Category: Church

Good feeling

I have to say, Patricia really found a great bunch of people to work with, and I’m glad I had a chance to interview there.  I would say that I am at least being considered for the position, but I suspect they’ll hire somebody they have to train less, being quite practical people.  I actually enjoyed the interview process which is … you know, unusual.  I don’t know when they are likely to call back but I am not concerned.  If I get the job, I’ll be happy and if I don’t get the job I’ll be not quite as flush, but still happy.

1.8 hours last night and it would have been longer but I had to get up and boot Margot out of my room, and I couldn’t fall back asleep until I took the mask off.  Sheesh. Still, much better rested this morning, har har.

X Company continues to be really entertaining and full of moral quandaries regarding spying and working behind enemy lines.  I am very much enjoying Evelyne Brochu’s performance and was interested to hear she’s in Orphan Black.  Jeff didn’t enjoy it so we quit watching but I’m thinking I might like another crack at it.

There is a new Belgian Style brewery with taphouse up Production Way and Paul and I are going to inspect it for worthiness at some point soon.

I light a candle for Jeff and JeriLynn C for their successful move (they got hardly any notice, and stressed about it as would I, and as I DID the last time it happened to us) and for Tom and Peggy and their new grandbaby Josie (whom I greatly look forward to meeting) and for Brooke who AS USUAL provides good advice, her second lot in as many months and what a difference taking that advice has made to my comfort, Cthulhu bless the pharmacists.  I light a candle for one of my friends who is having an exceedingly difficult time with her current spouse regarding custody arrangements.  With permission, he took his children out of the country on vacation.  Without permission, he kept them an additional week and said ‘we already agreed on that’ when HOLY DIPSHIT there’s nothing in the emails to suggest he was going to give her a heart attack by pulling this stuff.  What he doesn’t know about his current legal situation is vast in expanse, and of course she’ll be elected queen bitch of the universe before this is all over, but I have been watching the situation unfold for many years now and she has lived up to her promise not to prevent access to this crazy ass guy just because he’s crazy.  I light a candle for Tammy, who got a glowing recommendation letter (yay…. but the job market does not magically get better, so I light a further candle for her job luck).  I light a candle for Chipper, just because I can, and because a couple of times in the last month she’s made me laugh so hard on the phone I’ve nearly sprang a rib.  I light a candle for Jeff, who is awesome, and loaned me his car yesterday which improved my mood for the interview, and another for Buster, who has a butt problem of some kind, but hey, those carpets go through the wash, and thank you mOm for making them.  I light a candle for Katie, who is negotiating going back to work in May, and for Keith, who still hasn’t talked to me about whatever dreadful advice / scolding he threatened to drop on me.  I’m no longer appalled.  The longer he waits the funnier this is going to be, and even if the joke’s on me I intend to enjoy it.  Okay here’s one for Paul, who gets me off my duff and into the sun, and much the same for Mike, who wrote a lovely recommendation letter for me, the dear lad, and here’s a big candle for all the elders at church, who are my role models (as are the fOlks) for getting old, and for the minister, not that she particularly needs it, and for everybody who’s ever served me food and drink, and for the Fraser River, and for the memories of Grandad, Grampa, Grandma, Granny, Sue, Elizabeth, Dave, John, Derry, Michael and Bounce.

I think today I’ll sort papers and clean out the fridge and if it stays nice maybe go for a bike ride and pick up kitty malt – Margot really needs it and the current tube is just about done.

 

Buster’s continuing antics

Buster came into my room while I was wearing my cpap mask.  He very slowly inched toward me, eyes narrowed, and gave a very soft and disturbed mew of “Why do you have an octopus on your face?” His eyes traveled along the length of the hose and back up to my face.  He left, slowly and perplexedly.  Yesterday he tied a knot in something, always an interesting feat when you don’t have thumbs.

Later he tried to come back into my room, but Margot was guarding my door so she hissed at him and he backed off.

2.2 hours last night. Sue’s coming to get me at 10 and bringing me straight home, she has a rehearsal.  Then a nice long chat on the phone with a former coworker, and getting my interview clothes together.

