Category: Church

Church, chocolate, coffee

Despite the last two series of Sherlock being golden moments with half hours of ludicrous illogical crap in between, I’m quite taken with this young Cumberbatch fellow, and hope to watch Parade’s End, which features him prominently in some kind of period love triangle.  Oh, yeah.

Church had our former minister Harold Rosen, who traversed through Judaism and Unitarianism to end up being Baha’i.  He spoke on the processes of justice from an interfaith / Baha’i perspective.  Had a brief meeting with Sally about my homily on the 9th of March – exactly a month from today.  We squared away some things I hadn’t thought of.

The coffee, as always, was excellent. I picked up some chocolate for Jeff… fair trade organic chocolate does taste better.

I have learned that someone I only know through the internet is going to run as a Libertarian candidate.  His campaign promises so far…. are so ludicrous and hilarious that I would vote for him in a heartbeat.  He’s the only Libertarian I’ve ever run across who’s a feminist.  If there were more like him I wouldn’t be hating on Libertarians so much.

Jeff got Keith’s call last night.  Sounds like he’s still having magical amounts of fun in the land of Oz.

I’m feeling kinda sludgy… hope to make word count today.

 

The world on the slowdown

Katie came by yesterday to cut my hair and listen to the message Keith left (so burbly!  So full of enthusiasm!  and his pa will join him soon!) so it was a brief but useful interaction.  We’re obviously still pretty sore with each other, but life f*cking well goes on.

No word count yesterday; it was a disappointing day but at least Thursday’s trip to the doc reveals me as being, yet again, a dirty great hypochondriac.  Honestly, sometimes I think the best thing about me breaking my shoulder was that there was no arguing about it.  Everyone agreed, yup, dislocated AND broken; no hypochondria there, girl.

Third series of Sherlock so wombly and disappointing that I nearly screamed with frustration.  I put my Darth Vader blankie over my head a lot.  (I bought a Darth Vader blankie for 15 bucks at the Interfilk auction at Conflikt).

Jeff took me to breakfast this morning and will be heading out to work at a couple of customers later.  I hope I quit coughing long enough to do something useful, like make word count, or rehearse, or do laundry.

Racism workshop two Wednesday afternoons hence at my place.  It will be a corker.

I need some tea.

 

 

They just sang this in England, at the filk convention there.  http://www.leafpress.ca/Mondays_Poems_2013/Chris_Hadfield/Is-Somebody-Singing.htm

Happy sigh.

Superb owl over this year

That was a righteous shellacking, was it not?  I turned off the game at half time.

A thousand words yesterday.  I don’t seem to be having any problems making word count.

Church was pretty sad yesterday.  Two long time members of the church are facing their last illnesses, and I know they are old but I love them both dearly and it’s just sad to see how their wives are bearing up under the strain.  Also, one of my favourite church members has cancer and another one is also going for cancer treatments.  Ack.  Make it stop please.  At the same time church was pretty awesome; the service was about the life and work of Bruce Cockburn.  Night before at the housefilk I said, “Well I can’t imagine them playing “If I had a Rocket Launcher” in church” and I was wrong!  How Peggy and I giggled about it afterwards.  Congratulations to our minister for daring and being all she is. Thanks also to Marylke for the ride home.

I practiced for about an hour yesterday.  It was a bit painful because the con crud finally set in and I’ve got a ghastly dry cough. I will probably head out to the pharmacy today to get something to kill the cough, or maybe just load up on Throat Coat tea with honey.  I went looking for cold meds and everything was time expired by 12 months.

Welp, that’s enough for now.  I’m heading back to sleep, after another broken night.

