The perfect library job for somebody…. Archivist for the Grateful Dead.
Too long, didn’t read.
Category: Burnaby
A whole lot of saying nothing
Dominion Day Roundup
Stop gay marriage or straight women will have no husbands!!!! Eeek.
Folks, even if that is all true, how can the accompanying drop in the birthrate be bad for the planet? I love how bigotry gets dressed in ‘utilitarian’ arguments. That said, any time I detect bigotry in others, I allow myself a quiet moment to reflect on my own. Sigh. It is hard to be a grownup. PS, Mr. Berman (as reprinted by Mr. Klinghoffer), sex toy technology has come a long way since the Roman Empire. Your concern for my satisfaction and prospect of landing a sperm donor is touching, but completely unnecessary. After all, the POINT of marriage (the cart, after all, needing to come behind the horse) is BABIES. And those I can get – did get – without recourse to marriage at ALL.
One of these days I’ll have to find that bit of writing “How to Teach Your Children to Swear.” What we didn’t teach the kids, back when, was that swearing is a class issue. The very most self-controlled and self-willed people do not curse, because it shows either lack of breeding or lack of self-control. And self-control, narrowly defined, is a necessary precursor to maintaining control over others. That’s what it’s all there for. Swearing as far as I’m concerned is part of the palette of human communication; blunt, uncompromising, emotional, limbic, genuine. Disgusting, disturbing, vile, creepy and disrespectful, too. Swearing is a signpost toward the things we find most frightening and, let’s face it, human. As blasphemy, it is anti-hierarchical and owns of no master; as language charged with sexuality and excretions, it voices what we strive to keep silent in daily life; as racial and ethnic slur it speaks to how easily we fall back into our emotional enclaves to lash out at a world of strange/different/smelly&rude.
Best things about Canada. Apart from Hockey, mea culpa, I’m in.
Look at that… Miss Margot has decided to like raspberry jam. This is a cat from MARS.
I can now see large swathes of my bedroom floor, but more cleaning and laundry delights await me. Later I hope to go to the Burnaby Village Museum – it’s free today, and in homage to John, who never paid for a damned thing he could get for free, and to celebrate being Canadian, I thought a step back into the days of my foremothers might not go amiss.
Having said that, I’d better get a batch of bread dough on…. Jeff is highly suggestible about any hinted-at treats. And I have to sign off so he can update wordpress. Have a great Canada Day, everyone!
I have finally listened to John and Brooke’s album. It’s really, really good. It’s also, coincidentally, among the top sellers on CDbaby right now! Katie and I listened in the CanCar yesterday.
Barbecue and family ties
Jeff and Paul and the kids and I watched the season finale of CSI, and had a barbecue last night. It was really great to get the ‘cue out again. The back yard is still a disaster, but at least it’s flat again. Paul and I went for a walk and saw some very remarkable houses. Broken marble floor tiles paving a back yard? This is an odd neighbourhood, but very quiet, and Paul is appreciating peace and quiet right now.
I called Kim yesterday and the house in Burnaby is about 1 week from being ready for occupancy. Katie’s coming over Monday to help me pack and clean things.
I am not exactly full of energy, but at least I’m not in lying around crying mode, and I consider that an improvement. Spoke to Ruth last night. She said a couple of things that broke my heart with pity, but I was expecting it. Ruth and John had a very special sibling bond, and were always very loving and supportive to each other. (Well, after they stopped living at home and being teenagers, and we all know what I mean by that.) And he was her big brother. I never had one… until John came along. I sure feel like I appreciate Jeff more all of a sudden; it’s showing it in any meaningful and constructive way that remains a challenge.
If there’s anything that can break your heart more than family, I don’t know what it is.
Gizmo went for a walk with Jeff and then decided he found something worth investigating and hasn’t come home yet.
New Youtube video
I’ve posted the video I took of the Burnaby Central train ride I took yesterday. It’s 10 minutes long and you really need to be a bigass fan of trains to watch it, but it is a real steam train going through tunnels and across bridges, and it was a glorious day. Here’s a pic….
Now, I have some more chores. I’m really glad I got out yesterday, because it’s DISGUSTING today, pouring rain and gray and miserable.
LATER – I’ve posted the link above.
So I get off the bus and walk down the hill
And the first thing I see is some flags. The building I used to live in is out of the picture on the left.
And then I see this really bizarre railing. There’s something… wrong…. about it. I guess those rounded metal prongs are there for a reason, but what???
I keep walking down the hill. Blechhhh. Who’s been throwing crap in the fountain?
Damn, I just noticed my battery is REALLY low. More later.
social it be
Jeff and I went to see Jerome and Shannon last night for a barbecue. Shannon made Jerome a birthday cake that had whipped cream icing, two kinds. And chocolate. And raspberries. I only report this so my mother, who is dieting in perpetuity, can go OOOOO. Best Cake Ever. The barbq itself was stellar.
There were a whole bunch of other people there including (this is just weird) another brother sister combo. As is usual everybody attending was smart, funny and good-natured. Rob (the Baumfest Rob, not RobofNine) and his two adorable, active childer, Elise and Arden, were there, and also, another kid, Maya (spelling?) who apparently learned to talk overnight recently and was saying, in that adorable high pitched voice “unca jrome? unca jrome?” and did a variety of other cute things that had me saying goo. Maya had a mom and a nice older brother Julian, who couldn’t be four yet, but he didn’t do that “I will scowl at you for about ten seconds and THEN smile at you thing” which Maya has down to a science and is guaranteed to melt the heart of anybody who wasn’t a sociopath to begin with. There was also one other child there, an adorable, just barely walking tot named Isaac (who is the spirit and image of his dad, another coworker named Kevin). Mike and Heather were there as well – Mike made Yam Fries. Oh, and when Maya and Julian had to go, Julian said in response to somebody else saying “You’re going?” “The car has to go back,” so I instantly knew mom had a CAN car.