We shall overcome

  • Singing that in church on the 50th anniversary of Selma.  I cried, it was really hard not to.  The minister preached an excellent sermon, and owned from the pulpit our shame and Canada’s in the treatment of the First Nations specifically with reference to the residential schools.  The part Unitarians played in Selma was retold.  In the future, they will ask, were you there, and I will have to answer.
  • 1.8 hours on the cpap.  Feel very crusty this morning. I had strange dreams.
  • The Rogue Folk Club is under attack.  They want to redevelop Saint James complex (the United Church of Canada local diocese) and given where it’s located, half a block from one of the priciest stretches of real estate in one of Canada’s priciest cities, I hardly think bake sales and fundraising will help.  Honestly I’m glad John didn’t live to see it.
  • March 14 there’s a demo against C51.
  • March 11 THEOLOGY PUB.  Rob and I are going again but the steak I felt comfy enough to treat him to is not happening again so he’s coming here first for sour owl jowls and then we’ll have soft drinks at the pub. He encouraged me to download Sketchup and it doesn’t fucking work with my Mac OS version so I am really irritated.  I’ll see if I can put it on the other machine. My irritation is softened by our amusing convo yesterday morning.  Me: Hey Rob, missed you in church last week, are you coming? Him: (sleepily) I was planning a leisurely shower and hop on the bus. Me, looking at the clock downstairs at church: Uh, it’s quarter after 10, hon. Him: I set my clock backward instead of forward.  Me: Showing up in time for coffee is a fine Unitarian tradition. Him: Skipping shower…. inbound!
  • Workshops are how to grow a church, who knew.  This is an in joke.
  • My landpeers are not raising our rent – for the second year running.  It’s like a March Miracle.  This is officially the most reasonably priced detached rental in east Burnaby.
  • I got Reddit gold.  If you don’t know what that is, good, and if you do know, ask me for my reddit username so you can bask in the glory that is my helpful commentary to the angry and sad.
  • My pOp played an extremely hilarious practical joke on me and Jeff, and to preserve the dignity of the everyone involved, I am not talking about it on the internet.  I did however light a candle for it in church and it must have sounded funny to the congregation, because they laughed most heartily.
  • I sent off another thousand words to mOm yesterday and as usual she is agitating for more.  It felt so good to have something to send… that chunk is only half way done.
  • The sun and warmth has been glorious.
  • Jeff and I tag teamed to move the fridge, clean under, beside and behind it, remove the MAT of dust on the fan intake, and once I clean the interior the fridge will be cleaner than at any point since we moved in.  I’m thinking of tackling Jeff to help with the kitchen “cupboards must be examined for stale dated contents” clean.
  • I have to call the city of Burnaby today and ask them where the food scraps container we are supposed to get is.
  • The purple and green screeching iridescent ribbons have gone from my fabric stash to church.  I have spent much time thinking what I should do with them, but finding out that the RE kids are doing a Maypole this year means that I never have to look at them and be sad again.
  • I enjoyed my sewing machine so much the last time I’m going to haul it out again.
  • But probably not before I clear off the living room table, which will probably take a couple of hours.
  • Keith is going to come over in the next couple of days and help me get my bicycle in riding condition.
  • I have an appointment with the bone health doc for the end of April. The MOA who called with the appointment info was a truly delightful person and though the call was brief it left me feeling really good.

ow

Katie and Alex came by to do laundry, eat pork stir fry which I had providentially cooked up that morning, and drink coffee, and Paul showed up to take me for a walk but was only too happy to take us all in his car, which involved much shovage and shrinkage on Katie’s part.

Somewhere in there the kitchen clock fell on my head and shattered, and I have a hummingbird egg on my head.  Getting hit by a clock when you’re 56 just seems a little too on the nose, doncha think?

So we 4 went to the Quay, and walking like my pelvic girdle done come apart, and grateful for the prop of the stroller, I got 2 k in, and then, joy of joys, Paul treated Katie and I to the sopa de tortilla at the Quay (best soup that isn’t phở for many miles).  Then I came home and I would have liked to have collapsed, but Alex was here so I sang to him and watched him career about in his Jolly Jumper (which was the reason the kitchen clock got dislodged, but oh well it’s still running although Jeff had to pull more glass out of it this morning.)

Church was okay.  The speaker had wonderful things to say about feeling like an odd person out, but a man in the congregation kept talking and it was hard to hear what was going on sometimes.  Also, the amount of tunage has dropped away to practically nothing, which is in my view somewhat farcical.  I didn’t hang about for the soup lunch.

The xray result should be back soon.  I have a note in to call the doc.

I have a rather troubling new symptom; the numb patch on the bottom of my foot more than doubled in size in the last twenty-four hours.  This is the first time the paresthesia has gotten significantly worse since my initial recovery from the L5-s1 injury, and what really cheeses me off is that I have been making a tremendous effort to get more flexibility happening and my symptoms get worse.  (I have been doing various exercises for my hips and back).  FML, as the kids say.