Here’s a lovely version of Danse Macabre.

today, church and other things

I’ve got to deal with revision 5994 of Mt. Washmore,

Yesterday I baked banana bread (with orange zest, cardamom and almond butter, lordy but it was good) and took it to the house filk at Tom and Peggy’s, which was so poorly attended nobody else was there so I called Rob (who apparently is not getting my emails, which is troubling, especially since he doesn’t have either text or voicemail enabled on his phone) and he came by with pie.  We ate Reuben sammiches, stir fried veggies and green salad (and it was om nom nom) and sang and played. I am now apparently part of a group called Harmonic Anomaly, or something like that, and we’re going to sing songs that need lots of harmony and provide same.

 

They warned me

They told me what would happen.  I started following racism eradication activists on twitter, and they told me, down to the last squeak of privilege and bleat of illogic and roar of cognitive bias and growl of hatred and whine of misdirection and concussive threat of personal violence and siren of tone policing, exactly what would happen to me when I started confronting racist speech in others, in public.  In a three round conversation, I got it all but the threat of violence, including how the other person’s spelling and grammar devolved as (I assume from the name) he completely lost his shit.

I’ve spent a lifetime avoiding conflict and trying to talk pretty; this is going to make the friendships I have with people who want to help me with the work even more important.  It already IS ugly.  Up until this point I’ve had no skin in the game.  That’s what privilege does.  Now I want to have skin in the game without getting my feelings hurt, and that’s just not going to happen, and I have to get over it, and I’m scared.

One of the things that is helping is learning about the Japanese-American and African-American troops as they served their country fighting in the Second World War.  They wanted to prove two things, their patriotism and their worth. Many made the ultimate sacrifice to demonstrate both.  As they fought in their campaigns, they encountered the worst of what human beings can do to each other, and helped destroy the engines of fascism and racism, although they could not eradicate those ideologies.  With their sacrifice in mind, I will get off my ass; I will quit whining; I will do the work.

Catching up

It’s been a lively couple of days.  I’ve been writing hard, practiced almost enough, played at church to sincere and life affirming compliments, showed the shop, made the decision to hand the keys over to the landlord, got into last minute negotiations with guys that came in at Christmas, had a spider drop onto my keyboard and scare the shit out of me, I’ve stopped having nightmares but the insomnia has fired up again, we finished watching Jazz, which made me unhappy because it was SO wonderful, and I received some Buddhist wisdom which allowed me to release a lot of stored animus toward my life and situation.  I learned that my travel plans into the US are probably going to be completely fucked up by the INSANE weather ongoing in most of the US – shit, it’s warmer in Alaska – which reminds me of the time that I wanted to get to a con which would have been crucial to my development as an SF writer and 9/11 intervened, except this time it’s all expenses paid and guess what, they’ll WAIT for me, as I don’t imagine I’d be stranded more than two days so I’ll still get to do it.  I learned that Pearl, Cat Faber’s octave mandolin (ALSO by Peter Cox) experienced technical difficulties and is now in the shop, meaning I do not have an octave mandolin as a back up if United destroys or loses Otto. (And I know that as sad as that might be, I would just ask for the bits back or get Peter to make me another one, him being obliging that way, if remunerated.  Who’s to say the replacement wouldn’t be even more amazing?)  This means I would have to do the entire concert on a regular sized mando – which I DO NOT WANT – or transpose EVERYTHING to a guitar, which for a couple of songs would be fine and for everything else would probably cause my nervous system to implode – or sing the entire concert a capella, which would be extremely wearing for my audience.  I will be taking Lemming’s advice about packageration seriously.  I reproduce it below.  Jeff invented the word garbarcage to describe when tv shows are shitty because they have too much arc and too little of what we watch the shows for.  Eddie is needing fluids at least every other day, he has started to refuse his meds and he’s gone off his food, although he’s still making the trek to the litter tray.  Margot has gotten very sucky, which is unusual.  I’m making plans to travel after the shop is gone.  I found out that the Squamish name for Thomas Mulcair is “Angry Beard” (okay it’s just one Squamish dude who is calling him that, but DID I LAUGH when I read that) and that it’s too cold outside right now for the Lincoln Park Zoo Polar Bear. I’ve been applying for jobs every day, no response. However, I am relaxed about it.  What will be, will be.  No use flinching or being rebellious.  The leathern thong descends whether I’ve been a good girl or not.

