates its low salt status. La la la. Change of habits continues. Jeff hasn’t minded the not buying treats regimen – we have a whole line of treats we bought pretty much every time we went out to Save-On but I’ll have to make do with home made cinnamon buns, scones and cakes, what a tragedy.
There’s a Buy-Low opening August 26 walking distance from here; they’ll have in house butcher and bakery, among other things. I know people who dislike this chain but they are distinctly cheaper than Save-On, and possibly they will deliver, so we shall see. Anyway it’s close enough to walk. It will be interesting to see where to park for this critter and which roadway one exits from.
Glucose tolerance test on Friday. This will be the fourth time in my life I’ve taken it. This time it’s likely that the DIABEETUS DONE GOT ME although of course I can always adjust my diet (not really, but).
Used the word vitiate in a tweet today. Thought I was using it correctly, looked it up anyway, I was.
Jeff, Paul and I walked in Oakalla aka Deer Lake Park today. We heard what sounded like a million birds and the weather was gorgeous and people were paying better attention to the signs, except for that jogger.
the ever wondrous words of Audre Lord
from the LA protests
MAILED IT TODAY June 10 when Jeff and I went for a walk. Then we ordered pizza and watched Time Team.
June 9, 2020
Gina Nicoli-Moen
Superintendent of Schools
Board of Education
Burnaby School District 41
5325 Kincaid Street
Burnaby BC V5G 1W2
Dear Ms. Nicoli-Moen,
Please listen to your Black and Indigenous students and remove the RCMP from their current roles, including attending career days, in Burnaby schools.
<—– my request
I would support this action as a Burnaby voter, parent of two former School District 41 students who commented frequently on racial tension at their school, and politically curious person who is speculating why it is that everyone on the senior management team of your organization is white, when Burnaby is not a majority white city.
<—– my cred, with a boot to the ass in the last sentence and there’s NO FUCKING WAY I’m telling you which school, although ten bucks says someone who reads this letter checks the records
With my hopes you and your loved ones will stay safe during the pandemic,
<—– despite my distaste for cops in schools, I bear you no personal ill will
Now I have to print it and find an envelope and sign it and post it so this is a draft until I actually move
she gets a star trek stamp, I’m thinking JANEWAY … fuck I love myself sometimes ha ha used Sisko instead
From the city of Burnaby website
IF an order is issued for non-essential businesses to close, only those designated businesses should remain open. In advance of such an order,the provincial government has released the list of essential businesses in BC. The Burnaby Board of Trade encourages you to use this list to prepare a plan for how you will communicate to your employees and customers if you need to shut down, or plan for how you will remain open if allowed.
Any business NOT on the list, IS currently allowed to STAY OPEN provided if it can adapt its services and workplace to the orders and recommendations around social distancing (2 metres between patrons) and crowd size.
In addition to this list, the following businesses have already been ordered to close: Restaurants (except for take-out/delivery) / Bars, pubs and nightclubs / Entertainment venues (theatres, concert halls, etc.) / Casinos / Personal service establishments (barbershops, hair and nail salons, tattoo shops, spas, etc.)
Consult the list below to see if your business is on the list. It is a long list, so we encourage you to hit “Control” + “F” on your computer to do a keyword search to find your business or sector.
List of BC Essential Businesses
Health and health services
Direct-to-public health services
Health service providers
Law enforcement, public safety, first responders, emergency response personnel
Vulnerable population service providers
Critical infrastructure service providers
Food and agriculture service providers
Transportation, infrastructure and manufacturing
Sanitation
Communications, information sharing and information technology (IT)
Non-health essential service providers
that’s what’s forecast between now and Thursday night (it’s midnight Wednesday now.) We definitely need more salt, but I’m not shovelling until 6 am. It’s East Burnaby so we’ll probably get 1.5 times the forecast.
mOm very kindly put cousin Laurel on the phone yesterday so I got to talk to her. There’s been a death on the inlaw side of the family and it coincided with the worst of the ferries and roads, so she’s had an adventure; this is also the week her husband turned seventy. Much sadness about the new normal. Supporting the recently bereaved is a beautiful challenge though.