If I keep being this fragile I have no idea what will happen come May when I’m expected to do childcare several days a week.  I imagine I’ll adjust, but it’s a terrifying prospect that I might put my back out again.  Also, it’s by no means settled where this childcare will happen….

 

 

Buster Boy

He’s curled up next to me right now.  I’ve started letting him in to my room. For a while he was resting his head on the corner of my laptop which was socuteIcoulddie.

I’ve started doing the exercises I found on line and it is already making a difference, not just to my pelvis but also my back.  I woke up this morning with no pain.  I dodged the CPAP, but at least I cleaned it.  I finally went into the programming for the CPAP and checked my actual hours used and it’s pretty bad.  Best night was 3.5 hours; average is just over 2.  I also snugged up and rearranged the mask fitting while I was cleaning it. Back to running the machine tonight.

Mike was gently encouraging me to get over my hate for YYOGA  I will try again.  But honest to glob, if that receptionist is still there and pulls the fat shaming stuff again, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind, complain to her manager, and complain in writing to head office.  And then I’ll say screw it and take Mike on as a private instructor, he is after all trained.  Also, yoga is expensive….

Yay, finished the first part of the thing for church. Now to the edits, after we get updates.

 

 

Church plus coffee

I have to pick up milk, cream and cheese for church today, but that’s just across the street. I have to be dressed and out the door by 9:45 – I’ve already got my outfit laid out and clean so that’s one fewer decision to make.  CPAP for maybe four hours last night.  I had a panic attack when I put the mask on at first.  After a while I calmed down and put it on.  I remembered to put the eye goop in.  The omega-3 appears to be helping with the dry eye, enough to be noticeable but not a whole lot.

Everybody have a good day! I have other plans.

 

Theology Pub

…was wonderful.  Lots of different points of view.  Found out that there’s a conspiracy theorist not exactly libertarian coming to Beacon!  Ten guesses what his performative gender is, first nine don’t count.  He told me that Putin is the greatest statesman on the planet right now. I told him he was a fucking KGB bagman to start off with and one of the worst oligarchs the world has ever seen and he told me that that didn’t stop him from being a great leader.  All I could think of was Dr. Filk blowing a raspberry of window-rattling proportions, cause that shit will NOT fly.  As a chaser I watched one of Slavoj Zizek’s latest videos.  I did not laugh aloud because he makes you mad, happy, crazy, thoughtful and fucked up in rapid succession.  He is my favourite public philosopher of all time, even if he is a Marxist.

I bought beer last night.  First time in a while, but I had to have it, and it turns out it was super yummy.

clownbeer

Many songs

So I have written down four additional songs, and I’m working on a blues tune called Don’t you Weep, which is a pisser because no matter how I try I cannot figure out how to render it; it’s played in E but that results in so many accidentals that the mss looks like birds crapped on it.  However, on playback it is sounding really good, and I’m having very little trouble with the tempo.  I now have to readjust everything because I forgot a verse but fortuitously I remembered the last time I had a song this difficult and I’m not putting in the lyrics until the very end, because if you cut and paste in Finale AFTER you’ve put in lyrics they follow around the pasted part and you have to completely redo everything because the lyrics and notes are tied together.  This results in very bad swearz.

I thought I heard Jeff up too and there’s a light under his door.  We’re not sleeping good.  Tonight and last night I used the Cpap for at least four hours.  I like it and then bam I can’t stand having something on my face and literally sit bolt upright and claw it off.  Blergh.

Katie and I went for a shop yesterday – she needed to do a HUGE shop to get as much food into the house after the rent got paid, and I needed a medium sized one.  And, I put gas in the car for what is probably the second time since I sold Ziva.  Anyway I left a bag of groceries at her place and Dax delivered it, which is good since I get crabby without cream for my coffee.  I bought Alex a teething blanky – he’s a chewy little boy.