 

Tip #1: Depending on size of body, sometimes banjo cases work for octave mandolin type instruments. Tip #2: A way to save money on a case AND protect the instrument: Call guitar stores in area and see if one will give you an instrument-size box. A banjo box would probably work. Check airline regs for box measurements before proceeding. They’re supposed to allow some leeway for musical instruments. Invest in some bubble wrap. Loosen strings. Wrap instrument in bubble wrap, inside soft case. Wrap case in bubble wrap. Stuff bubble wrap in bottom of box, put in instrument, put bubble wrap on all sides and top filling box, seal box with heavy 2″ wide packing tape, about twice as much as you need. Pack one roll of packing tape so you can re-pack before you leave to go home. Add handle (easy to make one with tape, or tape on a handle, or tie on some rope. Mark stuff on package with large black magic marker “THIS SIDE UP! FRAGILE: DO NOT BEND. CONTAINS ANGRY ELVES WHO WILL HURT YOU IF YOU WAKE THEM UP” or some such thing. Tip #3: First, find out if the planes you’re flying on all have closets. Second, carry the thing with you, in the soft case, but do wrap it in bubble wrap inside the case. Make sure it’s small enough to fit in the overhead. Go up to the counter and ask if they’ll find space in the closet for your instrument. If they’re crazy enough to want to gate-check it, well, that’s what the bubble wrap inside the case is for, but if they do that, ask them if they’ve seen the “United Breaks Guitars” video, nicely. If you have to put it in the overhead, stuff a large coat or something all around it so no one tries to smash it with their luggage. Again, bubble wrap. Bubble wrap is your friend

Oh, and don’t forget the loosen strings part. Most of the time, no difference, but the changes in air pressure in the luggage compartment plus string tension will eventually cause the neck to break at the nut.

And take along spare strings because one often breaks when you retighten.

Today started well

Before 6 am I had 1350 words done on Midnite Moving, and Eddie said FEED ME NAOW in such a loud voice it was as if he’d never been sick.

Later on today we’ll go get some more Chinese takeout.  The Singapore style noodles at Chong Lum Hin are so yummy.

YAY Jeff, he’s set up the wireless printer; we can now print from any computer anywhere in the house, which is very handy.

Watched the first half of Crumb yesterday evening.  A great artist, and a very weird man. His life is full of old records. Following on watching the first 6 episodes of Ken Burns’ Jazz I noted some jazz clips that were in a big subdirectory on the media drive and watched them, including Stephane Grapelli and Django Reinhardt.  Not all of it was watchable, but it was all interesting.  Jazz really is an immense genre.

Now, Lumosity, practicing for church (I’m singing the compost song), and practicing for GAFilk.  Lemming says that you get treated like visiting royalty at GAfilk.  That will be an interesting experience, hunh?

No response from any potential customers.  I’ll be going to the landlord tomorrow and dropping off the keys.  There’s only so much I can do, and I need to walk away and quit spending money on a dream, when I need to move someplace where there’s actually some work.

 

I love Marilyn’s services…

This morning we walked around the darkened sanctuary with candles, while Marylke played her recorder.  It was absolutely lovely, and the text was Gratitude as Light, so it worked out nicely.  The youth will be handing out socks and sandwiches at New Years on the DTES and that was what the collection was for.

Hazards of going deaf…. At coffee afterwards one of my cocongs was talking about how all of her senses awakened when she was listening to live classical music, so that she was almost overcome and I said, “If you pee your pants you’re on your own” which is actually a classic family history line (back to Amedeo Garden Court days).  Everybody else at the table thought I said, “If you Peter Pan, you’re on your own.”  This is what they repeated back to me.  About this time the woman realized what I had ACTUALLY said, and started to laugh, and everybody else told me what they THOUGHT I had said, at which point we were pretty much both reduced to spluttering incoherence. When we calmed down we explained the joke, at which point everybody ELSE laughed.