Anyway, I woke up dizzy, a horrible feeling, got up and peed, sat up and now I don’t actually feel fine but I could probably go back to sleep. I should, I only got four and a half hours…. Read on line, I’m probably dehydrated or have low blood sugar…
No I did not go back to sleep I made coffee.
55073 HOTM
It’s been weeks, but every time I think about that piece of grafitti in Ultraviolet “Czirny fans get sick notes from their drug dealers” I crack up all over again. Czirny was a made up football team for Åódź which is pronounced wutsch.
the Duchess of Sussex is out and about – shown here at a women’s centre in Vancouver yesterday AND NOT WEARING A DRESS lawks
I MEAN IT’S WONDERFUL but TERRIBLE and EXPENSIVE like 10 million dollars of extra colonial expenditure and all we really care about in this household was her gig on the TV show Suits. I feel sorry for Harry, although not for his choice of bride.
Environment Canada says Howe Sound is going to get wind and snow something awful so it’s a good thing Laurel’s not travelling today.
HA HA HA HA STEFAN MOLYNEUX that unregenerate Nazi sockwad has been cut off from Mailchimp so his list of 70K asshole supporters is no longer his. LOLOLOLOL excuse me cough cough.
I sent mOm a couple of links about a former colleague….
LATER THAT MORNING
Alex’ school’s closed. Katie is staying home. I did volunteer….
Later, around ten after seven
All the schools in the lower mainland are closed. There is not a snowball’s chance in a foundry that I could have made it to Victoria today without considerable horror.
Made a Southwest style pork and beans this morning. Beans were soaked and soaked and soaked (16 hours) and rinsed and rinsed and rinsed (I rinsed them three times) and then Instant Potted for 30 minutes. I cooked them in chicken broth. The results are bland but you can always add salt and pepper.
Alex is apparently sleeping longer and not grinding his teeth as much. This is very happy grandma news. I knew Katie would like the blankie, but as much as I enjoy making her feel better this was all aimed at Alex.
Paul and I were supposed to go walking yesterday but you know what happened? He said can we run errands and I said BUT OF COURSE. I helped get Katie’s new car back to their house and I used to opportunity to fetch Jeff some pie from the Pie Hole (Dean Winchester’s business in another AU) and to buy some meat from the butcher then we drove to Oakalla (the old name for one end of Deer Lake Park) and there was FUCKING ICY SNOW EVVYWHERE. Paul said, shit I’m wearing Crocs and I said shit I didn’t even wear socks and we just sadly put the car in reverse and went back home and I said I wanna go to Langley Farm Market but … so we did, and we ran errands and I don’t care, I got out of the house. Day before I got my new Library card from Burnaby… so the replacement of ID continues.
Today, a brief foray out into the world for an errand in the AM, then Lunch Bunch and then Osteofit and mebbe some laundry.
Success! I slept an additional 2 hours with the blankie, garnering almost 7 hours of (almost) uninterrupted sleep. I think Katie will be pleased when I hand it over to her this morning for non-destructive testing on Alex.
This is me 30 seconds before I found the box on my step. This is the weather their delivery company dealt with. We got two inches of dense, slippery af snow pounding down over about four hours, then it abruptly stopped and a watery sun came out and said oops.
When that snow all turned to water at once, that was an interesting moment.
Katie took me to breakfast – it’s a grey day, but much warmer and the snow’s off the walkway.
Stanley Donen is dead. The man who directed Charade is gone. But here he is being fucking amazing in 1997.
Jeff and I hosted Paul’s birthday last night. I got tired and went to bed at nine (folks came by at two, which is fine, because the Alex was one of them.) Also that might have something to do with the fact I was up at 2 am YESterday too.