There continues to be a wave front of disturbances in the Force regarding childrearing techniques.  Jesus fucking Christ people, Katie was raised in the benign neglect corner of the attachment parenting spectrum.  It goes like this: If the parents love each other and the children, feed -starting with breastfeeding- and clothe and house and vaccinate the children, align the children within their families with those who are most like them and like them most, and refuse to injure them with genital mutilation, hey, job done.  We didn’t allow babies to ‘cry it out’ because that means ‘HEY KID YOU CAN BE BLOWING A FUSE AND IN PAIN AND NOBODY GIVES A SHIT’ which means ‘WHY DON’T YOU GROW UP TO BE AN ADULT WHO NEVER COMPLAINS ABOUT WORK CONDITIONS OR HORRIBLE RELATIONSHIPS.’  And you may anyway, but that’s not the way we planned it.

Now Katie is trying to draw a line in the sand with incommonlaws about this, and I burst into tears while driving hearing about it because of my benign neglect attachment style and all of my Dredded Feelz.  Alex is an infant child; if he’s so active he leaves bruises on his caregivers that’s just the way he is; I had no idea my grandchild was going to be a little hairless mountain gorilla, but since he is in most respects normal I’m not worried about it.  I don’t worry because he doesn’t want to cuddle with me now; he will when he’s two, or ten, or NEVER and it’s for me to give him what he needs now and not get all judgy on his mom about how she’s not letting him cry it out.  He doesn’t like to be still.  If I hold him I stand and either walk or rock, and the second he gets yippy I hand him back.  It’s not a point of pride to me to get him to BEND TO MY FUCKING WILL; it’s a point of pride to expect his mother to know what the hell she is doing with her own gorram kid. Thus endeth the rant.

Now I am going to finish my coffee (paradoxically, it will help me go back to sleep) and play another Bejewelled game (I have now opened all the games and am waiting to collect about four more badges) and maybe even finish that damn song, and maybe even try to put the mask back on.  Sigh.

Today’s sermon is about disability.  I am not missing this.  I’m doing coffee next week, I just checked the list. Thank god it’s a google shared document now, siphoning my way through emails sucks.

 

Some progress

Used CPAP last night.  The Liposic allowed me to open my eyes without creaking this morning (still dreffle dry, but not the :spend twenty minutes thinking sad thoughts to get my tear ducts to work so I can open them: dry of yesterday morning, which was a horrid start to the day). My new routine is Liposic at night since I can’t see a ****ing thing when I put that stuff in, and Systane in the morning since it is much runnier.  I am also going to start supplementing with evening primrose oil again and start monitoring how many hours a day I am at the computer and watching tv, which will probably horrify me into a neurasthenic stupor.  Also I have to drink water or tea instead of coffee, GRRR.

The congregational dinner was absolutely lovely and I sang Tapioca, but my almost new medical problem (self-diagnosed from symptoms, so YMMV, and almost certainly triggered by my slip and fall in the shop although the broken shoulder got all the attention) fixed it so that by the end I was barely able to walk, drive or lift anything, which given that I was on the cleanup crew didn’t halp.  I am good for about 2.5 k of walking before the pain is so bad I start to waddle (which is characteristic) and all the strength goes out of my legs, (ditto). When I got out of bed this morning all the bones in that region of my body grated and popped like a ship’s rigging in bad weather.

As this is almost certainly the consequence of not having proper foot support and wearing the same shoes day in and day out (which Chipper has warned me about many times) I need to drag myself off to the doc and get a scrip (again, I lost the first one) for  foot support and to quit walking barefoot in the house, since anytime I put my foot to the floor without arch support I’m just being an idiot and making it worse.

Last night as I was driving home a passenger jet came so close to the ground as I was driving along 10th between 8th and 6th that I nearly drove off the road, and then it BANKED like it was heading into the ground.  I have no problem with jets flying over my house as long as they are 1000 ft AGL like they are supposed to be, but that close scared the bejabbers outta me.

Chili and buns for today’s meal has been prepared or purchased.  I’ll head over to Planet Bachelor at some point after church.

So tired… all I can think of is coffee, and I shouldn’t.

Moar coffee

I got a perfectly good nights’ sleep but I feel very sludgy today.

On the list of things to do:  Mail package to Sandy.  Buy butter.  Make a list of the stuff I have to get  for the Feast of St. Brigid – we’re having a musical evening at Planet Bachelor on February 1st and I’m cooking (and likely cleaning, if trends hold). Practice songs and assemble song books for that event. Moar editing – I’m doing a little every day, which is happy making.  Hopefully it will result in fewer “What the hell is this??” notes from Dianne. Make some phone calls.  Go for a walk – I am thinking of walking up to the library. Watch the Librarians double episode season closer. Put away my clothes, including my COAT which Buster PISSED ON.  Argh.  Sally told me yesterday that once male cats get that habit you’ll be dealing with it forever, but we can has UV lights for piss detection and we shall enzyme clean and Feliway everything in the house if we have to.  Right now it’s REDOLENT up in here. Take a metric crapstack of painkillers and clean. Figure out how to get the mirror off the wall in the bathroom so I can get it resilvered, I am tired of looking like a zombie in my own bathroom mirror.  Fix my website. Get more crap to Value Village. Make a square blankee for Alex.