Yeah, it was a good time.
Yesterday, besides prepping veggies for the partay, I made mac and cheese from scratch, spaghetti sauce, cookies, and we did a shop in the morning which made all that possible. I also unpacked a couple of boxes, but I still need to do more. I guess I’m thinking that I don’t want to do more until more space magically appears; I should transfer stuff into boxes and put it in storage, not mess up the middle room with it.
The breakfast nook is now delightful – there is a big enough table and in the morning it’s beautiful and airy and bright. I’m thinking I should blog out here, then I can watch the cats at the end of the street have a convention.
All of the neighbouring dogs, with the exception of Meadow, the brindle Boston terrier in the basement, bark like sons of bitches. The landlord’s dog is brutally loud and will bark at you if she even sees you in the kitchen window from her vantage point on the deck across the alley.
More cooking and puttering today. I kinda sorta hafta go to church today… an optics thing. I am hoping I’ll get a lift home. Now to figure out which bus to take to get out there, as I’m trying to reduce expenses somewhat.
Gas leak
Man, the last 48 hours have been jammed with incident. I was supposed to go pick Kopper up at 6:10 last night but between me getting tied up with something at home and then having to get over to the other Can car and her working late, I was a full half hour late picking her up. Well and good, we’re prepared to get the evil eye from the instructor, and then we run into a roadblock on Lougheed Highway right after Kopper says, “The Skytrain’s not running,” and we’re redirected way the hell off the highway, and we’re contemplating what this might be about including, Gosh wow, an Olympic security exercise (only 750 days to go until we host the world, barfula gagula).
We turn on the radio to News 1130 (the flexible enema nozzle of capitalism in the GVRD) and pretty much simultaneously with the announcer saying something about a broken gas line WE SMELL GAS. We’re not talking about a little whiff. It’s pouring bloody rain and the wind’s blowing and WE CAN SMELL GAS. For, like, six long city blocks. I remember thinking “Well, at least I’m on the explosion side, I should mask Kopper from most of the shrapnel.” Then Kopper says the equivalent of “Sod this for a lark, I’m taking YOU to the Keg.” At that point we’d been stuck in redirect traffic along Broadway for a while and we were going to catch the last 15 minutes of the class.
So we went to the renovated Keg on Willingdon and we ate and my GOD what it’s like to hang around people who don’t require you to censor every single thought. I think Kopper feels much the same – we ate and talked and talked and talked and it was definitely therapeutic.
October sunset
More walking around and standing still.
Tammy and I walked to Horizons from my apartment this morning. She’s in better shape than I am, as far as I can tell. I became more acquainted with the trails around here as well as getting some exercise. I didn’t exactly stick a gun in her ribs when we got there (ambling around rose gardens and taking pictures of roses was more my speed) but we hung about until the doors opened on the restaurant and I warmly encouraged her to feed me, which she did. Consider the meal rhapsodized about. Then we walked home. This time I chose, much to our satisfaction, a more level route.
She’s gone off to a family dinner and now I’m going to go back to an exciting evening of staring off into space, giggling vacantly, and folding laundry. (Doesn’t that sound bizarre? none of it’s true except the laundry.)
More on Pride
Met up with Al Sather, the minister’s husband, on Robson, more or less by accident, after Patricia said farewell (she went to the beach to do yoga, healthy chica that she is). We sat in the wrong spot for a while and then joined with the rest of the U*U’s. Peggy and I and some other woman – me and my distinctly dopey inability to get names at appropriate junctures – carried the Beacon banner. Then the Parade was so late getting going that Al had to jam to go pick up Katie Sather from the airport, as she was returning from being with her father at the close of his life. I light a candle for Katie and her family.
There was a large, active and CELEBRATORY bunch of U*U youth there, who kept up the energy level in the mindblowing heat. Fortunately the breeze kept up for most of the parade. Katie K, who went through at float 28 (we were back at 128) was done by one, but I didn’t get to sit down and relieve me feet (among other portions of my anatomy) until 2:52. Continue reading More on Pride
Food
Took Tom and Peggy to a restaurant last night (Santali, and it was excellent, thanks) to very imperfectly thank them for their abundance of loving hospitality over the last couple of years, also to talk about my current state of mental health, which is pretty much happy and sane, and the reasons therefor.
Then I asked them to drive us to Burnaby Mountain Park where we looked at the glories of Burnaby (the view over the city, the Burrard Inlet, the dancing cranes made out of plants, the rose garden, the SFU Pipe Band rehearsing, kids running around being kids, the Ainu Playground of the Gods sculpture and a fairly >meh< sunset). Then they drove me home and I even went to bed fairly early. To work now! Where a mountain of transactions awaits me. I am floating around though. There is nothing like intelligent attention from a worthy individual, after many months of rejection and being wilfully misunderstood, as balm for one's wounded nerves. Thank you Peggy and Tom for putting up with me as I babbled about it.
Through the thistles thick and thin
Photo credit Tom McMurray.
Kids in a garden
Keith and Kate. I love the radiant smiles, once again, from the back catalogue. Shown in the background are the incredibly cool Ainu sculptures on Burnaby Mountain. This park overlooks where the oil spill happened.