Dennis recited Invictus during the service.  Jean and I both memorized it when we were puppies so we recited along but silently, because only a fool would talk overtop of Dennis when he is in full spate and mess up that theatrical voice.  I love Dennis to bits, even though he has to get right up next to me to tell who I am these days. I interviewed him for an I’m Not Dead Yet ceremony a few years back.  He really is the most delightful old man; so full of joie de vivre and simple appreciation for people and art.  I couldn’t hope to be as cheerful as he.

The work continues.  I sure hope I sleep better tonight.  I’ve been dreaming, and having nightmares.  I just don’t DO nightmares so it’s always a horrible surprise. Jeff’s been dreaming like mad too.

May you find what you seek

In some cultures, that’s considered a curse.  Anyway, to the point; I am looking up stuff on Afghanistan and Persia (now Iran) because I am following information about Rumi.  Accidentally I land on the wikipedia page of the anti-Rumi, which contains a bunch of 14th Century dirty jokes.  They are at the bottom of the page, you’ve been warned, etc.  One of the jokes is so disgusting it could cheerfully be used by people who hate Muslims as propaganda.

We are watching Ken Burn’s Jazz, and it is uniformly excellent.  I wish I could have watched it with John, too.

Off to the library today.  I have a couple of other errands to run.

My request to have assistance in developing anti-racism curriculum is in the newsletter for church.

I can only wonder what my uncle, who got a PhD in Fluorine Chemistry, would make of this website mocking PhD subjects.

Church today was great

A good service, enlivened by Rev Deb’s inclusion of both Thomas King and George Carlin.  Plus, Beatles, and Dark of Winter, my favourite hymn as sung by the choir.  Paul, bless him, is back from his gig in Seattle and gave me a lift to and likewise fro. I sent him forth with chicken breast for sandwiches, my homemade pickled beets (which he adores) and a frozen soup by way of thanks (also he gave me one of his very chiropractic hugs, which by damn I needed!)

Wrote about 750 words on Midnite Moving today.

Practiced HARD this morning.  It’s getting close!

Found Keith’s 300$ sunglasses in the couch downstairs.  Phoned him immediately and was he glad!

No walkies today.  Still a bit nasty underfoot out there.  Not like Toronto, though, it’s a freaking mess there.

A*****e McF*****t stood me up for the meet at the shop.  Sorry, I’m not in the mood to be charitable.  Jeff knows the whole tale and concurs.

Totally took down some asshat on twitter going on about vaccination.  The article he linked to said that vaccinations have something to do with infant mortality in the US.  ( well they do, just not negatively). The high infant mortality rate in the US has more to do with institutionalized racism and unevenly distributed prenatal care than vaccination, and anybody who says different doesn’t know a FUCKING THING about epidemiology, obstetrics, and forty years of data drawing a line between race and good — or poor — health outcomes.  Given that the twitter account is ostensibly an anti racism media site, I unloaded very hard.  I do not want persons of colour to put their kids at risk believing this bullshit because ‘da man’ makes bad vaccines.  HEAVY HEAVY SIGH.

As a palate cleanser….Cute temporary tattoos!

another, another no show, and Peter O’Toole’s dead.

I am feeling rather wretched about that, but it is what it is.  Two other simply lovely things (okay, interesting and fun things) happened today.

The first was the Christmas pageant, which was stupendous (I Augustus Caesar will tax you because I want all the money / we will now take the morning offering) and hilarious (the Christ Child was BLACK suck it haters!) and exceedingly participatory.

The second was me and Keith and Katie and Rob going to the shooting range and blowing holes in shit until we all felt better.  It was expensive and noisy and worth every penny.  Watching Katie fire a gun for the first time was AWESOMES, since one awesome isn’t enough.  And thank you pOp for subsidizing it!  I have pictures, which I will share privately.