Watching Paul with Alex. Alex pretends to feed him chili, Paul pretends to eat it, the two of them laugh like drains. This went on for about ten minutes. I got one decent pic, which mOm already has. He’s laughing so hard his face is almost blurry.
Alex refers to himself as Ack. This is charming. He is now speaking in perfectly intelligible sentences of two or three or four or even five words. Then the next thing he says is gibberish, right about the time you were thinking of boasting.
Nita, Keith, Alex, Katie, Peggy and Tom, Mike and Cassidy and Rob Warner all came by. Plus Cassidy gave preserves to Paul which he will enjoy mightily. Her southern rellies put magic in that woman’s kitchen….NOM.
Alex on his belly watching Jeff fix the deck with a screwdriver, and calling him Unca Jeff quite clearly. Playing with the hose and running all over the yard. Playing with the posture ball.
He was so busy he never even got to play on the pinballs!
Extra special hugs to cousin Lindsay for singing happy birthday to her uncle! That was very cheering.
Happy people eating chili. I made vegan chili and I’m glad, I tell you.
Much very good beer including Dageraad.
Heart full of gratitude, mind full of I HAZ NOT ENOUGH SLEEP.
Thus the pause today on the writing. Back tomorrow, have no fear.
My feet actually hurt from the park walk yesterday. We found purple loosestrife in the park, so uh-oh!
Off to comfort my brain with lists today…
Ran into Kirsten at Deer Lake Park yesterday. Her sister has a three legged dog too, which is very kind of them both. Keith and Paul were accompanying me. We saw a coyote as we entered the park which makes all the people who ignored us because they were wearing headsets rather amusing in a sick way. Hey, we tried to tell them but they just wouldn’t listen.
After I got back I mowed the whatever it is that’s growing on the property. It is no longer grass in the front yard, and the mere act of turning the mower around created immense divots in what’s left of the turf. The back isn’t so bad but it doesn’t get so dry (we never water). The house is a tear down, so we’re never going to get new sod. C’est la vie.
I got the orthotics, and twice crossed the Pattullo Bridge, which is under construction and an amply proportioned clusterfuck at the best of times. WHILE I was trying to get across the mofo’ing bridge northbound, a guy leaned out of his truck and said in a heavy Arabic accent “I give you three thousand dollars cash right now for your car” and I casually explained that it wasn’t going to happen, and he started upping the bid, reaching five thousand, leading me to explain that it a) it wasna my car and b) it was not for sale for any price. Then the traffic shifted and I stopped having to deal with him. Wish I’d taken the camera, Jeff might have been entertained by the convo. Entertainingly, these convos always happen more in the summer.
Went and got beer and groceries and a few treats, and we ate store chicken, home made salad and corn on the cob for dinner.
Forgot to mention that we saw a grouse by the side of the road when we went up Mt Washington last week.
I will be adjusting to the orthotics by wearing them about two hours a day until I’m completely used to them. They feel pretty comfortable but I’ll know better how they are later.
Watched Eye in the Sky and Wave. Very much enjoyed both movies, but I liked Wave more since it is a classic style disaster movie, leaving no trope unturned, but effectively and non-cheesily played out.
Back in my 20’s I read a book or a manifesto or something about how you should walk every inch of the city within a five km radius of your house. Yesterday I learned to recognize that as wise, yet again, having forgotten it.
Slept over at Mike’s after a wonderful supper of the salmon of wisdom, the preserves of friendship and the taters of sustenance. A deep, roborative sleep. Then astonishment, as the whole city was fogged in and we were above it all in the Eyrie, watching it burn off. Then a brekkie of coffee, hash browns, bacon and eggs. We went a-walking in Byrne Creek Ravine park.
The day signs were most impressive; the Trickster appeared, facing the sun. Then three black dogs. The first two were on leashes; the third was free walking with her owner. Then a Korean family, joking in English and Korean. Then a troupe of dancers rehearsing Chinese opera on the tennis courts.