Jeff is really liking Z Nation – it’s not a soap opera with occasional zombies like Walking Dead, it’s all zombies, all the time, with occasional stops for breath.  He sometimes comes upstairs and tells me of the new and improved zombie killing methods the show comes up with, like squishing them with the Liberty Bell, which you have to admit is hilarious.  Also it’s shot in the Pacific NW so props.

Seahawks did the ultimate haw haw you thought being two td’s ahead was going to stop us to the Packers yesterday.  The fans screamed themselves hoarse.

I forgot to say how VERY HAPPY I was to see Ivy back at church yesterday.  I love that woman and I’m glad to see she’s recovering well from her busted hip.

 

 

Church today

I am wearing my pink dress and my tie dyed tights today; I won’t be easy to miss.

Buster peed on one my mOm’s quilts which is very annoying but Jeff popped it in the laundry for me.

I am continuing with the decluttering.  Yesterday it was all my bookmarks on my computer.

I edited three sections totalling over 15K words today and yesterday.  I will go back and edit them again, tightening, deleting, expanding, and upgrading the punctuation.

My day so far

I’ve climbed back on the writing horse, but since it’s edits I can’t really say OH I WROTE THIS MUCH TODAY.  It’s going well.  I have to figure out how to represent targets though.  Manuscript pages edited?  Dunno, that seems most likely.

I baked bacon for BLTs and made up ingredients so they are ready to go.

I watched the last Hobbit movie.  It was quite well done, although purists will be shuddering from head to foot for the duration.  I am not a purist.

I went for a walk in the predawn murk and fetched cream for coffee and milk for tea, to keep that writer’s support of caffeine flowing.

Poor Hannah, the gal who was supposed to help yesterday, was sick. I was sick all the bloody time when I was her age.  Now I literally cannot remember the last time I had anything resembling a cold or flu; how much I’m washing my hands might have something to do with that.

So many people, including the visitors from last week, volunteered that it made life much easier; the soup lunch is always quite chaotic, and then there was a business meeting at the end of it that I was just as happy to stay out of. I had Peggy’s turkey soup.  It was quite yummy.

I wore my brown snowflake motif pj’s and my steampunk hat, and was complimented.  Seriously. By everybody from Jane (who has an identical set in purple, it’s like she’s my time twin or something) to the minister, who cracked up and then told me she admired my sense of style.  The only places in the world that make me feel anything approaching the same level of acceptance, in order of closeness, Mike’s place, Planet Bachelor (but only when Janice isn’t there…. ha ha), Tom and Peggy’s, my fOlks’, Conflikt and Polycamp. I am a lucky hound, f’sure.

I told Rob to invite himself to supper sometime.  He was happy to hear it.

I’m selling printer ink on Craigslist – buyer is supposed to show up tonight around supper.  There’s nothing like buying $75 of ink and having the fucking printer promptly quit.  I’m letting it go for cheap just to get it out of the house.

Sue drove me home again, home again, and then off to an audition.  I hope I’m like her in 18 years!!

Katie didn’t come to church but she just posted that Alex rolled from his back to his tummy.  I wonder if and when he’s going to start crawling.

Margot stared me into throwing a treat to her this morning.  I can’t wait for Buster to get fixed, he’s so lively, even with the cone of shame, that it’s quite exhausting for her.

I dejunked my phone this morning.  I took out a hundred phone numbers, mostly for the café, which, duh, I no longer need, and 1.2 gigs of crapware.  Go me.

I got enough sleep last night! I went to bed at 8 pm and woke up at 5, which is wonderful.

Here are the cinnamon buns I made yesterday.

Cinnamonbuns

 

 

Churchy day

Sue is coming to get me for church at 10; I’m doing coffee today with one of the youth, who is well disposed to like me since I gave her about $300 of Fluevogs the other day.  I am trying to think of which stupid hat I should wear.  As a concession, I will wear other clothes too.

There’s a budget meeting and soup lunch today too so I’ll be there quite late. But it’s good that I don’t have to borrow Jeff’s car.