I tried firing the 9mm but my shoulder said many many rude swearz so I stuck with firing about 3 mags worth of .22.  I was not unhappy with my accuracy.  My accuracy with the .38 sucked, so I have to assume that heavier firearms aren’t going to cut it until my arm is a lot stronger.  I call that motivation.

Peter O’Toole died in London today.

Jeff and I are both crabby, but I still cooked him pork stroganoff for dinner, and he still liked it, so we aren’t being crabby with each other.

 

 

No show

Oh my screaming g’s the Detroit Philly game. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. Six inches of snow on the camera crew and half the football disappears when you put it down. When the player rooted double handsful of snow out of his face mask I howled.

Furnace is broken, internet is spotty.  Working right now, but who knows later.  It’s been like this for days now.

We’re at the end of Season 4 for Burn Notice and Jeff has declared a short moratorium.  That’s okay, because I’m currently thrilling to the amazing dress sense of the lovely Phryne Fisher of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries.  It’s very much in the Foyle’s War category of murder mysteries, except Australian and Phryne is a SLUTTTT! A cheerful, unapologetic and unambiguous one (but sex scenes are strictly decorous and mostly off screen).  She drives a Hispano Suiza! She has a gold plated pistol, which never seems to have any ammo! She is awesome.  So until I get Michael Westen back, probably about a week from now, I’ll have to watch Farscape and Miss Fisher instead.

Person to see the shop yesterday didn’t show.  Somebody else called, I’m showing it Tuesday.

David Simon (of the Wire) talkin”bout capitalizm.

I am thinking of going to the shooting range the next time Keith and Rob go.

I know I spend a lot of time whining, but I am really happy to be alive, and I’m writing and practicing every day, and there’s food in the fridge, and my friends love me, and my cat is cheerfully indifferent to me unless I’m crinkling packaging.

Eddie is feeling a bit better – his appetite has returned – but he’s now hiding in Jeff’s bathroom cupboard a good chunk of the time.

I have half completed my first of two new homilies (March 9 and May 11, or perhaps the other way around) and intend to have a completed draft of the first by the end of the week. mOm I should have a bit off to you shortly.

The Alberta government has tabled legislation that will prevent public sector union employees from even TALKING about striking.  What unutterable bullshit! My prairie populist ancestors are whirling in their graves like a rotisserie set on stun.

Yay, Natalie Reed is blogging again. She is a queer trans blogger living in Vancouver and she can write like a m*****-******* riot.

Walking to church today

Hey, it’s less than 5 k. I have to stop off at Thrifty’s and get veggies for the soup lunch.

Yesterday Paul and Mike (Nita’s so) and Jim and Jan walked in the woods behind my old building.  After we got ourselves good and wet in the rain and from examining honderds of decaying fungi, we went to the Himalayan Peak.

Here’s something cool about reproducing the techniques of Vermeer.  It’s got art, magic, obsession and technology.

Burn Notice continues to eat my brain.

No movement on selling the cafe.

 

Ziva’s gone

Well, the experiment is over.  I am not any less broke, but I imagine I’ll smile when I get my refund later today.

As I sold her I said, “This is probably the last car I’ll ever own.”  It’s also the only car I’ll ever own; the Toyota my folks gave me in the lat eighties Paul put in his own name (and did I screech about that, as I recollect).

Church was rather thin gruel yesterday.  I know that the Oneness people have views compatible with some UU’s but I find their theology to be … well… mushy.  My theology starts with science and ends with all the stuff we don’t know.  God can go live in that part of the human world.  All the stuff we know exists that we can’t prove, like goodness and love. We are all connected and blessings are nice but I want to do something about the disconnects and fight racism.

And in selling Ziva, become a better environmentalist, since she’s going to get her oil leaks fixed, finally.  They’ll have to pull the engine.

I have an unpleasant series of phone calls in front of me today, but you can’t have everything.