THEN a dry big-leaf maple leaf, in the shape of a death’s head, lodged against the ivy twining up a snag.
Then the old man. He came down, down down the steep incline to the water, and as soon as he saw us he BACKED UP THE TRAIL, never taking his eyes off us. When I saw him later I tried to acknowledge him, but he would not meet my eyes, although twice I caught him staring at me. Most unnerving.
Each leaf swayed and sang; there was a deeper stillness in the plashing of the water; I could feel my brain trying to calculate things, all the tiny incremental movements, as if they could be calculated. My vision cleared. It was a wonderful feeling.
As we paused, walking back, looking down at the ravine from the railing on the other side from Edmonds station, a young First Nations family walked by. The mother was saying to the toddler while the father pushed an infant in a stroller, “You can’t go climb down to the stream! You’ll scratch your bum on the blackberries!”
Safe back at the Eyrie I asked the spirits if they could help me find my family crest. I’m not knowing what to do about the answer.
At first it was all random stuff, a doodle in white letters against my closed eyes; it looked like Kufic script, and then script in no human language. I was sad, because I could not interpret the dancing, ever shifting letters.
They gave me the bones of a salmon, the curl of a fern, the head of a vulture, a toad, and strange, gap-toothed cogs, fitting into all these things. Ground and figure were constantly shifting, but it all felt fitting, and as I’m receiving these teachings, I’m thinking, yes, this is right, this is as it should be. The salmon and the fern are how the land and the sea connect, the head of the vulture is the acknowledgement of the cycle of birth and death, the toad is welcoming the stranger and the orphan, the cog is the knowledge that all things fit, the gaps the incompleteness that comes with being human. Then the last part.
It was the outline of a subdivision. I think I know what it means – that I’m a colonial born and bred and living on the land on sufferance, but damn it is NOT what I wanted to hear, and so it is probably the most valuable part of the teaching.
All these things were interwoven. As I looked at one thing, it turned into something else. Everything kept shifting; animal faces into letters, into stylized hands and fingers, curving railroad tracks with swaying ties. All rendered in brilliant white, as if the world’s most skilled tagger was drawing it on my sensorium at the speed of light.
At this point, on behalf of Cousin Gerald, I would like to interject, “Wot, no MOOSE?”
I remonstrated with the spirits, who laughed very heartily at my tears (I was weeping pretty much continuously at this point). A great woman’s voice said, “It’s nothing for you to parade around! You have no family crest! You couldn’t draw it even if you could understand it!” Then, after a pause, as if reconsidering, the same voice said, more quietly, “It will be there when you close your eyes,” and I’m back to myself and Mike’s handing me Kleenex.
It never ceases to amaze me, what’s in my head. None of this was real, but I assure you, it happened.
Today I’m going to go keep a promise, but this time I get to drive. Paul and I are going to Nanoose Bay for a restorative justice conference, or at least the part of it he is presenting at. I had meant to bail, but all things considered I have a few things to tidy up before I get back to writing. The characters are once again speaking, though. Theo came and sat with me while I was in the forest.
“I was not a philosophical person, and now I am. At first I was angry, because I did not need to think about what it all means. I was happy to move around in the space my people occupy, which is life and death and reproduction, and possibly looking at beautiful things. Then I was angry, because all my previous understanding was not wrong, just too small. I had thought myself as big as I needed to be. But since I got philosophy I can only think of myself in relation to others, and that makes me angriest of all, for I don’t like most Sixers and hate most humans, and now I am stuck with them all, and I really don’t have the temperament for a philosopher.”
Poor Theo. There’s nothing worse for a hard-core narcissist than waking up one morning and finding out you’re too small.
Meltingly grateful to Mike for his most restorative and sacred hospitality.
I’d also like to thank mOm for her bracing phone calls of late.
Tom U. is back working with Mike again, isn’t that wonderful? One half of the lunch bunch is back together.